Mahmood Siddique, M.D

By: centraljersey.com
Calorie Restriction (CR) is not a typical diet. It is a way for a person to truly become healthier and extend his or her quality of life. Although many diets focus on having a person lose weight, CR focuses on ensuring healthy and sustainable eating habits that help a person to feel energized, look and feel younger, and become healthier.
The idea behind CR is not simply calorie reduction, but on focusing on making your calories count. Every day, hundreds of millions of people consume worthless calories (calories with little nutritional benefit) which do not satisfy their hunger. Chips, candy, white flour products based on worthless calories cause people to eat more, gain weight, and still feel hungry.
CR is characterized by consuming roughly 25 percent fewer calories than would be normally consumed. This does not mean you eat three quarters of what you normally eat, but eat different types of food that have more nutritional benefit per serving. Because of the focus on greater nutrient intake, CR involves eating more natural wholesome products such as plant-based proteins, vegetables, eggs, nuts, and so on. Although this may seem to be too simple to have any exceptional effects, CR actually reprograms cellular metabolism in a way that no other exercise or diet can.
The benefits of CR are more than just weight loss. CR leads to a reduction in LDL (bad cholesterol), increase in HDL (good cholesterol), decrease in blood pressure, decrease in glucose levels, decrease in C-reactive protein (an inflammatory marker), and a decrease in body fat percentage. These in turn help to reduce the likelihood of developing various cardiovascular diseases as well as diabetes.
A Washington University study was carried out on long-time CR practitioners, and it determined that those people that were practicing CR had about 9 percent body fat, whereas those who did not practice CR had an average 24 percent body fat. Those who did not practice CR had nearly three times the percentage of body fat than those who restricted their calorie intake.
One of the best anti-aging practices is CR. Besides helping people to lose weight, CR helps the body to be as healthy as it should be 15 to 20 years earlier. For example, in the Washington University study mentioned above, those who practiced CR were between the ages of 35 and 82. However, their triglyceride levels and diastolic blood pressure levels were similar to those of people in their early 20s and teenage years. CR helps the body to look, feel, and act as if it were 20 years younger.
Although some people may think that CR is strictly about eating less, it is more about eating right. If a person tries to reduce his calorie intake without following a nutritionally sound plan, he or she may suffer from malnutrition. You need to consume different nutrients in specific amounts, and cutting the amount of food you eat by 25 percent may cause you to eat fewer nutrients, thereby causing your body harm.
Here are some recommended guidelines for CR:
– Avoid flour and simple sugars. These items have high calories but little nutritional benefit.
– Eat vegetables. Leafy and other vegetables have the highest nutrient level per volume of calories, making them essential for anyone practicing CR.
– Carefully select protein and fat sources. Most fats have a high caloric content. Contrary to popular opinion, use palm oil and coconut oil because they are the most nutrient-rich of all the fats, containing medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs).
– Ensure that your proteins are well balanced and consumed in the ratio that your body needs them. Red meats provide a well balanced protein ratio, but they are not as nutrient-rich as plants.A well mixed variety of non-meat proteins is healthier.
– Talk to your doctor before you begin CR. Any major change in eating habits should be carried out after consulting with your doctor. You may have a medical condition that would be exacerbated by changing your diet.
Mahmood Siddique, M.D., is board-certified in Sleep Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Internal Medicine. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and is a member of the medical staff at University Medical Center at Princeton. He can be reached at 609-587-9944. On the Web: www.sleep-wellness.org