Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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 .

*****
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!
*****

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.

The book persuasively states the arguments as to why caloric restriction is likely to extend human life spans in the same manner in which it extends the life spans of other species. In addition, there's some good stuff on the cellular changes that take place in the body's cells as one goes on a CR diet.

One of the best aspects of the book is the flexibility possible with CR - you don't have to put yourself on a quasi-starvation diet to reap many of the rewards of CR. In 6 months, merely by eating a low cal lunch and avoiding desserts, I have dropped from 185 lbs to 164, and have seen my blood pressure drop back into a normal range. This book has been invaluable in changing my life - it gives one a science-derrived motivation for sticking to a diet that's really powerful. I had never been on a diet in my life, and yet I have found a moderate CR diet to be extremely easy to handle. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

I'm 75 years old. Since getting with the longevity diet, I feel better, my health parameters are better, and I'm getting lighter. I believe I can think a little better. I'll tell you something, when you're my age, sometimes living longer doesn't seem so good. But, when you feel good, there's really no limit to how long you want to live. Because you feel good, you reach out. You make new, younger friends, because you're acting younger. You exercise because you feel like exercising. You really must get this book. Read it and do it. It will make a wonderful difference in your life. Will the Longevity Diet really make you live longer? Well, I think so, but it really doesn't matter, because your life will be better. I think so much of this book that I buy it to give away.
E.S.

This book is an excellent guide to living healthier, longer, and losing weight -- a little or a lot. What I most liked about the book is the flexibility of the program. There's nothing necessarily extreme about this diet at all. You can be adaptive with it. The book makes it easy
I first heard about in the WSJ, where one of the authors (Delaney) is described as "stuffing his face" for breakfast. That got my attention. I bought the book, and, via changes in *what* I eat, I am actually spending less time thinking about how *much* I eat.
I think the reviewer from May 6 is reviewing a different book. Roy Walford, the father of Delaney's coauthor, wrote a couple books about this diet (or a similar diet) where he stressed the extreme version of it. The Longevity Diet is different. It's *flexible*, that's what I like about it. And, by the way, I'm now *stronger* than I was before starting the diet, and my doctor says that changes in my cholesterol levels alone may give me an extra ten years of life. There are no guarantees, of coures. But I feel better, and am stronger, so I'll stick with this diet. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be healthier and lose weight. It's well worth the pocket change it costs. You may not want to follow the diet, but you will have learned a *lot* about the connection between what you eat and fast your body ages. You can use that information to fine-tune lots of aspects of your life, even if you don't go on the diet "whole hog".

I had been hearing about this "CR" Diet for several on the news, but never really understood what it was about. After reading this book, I think I finally do. I do not believe that any diet can make me live to be 150 years old but after reading this book, I believe I have to tools to maintain my youth and my mind much longer than I otherwise might have. Whether I actually stick with it is a different question....
I also bought Beyond the 120-Year Diet, which is an excellent book, but Roy Walford seems too much like a True Believer. What I liked about The Longevity Diet is that it seems more realistic. It gives a lot of evidence for this diet being able to improve health, even if in mild forms the diet won't add another five decades to your life. Roy Walford focused on people who wanted to take the diet to an extreme. Delaney and Lisa Walford focus on more normal people.
But the main thing I liked about the book is that, after reading it, I had new motivation to think about what I eat: my health. And the simple, but fairly thorough explanation of nutrition somehow "stuck," and made it easy not to buy the container of ice cream on my way home from dinner. Having in my head this clear, simple explanation of excess Calories and their effect on health is changing my life. Not a huge amount, but enough to make me feel much better.
The one minor criticism I have is that the Resources section had only a few entries. But maybe they'll use the Web link they give to provide more resources. If the authors are reading this, I'd like to say: please use the Web link to provide more resources!! (Or write another book!) I'd like to learn more.

I bought the book when it first became available almost a month ago (don't know why it says "June 9" here--it was available earlier) and it has been extraordinarily helpful to me. I'm not one of these "life extenders" who follow the diet to an extreme. I don't want to live to be 140 years old. I want to be healthy and trim. Other reviewers have talked about how the extremely clear explanations of some basic nutritional principles "stick" in a powerful way that helps you make more sensible food choices. I have definitely found that to be the case. You "feel" the harm a half pint of ice cream will do to your cells, and it's easy to say No. It's only been a month so we'll see how long the positive effects last... but right I can say I feel much better and I don't feel I'm making any kind of "sacrifice", and I assume this will continue indefinitely.

