Updates

Lets start with the bad thing first: My rabbit died today, now I have no pets. Dog, Chicken, 2 Rabbits and a budgie all gone... :(

Second bad thing: WHERE IS THE SUMMER GONE!?!?!?! Rain, floods, Rain, Rain, floods, Rain ,Rain, rain, rain! everyday...

The sad part out of the way, now back to the CR stuff:

Weight
Something has changed over the last few months and my weight continues to creep up, I woke up this morning with a weight of 110 lbs. Although this may be something to do with the weight lifting I've started, I don't know! Even before I made any significant changes my weight just started going up... and as I've said before, I'm serious about Calorie Restriction and I weigh all my food. Either my metabolism has changed, some sort of infection was doing freaky things to me, or someone is spiking my food (gulp). So what do I do from here, I'm eating the same number of calories but I'm gaining, maybe it's time to slowly reduce my calorie level?

Sinus issues resolved
I'm not sure if I mentioned this on my blog but my sinus issues that I had for a while have completely resolved, and how did that happen? Again some freaky stuff, I developed a 'cold' infection and it just totally blocked up everything, my ears, sinuses... yet since that infection the discolored PND and other sinus related issues are totally 100% gone. The only things I can say is a) something was removed due to the excess mucous carrying it out b) More sinus inflammation (from cold), more immune cells attracted to the area to fight both infections. It has been over 1 month now and everything still looking good, no sign of it coming back at all. Although I continue to use Neti Pot.


Calorie Restriction and Eating Disorders
It's quite absurd when people claim that all CRONies have eating disorders, when in actual fact it's probably the majority of the Western population that has the problem with food. If anything Calorie Restriction has opened up so much for me, it has got me to eat foods that I would have never eaten. I've also started to experiment with food now too, I enjoy cooking, and I have learned life skills.

Only if people knew just how much I enjoy eating my food, not because I'm 'starving', I'm never actually starving at all. But because I've gotten away from sugar and processed foods that actually taste like utter crap. The last time I had chips was almost 3 years ago! I'm now more open to try new foods, something that I would rarely do before. There is absolutely no way that my attitude towards eating as it is today will lead into some kind of harmful eating disorder. I've never loved food more than any time in my life. The variety I eat is far more than previously too.

For me, as a person who wants to live forever, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to develop anything like AN. It would be the complete opposite of what I'm doing CR for and would not help me to achieve my goals. I don't worry about it, and all my family are now convinced that what I'm doing is good. I sit down with them every day to eat my meal. Only my meal is like a huge mountain of food so I'm usually the last one to finish.

The losing weight aspect of CR was a negative for me, no way do I like to look as skinny as I do, 120 lbs for me was lean but on my small frame and at 5ft 7, but looked quite normal even though I still had a low BMI. Weeks before I started CR was to do serious weight lifting. A few years back I tried for 2 months and guess what? I gained a whopping 2 lbs of muscle! Not a lot for 2 months weight lifting. I was taking whey protein and it still was extremely difficult. So maybe trying for that physique would have never actually worked anyway. I just can't seem to gain significant amount of muscle, period.

Why do CR
Others have their own reasons for doing CR. I know myself, and I know I'm not capable of self harm. I am so open about my practice of CR to family, friends, and my doctors. My doctors even support me... They even tell me that according to all the tests I get done, I'm a very healthy person and my risk certain diseases is very small. For me it hasn't been much of a journey it terms of improving health markers though. My blood pressure when I started CR was close to 100/60, Fasting glucose was low, cholesterol was already low, Inflammation was low too. So I was already in good shape to start off with. I've never been overweight or had any serious health issues either.


Quality of Life and CR
People go on about how CR will lessen the quality of life, but aren't they forgetting the fact that ILL HEALTH is what causes poor quality of life for the majority of people! How can you have 'a life' when you have so many serious chronic diseases? Health is something you take for granted until its getting worse. Some people spend a decade or more with bad quality health. And whats sad is that most of it is self inflicted. People need to respect their body more. Sadly it would probably take a very long time before attitudes start to change.


Family eating habits
I've tried to tell both my mother and father about what they're doing to their health but they continue to not listen. They are both now going through at least 1 tub of ice cream a day! My mother will be in hospital soon if she don't change because for breakfast she has tea and biscuits, for lunch it' ice cream and dinner its usually ice cream again, and then later in the night guess what!? more ice cream. This has now been going on for 2-3 months... her hair is falling out, will she listen to me? Nope! She sees the same doctor as me so I'm going to mention that he needs to test her for nutritional deficiencies because she has been living on junk food now for a few years, only rarely has a proper meal.

My father listens to me a bit, he does eat nuts, fruit, soups and stuff. Hes quite healthy although I think is getting into a bad habit of eating junk food everyday. At 50+ he should be improving his diet drastically because its when aging really starts to accelerate.

My sister and brother. My sister is binge drinking almost every other day, certainly overweight now and just completely ignores my advice. My brother listen to me, but he really can't afford the food, otherwise he'd probably eat some of it. He likes to talk about CR and longevity, technology and stuff.

Other stuff
My brother J is doing better for himself now though as hes in a good Rock band who are signed and going on tour in the U.S, and around Europe shortly. They also got a number one on the download chart here in the UK and top 5 in the channel 4 charts. I on the other hand am writing new materials and actively looking to join a band. Work has been unreliable again with no work... So i'm going to start looking for another job on Monday.

Better go now, this is long enough!

I know I will never have an eating disorder, and thats the most important thing.

To long life :D