CRON-diet

The CRON-diet, CR-diet, Longevity diet, or Anti-Aging Plan is a nutrient-rich, low calorie diet , developed by Dr. Roy Walford and Brian M. Delaney. , which practices the limiting of dietary energy intake, in the hope that it will improve health and retard aging.

Overview

The CRON-diet (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition ), is a diet which has been developed out of research conducted from the Biosphere 2 and data gathered from several decades of research on animals by Roy Walford . As the name implies, the diet targets life extension through the use of calorie restriction and the pursuit of fully supplying in the recommended daily amounts (RDA) of nutrients.

At the moment, together with diets such as the Okinawa diet and the New Longevity diet, the CRON-diet is one of the most popular diets for life-extension. This popularity may be partly due to the support given by the Calorie Restriction Society, which focuses on the CRON-diet in specific (besides giving general information on calorie restriction).

The CRON-diet in theory

The first step towards undertaking the CRON-diet is determining one's "set-point". The set-point is what your weight naturally would be if you ate your usual, everyday intake. This set-point is different for each of us and is determined through heredity and childhood eating habits. One is expected to remain 10-25% under this set-point to reap the full potential advantage of the diet.

A guideline to determining this set-point is measuring your body fat content; this should be between 6-10% for a male person and between 10-15% for a female person. Measurement of this body fat content can happen through commonly available, cheap tools as skinfold test tools (the "Fat-O-Meter" is proposed in the Health Plan-book) or certain digital scales. In addition, besides and amalgamation of skinfold measurements, densiometry and/or bioelectrical impedance analysis can also be used to help determine your correct set-point. Depending on the current weight and the required (below set-point) weight that needs to be attained, a preliminary diet is prepared and followed.

Next, one should determine the amount of caloric restriction you wish to implement in your regular eating pattern. Generally, 20% is recommended. The caloric restriction is deducted from the regular amount of calories a person normally consumes a day. As a general number, 1800 calories/day is usually taken , yet variation to this number is likely, depending on one's Basal Metabolic Rate. It is noteworthy that although the basal metabolic rate may be determined through certain (computer) BMR calculating tools, the verifiability of this has been doubted by Dr. Walford.

The CRON-diet in practice

Once the amounts of calories have been determined, the meals and menus are worked out. Although three meals are proposed in "The Anti Aging Plan"-book, variation is possible. More or less meals per day can be embedded in one's schedule through the use of a combination of more calorie-dense (or-lean) foods and through supplements (pills or certain super-high nutrition (calorie-lean) foods. These latter super-high nutrition (calorie-lean) foods are described in the 'Anti-Aging Plan'-book as "Nutrient super-chargers" and include (amongst others) kombu, brewers yeast, wheat bran, shiitake mushrooms, non-fat dry milk, soybeans and tofu, wheat germ,... The "nutrient super-chargers" are frequently found in meals featured in the CRON-diet and this had been done to boost the meals' nutritional density.

In addition, in the "Anti Aging Plan"-book, it is proposed that one cooks eight meals (called One-a-day MegaMeals) on a specific day of the week and then freezes these meals to use during the entire week (this is referred to as the "Quantity-Cook-and Freeze" Option. For the remaining two courses of the day, 2 "Free-Choice Recipes" are used. Of course, here again, one may vary from this.

Variation from the proposed meals may be done through composing one's own meals. The composition should be done exactly and contain all the required RDA nutrients. To do so, the use of a CRON-diet-specific computer program (eg CRON-o-Meter, Dr. Walfords Interactive Diet Planner, ...) is required.

Books on the CRON-diet

Books on the CRON-diet include:

• The Longevity Diet, by Brian M. Delaney and Lisa and Roy Walford (ISBN 1-568-58309-5 ). This book is one of the main books about how one can attempt to live longer by eating food with less food energy in a careful way.
• Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss by Joel Fuhrman (ISBN 978-0316829458 )
• The Anti-Aging Plan: Strategies and Recipes for extending your Healthy years by Lisa Walford and Roy Walford
• Beyond the 120 Year Diet: How to Double Your Vital Years by Roy Walford

References

See also

• Calorie restriction
• Calorie Restriction Society

External links

• Examples of CRON-meals