The Longevity Diet: Discover Calorie Restriction--the Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality [Paperback]

Brian M. Delaney (Author), Lisa Walford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2005

At last, here's a book that synthesizes the increasingly popular CR (Calorie Restriction) diet for the layperson. CR is not a diet primarily about weight loss, although readers will lose weight. CR is about eating highly nutritious foods to extend your healthy years. Here's the concept: eat fewer calories and choose foods more carefully. This will reallocate how your metabolism uses its resources to convert food into energy; in other words, what goes in will be used more efficiently. You will feel better and function better—and the big bonus: the CR diet slows aging. CR lengthens the periods of youth and middle age and substantially reduces the risk of virtually all the diseases of aging. Brian Delaney and Lisa Walford, two longtime CR practitioners, will take you on a handheld stroll through the process, including an introduction to CR, how to do it, some of the key issues in the current dialogue, and the skinny on superfoods.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Blogcritics.org, 7/29/10
“Everyone wants to live longer. The Longevity Diet teaches you how…[It] gives specific nutritional facts and data that everyone should know.”

Tucson Citizen 7/29/10
“Provide[s] realistic guidance to people who want to restrict calorie intake…The recipes for such dishes as Veggies Primavera, Spaghetti Squash with Garlic Sauce, and Sweet Potato Fries are almost worth the price of the book.”

The New York Times
"Beyond Atkins, beyond South Beach, a low-calorie plan promises not only to slim waists, but to slow aging."

Hudson Valley News, 8/4/10

“300 pages of excellent advice…And yes, there are recipes, too.”

 

Newsday, 8/17/10
“This book…might show you how to live lean.”

 

InfoDad, 8/26/10

“The authors make their pitch for their ideas very directly…The power lies in the idea that changing certain habits can give people longer, healthier lives…[A] book with very good nutritional and other lifestyle ideas.”

Bookviews blog, September 2010
“Addresses how diet can ward off health problems, delay the aging process, and extend life expectancy…For anyone interested in this subject, there is sure to be something of value to be found in this book.”

San Francisco Book Review and Sacramento Book Review, 10/12/10
“Yes, this is another diet book. But it is unique in that, rather than spell out what you can and can’t eat, this book focuses on the amount to be eaten…An easy-to-read book.”

 

Taste for Life, November 2010
“An educational and valuable read.”

Failure magazine, 5/30/11

“Makes the case—to readers and physicians alike—why the diet is worth trying, while also offering practical advice on how to get started.”

About the Author

Lisa Walford is the coauthor of The Anti-Aging Plan with her father, Dr. Roy Walford, and has been on the CR diet for more than a decade. She lives in Venice, California.
Brian Delaney is the president of the Calorie Restriction Society and lives in Jupiter, Florida.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Marlowe & Company (June 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568583095
• ISBN-13: 978-1568583099
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent ADDITION to the literature on Life Extension., June 11, 2005

By 

Gregory Adams (Moorestown, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Longevity Diet: Discover Calorie Restriction--the Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality (Paperback)

This book complements Doctor Roy Walford's books very nicely.

The basic idea is that, by designing a diet which is lower in calories, but adequate in vitamins, minerals, etc., you can live a lot longer.

Dr. Walfords books introduce the idea, explain the evidence for believing that it will work, and tell you how to get started on such a diet. His books tend to be a bit technical, though very well written. You should at least read "The Anti-Aging Plan" by Roy and Lisa Walford before jumping into "The Longevity Diet."

"The Longevity Diet" isn't just a rehash of Dr. Walford's work. The authors' discuss the human, nontechnical side of the plan. How do you change your eating habits? How do you deal with cravings for ice cream, or social situations where you are expected to feast with others?

One of the recommendations involves keeping a diary of what you eat, and what situations make you over-eat, so that you can plan strategies to overcome them. You also use the food diary to count your calories, and nutrition.

They cover a number of other topics, introducing some recent developments, such as the ORAC index of foods, which tells you which foods are the best anti-oxidants (Blueberries), and the idea of energy density, which has to do with eating foods which have few calories in a large volume of food.