The personal stories were also very helpful. (I wish there had been more. That would be my only negative comment about the book.)

I just saw one of the coauthors on Good Morning America a couple hours ago, who actually looked WAY too thin. It's too bad ABC didn't show the people following milder versions of the diet like Delaney the other coauthor since they actually look great. Maybe some people on this diet get obsessed with extreme health or extreme skinniness and that's what ABC wanted to focus on to make this sensationalistic. It's a pity because the extremists actually look almost scary. But for people who start out overweight (like moi), this diet is perfect.

This book about calorie restriction and how to go about trying it. The authors are Brian Delaney, President of the Calorie Restriction Society, and Lisa Walford, the daughter or Dr Roy Walford who was one of the early proponents of calorie restriction for people. They are both well connected to the community that is trying calorie restriction, and well grounded in the science behind it.

From their experience, improvements in health and slower aging come from any regimen that includes reduced calories over what is considered a normal level. So you can eat some high-glycemic food such as rice or potatoes, or eat a really healthy diet where all of your carbohydrates come from vegetables and fruit. You can eat one meal a day, or graze throughout the day. All of the apparent benefits will result as long as you eat enough less than normal.

There are a number of ways to track progress: watch your weight and when it gets to a BMI of 15-16 then eat enough to keep it there; track total calories relative to normal for your body height/frame; or track health markers such as fasting blood sugar, liver function, lipids (e.g. cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides), blood pressure, and immune system function.

They emphasize repeatedly that you should talk to your doctor or health professional before going on this regimen, and that it is not for everyone. If you are pregnant or want to get pregnant or have certain medical conditions you should definitely NOT use this diet. If you have a lot of weight to lose to get to a low BMI, or if you are over 60, you should definitely take it slow and not make too radical a change.

They make a number of key points:

* Because you are eating a reduced-calorie diet, you have to make sure that you get enough nutrients: protein, fat, calories, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.
* This is why most practitioners eat all of their carbohydrates in the form of vegetables and fruit, because they have very high nutrition value per calorie. When you eat a lot of calories from starch (bread, potatoes, white rice, other starches) it is very hard to reduce your calorie intake enough and still get enough nutrition.
* If you adopt this regimen, you have to find a way to do it that works for you and lets you enjoy life. Don't stress out about it
* Exercise and managing stress are important for everyone

I really liked their idea of "energy density" and "nutrition density" for food. For example, cheese has high energy density; vegetables have high nutrition density. To feel fuller and to get enough nutrition, you want a lot of your calories to come from high-nutrition, low-energy-density foods. This is a good point for everyone, not just when you are on a calorie restriction diet.

I had a couple of issues with their advice:

* they do not recommend using omega-3 supplements, suggesting that you will get enough omega-3 from a high-nutrient diet. I don't think this is the case, to get enough omega-3 for optimal brain function you almost have to supplement, or eat very expensive grass-fed meat, grass-fed dairy, etc, or eat very large amounts of fish.
* they mention fasting as an alternative for reducing total calories, that this is easier for some people. However, this book was written before research came out that suggests fasting is not healthy on a regular basis.
* they are convinced that calorie restriction will increase maximum human lifetimes, but I don't think that we know or can say at this point. (It is clear that calorie restriction with good nutrition does increase your life expectancy, but not that you should expect to live past 100 on this regimen.)

There is some research that suggests that the important thing is not the reduced calories, but the hormones that are released when you are hungry. So I think I'm going to try skipping lunch and snacks, having a normal breakfast and dinner, and eating enough at those meals to feel full. I'll continue to track my weight and ongoing blood sugar levels, and see what the effect is

Fascinating stuff, and I recommend the book.

I found Delaney & Walford's "Longevity Diet" non-threatening, non-technical, and educational. It is a sufficient introduction to the concept of calorie restriction (CR)for a layman audience, but lacks details on some of the more in depth ideas of gerontology. The Longevity Diet has reasonable recommendations concerning changes in ones diet and includes a rather comprehensive list of the nutritional content of many CR friendly foodstuffs. Thankfully, many of the details that are missed or simplified in The Longevity Diet are explained in several online resources that are listed in the back of the book.

For the price it is hard to beat, if only as an introduction to the world of CR.