What do nurses think of calorie restricted diets?

[Alpha13]

I have heard that they increase lifespan. Even if this is true, at what cost? Your thoughts appreciated.

[caliotter3]

What's the point in longevity if you can't eat (or drink)?

Yeah. One of the few really enjoyable activities there are in life.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

What's the point in longevity if you can't eat (or drink)?

Somebody say AMEN!

[chris_at_lucas_RN, RN]

I think we (speaking of Americans--the US sort) eat a lot. I know I am not alone in this opinion.

If we ate smaller portions, we would still have enough energy to do what we need to do, we just would be less fat.

As for our teleomeres, I suspect that effect happens with famine and true hunger, not the inconvenience of eating smaller portions until our stomachs shrink and we are more satisfied with less food.

I see people around who are healthy and slim, and none of them are cranky or sickly looking. I used to be slim myself. Perfectly happy, just ate less. We really aren't talking about starvation here, we are talking about controlling intake.

The patients for whom a calorie restricted diet is appropriate are obese. They are used to overeating. If we do not overeat, if we eat the right amount, we will pretty much be a healthy shape. People who are used to overeating feel deprived when they are just overeating less.

This is a problem appropriate for clinical attention, but not appropriate for forcing on someone.

As to the rest of us, that's up to us as well. That's why the developed nations have people dying of obesity-related conditions like heart disease.

What is bariatric intervention except forcing a stomach to tolerate less food? Isn't that calorie restriction? I find it sadly funny that where we have so much, we pay someone to make our stomachs smaller so we can be forced to eat less, or in the case of some, have a surgically imposed malabsorptive condition. I knew someone like this--she was pleased to be able to eat as much as she wanted and still lose weight, because her bypass kept her from absorbing nutrients. Does that not seem bizarre? Just a little? But we are somehow able to rationalize this into a multi-billion dollar industry.

I'll have my chocolate too--just in moderation.

[chris_at_lucas_RN, RN]

What's the point in longevity if you can't eat (or drink)?

I must have missed the part about not eating or drinking. I think all any calorie restricted diet is about is moderation with a goal, not malnutrition or starvation.....

[Dempather, RN]

After trying WW on and off for a couple years (it works for a lot of people, just not me..) and a couple other programs.. I've found that calorie restriction is healthy if it's based on the individual. You have to figure out what works best for you. Counting points wasn't working for me. So, I made a plan of my own that I can tolerate and something I could deal with. While restricting 1500 cals and counting and weighing seems tedious.. you'll get to a point where you know how much food 1500 cals is.. and how much it takes to get full. Every program I've followed has said feeling "hunger" is BAD. You eat enough to feel satisfied. I also don't count the calories when I eat vegetables.

Another great thing that I try is a "cleansing day" every now and then. It's just fruits, vegetables, decaf teas... really natural things. It detoxifies the liver and leaves me feeling great.

[NooNieNursie]

I have heard that they increase lifespan. Even if this is true, at what cost? Your thoughts appreciated.

I think they may improve health, even if for no reason that most of the food we eat is little more than a slow poison (e.g. sugar and starch) and eating less of that by default staves off insulin and blood sugar related diseases (including but not limited to diabetes, many cardiovascular conditions, dementias, cancer etc).

I do not think calorie restricted diets are actually practical to implement because the genetic code of every organism alive today is designed to resist food deprivation. That means living with a calorie restricted diet is very, very unpleasant to impossible.

I think those who are capable of staying with such an eating plan for any length of time do so for other benefits, mostly emotional / psychological in nature. For these "CRONers", the diet is a functional form of disordered eating. Once you start starving, there are changes in the way your brain functions, and some people are actually triggered and motivated by it (and this can sometimes actually cause an obsessive drive to starvation, similar to anorexia nervosa). But assuming the motivation/obsesisonality/irrationality stays somewhat functional, then let the CRONers do what they want.

For the average person, though, the CRON diet will be rejected as it is intolerable.

Far more practical would be to advise a reduction of carbohydrate consumption, as many of the beneficial effects of a CRON diet are related to low fasting glucose and insulin levels. This is something patients actually have a shot of sticking with.

Also it is worthy to consider the vulnerability to eating disorders in certain people (a physiological process where starvation causes chemical imbalances that results in a fixation/obsession with starving more). Advising CRON diets to everyone - even those with risk factors for disordered eating (such as OCD and depression and anxiety) - obviously not a wise decision at all. There have been cases of at risk people attempting CRON who actually developed anorexia nervosa.

[RNperdiem, RN]

How can a person maintain the restricted calorie diet long term, though?

Once most people ate what we would consider restricted-calorie diets from lack of choice. We live in a land of plenty rather than a land of barely enough.

I'm underweight, but I think it is partly genetic.