Other topics include Exercise, Relaxation techniques, major Theories of Aging, and the balance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids.

For those who don't know, here's a synopsis of the CR (Calorie Restriction) movement:

In the 1930's, some researchers at Cornell discovered, by accident, that if you feed mice less than the normal amount, they live A LOT longer.

Further research indicated that if you feed them a diet very low in calories, but with complete nutrition (vitamins, minerals, etc.), the mice can live EVEN LONGER. In the most extreme situations, they can almost double the life span of mice.

Later, scientist started looking for a way to make a pill (or something) which would allow people to live longer. The only known way of making something live longer was to restrict it's calories, so they began to study caloric restriction. The idea was to make a pill which has effects similar to calroic restriction. This accomplished nothing fast.

Along comes Roy Walford of UCLA. Walford thinks the life extending pill is a great idea, but he's pretty sure it isn't going to be developed in our lifetime. Having a keen sense of the obvious, Walford recommends that people start practicing caloric restriction themselves. It works on every other species for which it has been tried, and it has the same biological effects on human cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. as it has on other species. WHY NOT???

By all means buy this book! While you're at it, pick up "The Anti-Aging Plan." Also, grab a copy of the Walford's free software at http://www.walford.com/software.htm .

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book to motivate you to eat less, February 1, 2006

By 

O. Brown "Ms. O. Khannah-Brown" (Twopeas, WA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Longevity Diet: Discover Calorie Restriction--the Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality (Paperback)

*****
I really liked everything about this book: the personal stories, the simple explanations, the research-based (not hype-based) nutritional advice. Basically, the Longevity Diet can be summed up as eating less overall, and coping with hunger by eating better quality food so that you don't experience malnutrition and food cravings. The value of buying the book is that when you're done reading it, you feel more MOTIVATED to do this.

I am very familiar with current nutritional research, and appreciate having a concise summary of timely information like this book. Another great thing about it is that it's very, very flexible, encouraging you to listen to your body and to find a way of eating that is right for you. It gives, in the personal examples, illustrations of how people apply the diet so that you can see how to customize healthy eating to fit your lifestyle.

Although you will lose weight, the orientation of the book is primarily on being healthy and living a long, high-quality life.

At one point in The Longevity Diet, it makes the point that many people will choose to continue eating to excess because it is what they enjoy, and it is the quality of life they choose to make their life meaningful; they also state that this is a valid choice, and do not make people who take this path "wrong". This book, however, is for those of us who have tried eating to excess, have tried being obese, have experienced food cravings, and want something different and doable. I would give this book my highest recommendation, and think that everyone should understand the information in it, then make a choice that works for them!
*****

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple steps to youthfulness without a lot of chemistry!, August 14, 2005

By 

John T. Philips (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Longevity Diet: Discover Calorie Restriction--the Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality (Paperback)

I've been looking for a book like this for a long time. Calorie restriction - which the authors are also referring to as "the longevity diet" - is the only way of slowing the aging process and becoming more youthful (at least so far!). I had been hearing about the diet for a long time, but it always seemed too extreme. CBS had a special calling it The Starvation Diet: "it will help you live 30-40 more years, but would you really want to?" But Walford and Delaney explain that the diet can be followed in less extreme forms, and they present a lot of evidence (without blinding me with science) that milder versions of the diet have extraordinary benefits as well.
The second section of the book explains how the diet works in practice. I've already tried some of the recipes and suggestions. The "CR" phenomenon really isn't that complicated. The book explains how you can sort of "ease into" the diet, taking it to whatever level you want. There are no weird quantities of fat or protein, no complicated supplements or seaweed from distant parts of the planet: just common sense eating informed by science.
My only disappointment was that there wasn't more discussion of non-dietary findings in anti-aging research. They explain the science of CR so lucidly, I'd want to see more from their pens about related matters. Maybe that will come in the next book.

I'm already losing weight and feeling better. I probably won't take the diet to an extreme, but having the book around keeps my motivated.