As someone who recently embarked on a restricted-calorie diet, I can say that I'm not inclined to live longer in the sense of past the average life-span. I'm more inclined to have a higher quality of life and live long enough to see my child into his adulthood.
That said, outside of weightloss and increased energy and stamina, I have noticed a few things about a reduced-calorie diet (and I'm talking 1000 calories or less most days):
1) I don't think about food as anything but fuel. I no longer think of it as a way to be social, to pass the time, or to be happy.
2) While it's possible to eat 1000 calories of calorie dense food with almost no other nutrition (sugar), I find that hunger demands I eat things that have more mass with less calories (vegetables and some proteins).
3) My day no longer revolves around eating. Pretty simple, but previously, I would be very concerned with what I had eaten the day before and might eat tomorrow. Outside of the measurements I'm keeping about caloric intake, I seldom think about food.
4) I'm saving money. I used to eat out a lot. Eating out, except for maybe a salad, makes it hard to reduce caloric intake. Now, I eat at home on the pound-for-pound cheaper food we can get at the farmer's market or grocery store.
Well, nobody said I don't eat foods I love on occasion and in moderation. For me, that moderation component is only achievable when I'm following a disciplined program the rest of the time. As to the notion of being impoverished by not having all the delicious foods in the world, that strikes me as a very aloof and distant connection with how the rest of the world lives.
I recently went to a county fair. While I tried to be mindful of what I was eating, I didn't deprive myself of the treats a fair has to offer. This is not about self-flagellation but about better self-awareness and in the end, hopefully about better health.
> As to the notion of being impoverished by not having all the delicious foods in the world, that strikes me as a very aloof and distant connection with how the rest of the world lives.
The rest of the world may not have the same kind of selection of different foods as we do, but my understanding is that most cultures still treat meals as social occasions to be enjoyed.
I made a different radical change in my diet: I doubled down on my love of food. Instead of getting jazzed by Taco Bell and Mountain Dew, now I savor for sautéed spinach and salmon. A major portion of my life now does resolve around food, including cooking, shopping and learning; that mindfulness and focus on quality allowed me to drop fifty-ish pounds in 4 months. (The cost difference of eating out and buying high-quality groceries is a wash, though.)
I say this not to vilify calorie-counting, just to illustrate that there are many valid approaches to health awareness. The most important things, I think, are to be mindful, to experiment, and to choose a lifestyle that is enjoyable and sustainable, rather than one of puritannical self-flagellation and inevitable binging.
I think there's a component of this to what I'm doing. My wife and I are often making very healthy, high-quality meals instead of fast food as you suggest. I don't think that has to equal more calories or any less enjoyment of food.
Given the replies, I thought I'd add in some details for context. On June 20, I weighed 338 pounds. I'm 6'2" tall and had a BMI of around 43. I was well past morbidly obese and had been for nearly a decade.
However, I had a vast number of tests and blood work run and the only apparent issue with any of those tests were some slightly elevated liver enzymes (fatty liver, as they say) likely because of the large amount of belly fat causing fat intrusions into the liver. Every other test was in the normal to better than normal range. Pretty incredible given my lifestyle.
I am a programmer and therefore sit in a chair a large amount of the day so my resting calorie consumption was pretty low. I did no exercise of any kind.
As I sit here this morning, I weigh 289 pounds and have a BMI of around 37. I still have a long way to go, but a calorie-restricted diet combined with moderate exercise (The first day I did 12 minutes on an elliptical at around 50 watts equaling something about half a mile. This morning I did 45 min. at around 75 watts equaling about 4.25 miles) has helped me made the progress I've made.
As for the diet, I started out at around 1600 calories a day. As I've progressed, that quota has decreased to around 1300 a day, though I typically eat less than 1000. While I track it on a daily/meal basis, I typically only analyze it at the week-by-week level.
I primarily use loseit.com to track and analyze all the data I capture.
Can you elaborate on how a calorie-restricted diet can result in "increased energy and stamina"? Specifically, if your energy intake is minimal, how do you end up with more energy than you had in your previous diet?
Your statement strikes me as patently false. Athletes eat a ton of food while training. Michael Phelps, for example, eats over 10,000 calories per day.
The point was not that Phelps is a representation of all athletes, but rather that athletes do eat a ton of calories a day in order to build muscle mass and have enough stamina for their rigorous training. There are certain exceptions, but generally speaking, if you are training for a sport then you should have a solid diet.
"Energy" in the sense of "I have a lot of energy today" is only tangentially related to "energy" in the sense of "the energy content of this candy bar is 250 calories".
Most of the other replies here got the gist of what I wrote, but for me, it's about apparent energy levels. That is, because I don't feel weighed down and sluggish because of a huge, greasy meal, I'm more apt to get outside and play basketball with my son or go for a walk, etc.
Presumably, there is a peak efficiency of the digestive system where it is using the least energy in metabolism compared to the intake, which when combined with weighing less, so needing less energy to move, could mean that people eating relatively little in general could feel more energetic than someone eating far more. This becomes really obvious if you look at the upper end of the spectrum.
It's difficult to evaluate your calorie restricted diet without knowing macronutrient ratios (ie: ratio of fat/protein/carbohydrates), could you be elaborate on that?
Roughly speaking, it's about 25% fat, 40% carbs, 35% protein measured over the course of a week. I've recently added some light weight training to the exercise regimen and I'd like to increase that protein percentage to give my muscles the protein they need to build/repair. I have found that a lower percentage of fat doesn't really work well as it seems to throw my lipids out of balance (body overcompensation, perhaps?).
I've been doing something similar, I eat 5 days a week and diet on two (less than 200 calories) in order to decrease body fat and it has been working out great, I can defiantly say that physically I'm more aesthetically pleasing and able to control my weight pretty well.
This is more of a fasting-type routine. I think there are some interesting studies being done on religious communities where this type of fasting is relatively common. I'd love to know what it feels like that first day after your diet days. Are you hungry? Can you eat much without feeling overfull? Do you feel sluggish or have trouble concentrating?
That said, outside of weightloss and increased energy and stamina, I have noticed a few things about a reduced-calorie diet (and I'm talking 1000 calories or less most days):
1) I don't think about food as anything but fuel. I no longer think of it as a way to be social, to pass the time, or to be happy.
2) While it's possible to eat 1000 calories of calorie dense food with almost no other nutrition (sugar), I find that hunger demands I eat things that have more mass with less calories (vegetables and some proteins).
3) My day no longer revolves around eating. Pretty simple, but previously, I would be very concerned with what I had eaten the day before and might eat tomorrow. Outside of the measurements I'm keeping about caloric intake, I seldom think about food.
4) I'm saving money. I used to eat out a lot. Eating out, except for maybe a salad, makes it hard to reduce caloric intake. Now, I eat at home on the pound-for-pound cheaper food we can get at the farmer's market or grocery store.