Not kidding: Live 20% longer, get sick less AND save Money

Sounds like one of those cheesy infomercials but all of the above is true.

The benefits of a calorie restricted diet aren’t new. Rats being fed a calorie restricted diet lived twice as long, were more active and overall healthier.

The recent findings published about studies done in monkeys may be even more relevant. Long story short a 30% reduction in calories while maintaining good nutrition roughly extends your life by 20%, reduces the rate by which you age and allows you to live much healthier while alive.

Here's the link to the report, pretty interesting stuff:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4557/full/ncomms4557.html

This is all of course strongly linked to survival and preparedness for obvious reasons. Living 1% longer sounds pretty good, but if we’re capable of stretching it to 10% or 20% and not only that but also be healthier while doing so then the benefits start piling up. Eating less also means spending less money on food, which directly puts money in our wallet for supplies, gear and of course savings. 

It’s not hard to combine the different benefits with our modern survival plans: We want to live longer, be fit and healthy, save money and stockpile the necessary supplies. Bulking up our supply of wholegrain rice, lentils and canned vegetables means we are buying some of the most affordable food in stores, food that also happens to be high on nutrition but low on calories AND happens to store well, ideal for long term food supply for emergencies.

Eating little of it at a time means we’re abiding by another important survival rule: Store what you eat, eat what you store.

So by now you’re probably thinking: “This all sounds great and I’m on board but I have two important questions, how much calories do I need so as to deduct 30% from that and how do I know how much calories I’m eating?”

Regarding the first question there are several ways of estimating your caloric need but this link would be a good way to start. 

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/estimated-calorie-requirement

Regarding how many calories you’re eating I suggest downloading a calorie counter app for your phone. They are simple enough to use. After some time you get the hang of it and have a pretty good idea of what you are eating. Having a mostly plant based diet will make things easier since they have good nutrition value but are usually low on calories. I would suggest minimizing the amount of meat consumed as well and sticking to lean meat such as chicken or turkey breast or meat with good fat like salmon and tuna.

If you want to give it a try using some of that rice and lentils you should have stocked up by now, check some out one of my favorite recipes, lentil stew. 

FerFAL