paint life: add color, variety and limit lics of delight.

I'm a classically trained painter. I pre-plan and use judicious lics of detailed delight to produce the most beautiful paintings. I laid my brush down to attend graduate school to become a trained health care practitioner. I gained over 40 pounds from sitting 10-12 hours, 6 days a week while grabbing whatever, whenever and choosing all the wrong things. In learning to extend and improve life as a practitioner, I limited my own. This is some of what I learned and am now practicing.

Scientists have suspected that calorie restriction could extend the life span of animals since at least 1935, when researchers at Cornell University noticed that severely food-restricted lab rats lived twice as long as normal ones and were healthier. Other investigators began exploring the idea and learned that the secret is not merely a matter of body weight: lab mice that ate normally but became skinny by exercising a lot showed no longevity improvements. Only the ones that didn't get many calories to begin with benefited.Decades of calorie-restriction studies involving organisms ranging from microscopic yeast to rats have shown just that, extending the life spans of the semistarved as much as 50%.

"CALERIE",a multicenter study, was designed at Tufts University in Boston in 2007 (Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri). The study lowered caloric intake by 25%, while maintaining essential nutrients. Findings have supported prior animal studies that established that caloric restriction promotes improved health and longevity. Most recently, 2012 study by the US National Institute on Aging (NIA) that CALERIE had benefits to immune function, motor coordination, and resistance to sarcopenia. The idea is counterintuitive: If we eat to live, how can starving ourselves add years to our lives? Findings of these studies are supporting the theory that a state of slight hunger acts as a mild but constant stressor that makes an organism stronger and more resistant to the ills of aging. (The effect could be an evolutionary adaptation, increasing the odds that animals would survive periods of scarcity.) Taking in fewer calories also slows metabolism, and some data indicate that humans with a slower metabolism live longer.

A 6 month study of 1,685 overweight or obese U.S. adults aged 25 and older followed subjects who kept 6 day a week food diaries and attended weekly motivational meetings were compared to a control group who did not.For six months, they kept food diaries and were encouraged to eat a healthy diet and be physically active. The diary/meeting group lost twice as much weight.

How does one maintain such a rigidly documented caloric restricted diet over time? High levels of motivation are required only at the beginning of initiating such a lifestyle. It is now known that an individualized motivational statement can be highly effective in maintaining lifestyle engagement until these habits are a well established way of life. Feelings of hunger persist only for the first four weeks. The brain also rewires after 4 weeks of bookkeeping. Keeping a diet journal will become a "second-nature" part of the daily routine after that point unless one believes it is not important to do so. Accepting the importance of it as part of what is necessary to achieve longevity and optimum health goes a long way in keeping people on track with this healthier lifestyle change.

I have listed 20 healthy lifestyle habits, adapted from the CALORIE study, below. Adopt them, lose weight, live longer and avoid the most common chronic illnesses, and enjoy life by becoming more aware!

Ten Adapted Dietary Tools from "CALORIE"

Use a scale to measure all food portions (4oz=1 serving for meals 2 oz for snacks)
dietary fiber intake 10% above RDA (35-40g above RDA)
water consumption to above 10 8oz/day (no more than 12)
lowfat protein intake 2oz with snacks and 4oz with meals
vegetable intake 4 oz with all snacks & meals
fruit intake 2oz with breakfast & am snacks
Eliminate all refined foods (sugar, flours, etc.), using whole foods only and stevia only to sweeten.
2-3 small inter-meal snacks that are protein inclusive
inclusion 3 tsp healthy fats with meals only (coconut oil, olive oil and clarified butter only)
promote food variety (novel foods lessen boredom - explore produce!!!)

Ten Adapted Behavioral Tools from "CALORIE"

Measure weight each morning after exercise.
Eat at home and include family in food choices, while avoiding restaurants.
Pre-plan, purchase groceries, prep and pack meals every 3 days.
Order groceries online & arrange pickup or delivery. Stop at produce stands whenever possible.
Use small desert plates for meals.
Treat fatigue and hunger with 8 oz water, get up and walk around, and deep breathe.
Engage in hobbies during free-time not allocated to mealtime.
Increase social interactions and recreational activities.
Incorporate daily mindfulness practices and gratefulness (prayer, scripture, meditation, chew 20X, notice natural tastes created by God, eating only when sitting)
When offered unacceptable foods, state, "Thank-you, but I'm being good to myself, to gift myself a longer, healthier and happier life."