You may have heard dr. Oz talk about this on Oprah or came across it in the news. More and more research points to the fact that we can considerably prolong our lives by eating less and restrict our calory intake.
Of course this is often the opposite of what we are doing. We tend to earn more, have more leisure time when we get older and therefore eat more, instead of less. Before we will look at how to overcome this, let’s first check why it is that eating less prolongs our life.
How does eating less calories prolong our life?
Numerous studies on animals like dogs, have shown that calorie restriction can increase their lifespan. Alhtough not completely proven, many scientists believe that the same holds true for humans.
Research indicates that colory restriction:
- Decreases insulin levels and therefore slows down the degradation of a cell’s own components.
- Lowers cholesterol levels, fasting glucose, and blood pressure.
- Improves memory in normal to overweight elderly.
- Leads to less free radical generation.
- Reduces the weight and therefore requires less energy to support the weight. This in turn leads to less glucose in the bloodstream and can prevent diabetes
- Leads to a higher ratio of nutrients in the body. That means more antioxidents to protect the body from disease.
How to start the colory restriction process?
It is important to lower your calorie intake slowly. Calorie restriction for anti-aging is only beneficial when calories are restricted slowly. It is also important that you still consume sufficient quantities of vitamins, minerals and other important nutrients. As a general rule don’t exceed your calorie intake by more than 10% and eat as many healthy foods as possible.
Here are some useful tips to start eating less.
- Be sure to drink plenty of water all though the day. It makes you feel full and it is also very helpful in getting rid of all the accumulated toxins.
- Eat earlier in the day. It’s much healthier and since you are active throughout the day, more of that food will be used up. Limit your evening meals to smaller portions.
- Eat more often. Don’t eat all the time (to give your digestive system a break) but have more smaller portions of healthy food. Try to eat raw food on a regular basis and snack on carrots for example.
- Dccrease your plate size! Feeling that you had enough to eat is often about perception. If you see a full plate then your mind may also be tricked into thinking you have eaten a full plate.
- Eat slowly. Not only will you enjoy the food more, your digestive system will also have time to digest your food properly.
- Don’t rush courses during a meal, but wait a bit in between courses. You will start to feel “full” quicker and therefore eat less.
- Do a detox day every now and then. Just one day a month you could do a juice day. This is not only good for your digestive system, you will also get used to eating and needing less. You may be surprised at how easy a juice day is and by realizing this may eat less on normal days (or drink more juices instead of unhealthy snacks). Intermittent fasting and detox can actually be an alternative to permanent calorie reduction. More on that later.
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