Hai Guise

[Clinton]

Ok.  So we know we need to eat less, like say max 2000kcals per day.  We need to fast; TRF/IF, etc.  whole foods, plant based rocks, and meet all RDAs of micronutrients.  We need to sleep deeply and enough.  We need to move; to walk, to lift... and the natural extension of this is to continue to do what you were created to be capable of; to laugh, build relationships, and hopefully be physically intimate with a partner...

I read it all ... floss your teeth, get a dog, stay married, get educated... these seem to correlate with longer life.

I could apply all of the above and STILL be outlived by a guy that doesn’t do any of it.  It makes me really question the effort.  Like should I really not wolf down a steak and a huge meal w family and then head to the movies for popcorn and pop ... 

Does anyone here ever dream about a SENS treatment to rejuvenate your tissues??  That plus the last couple posts on Josh Mitteldorfs blog might buy us some time.

[TomBAvoider]

It's all about the total effect. When I first started the CR journey, I was very strict for many years. Gradually, I re-thought everything as I learned more. Human physiology is very resilient. We have countless examples of people who abused their health in their youth, but who nonetheless recovered fully and lived a long life once they got reasonable when older. One of the best examples was the 112 year old Israeli man (at a certain point the oldest male alive), who lived through the famine of the ghetto and through a concentration camp. I'll leave it to your imagination as to how optimal was the ON part of his CR in CRON. You could hardly get worse. People smoke in their youth, but recover function fully if it was long enough ago and the smoking wasn't too long. And so on. Bottom line, our bodies are capable of recovering 100% from various assaults.

Think of that steak or cake or shot of vodka or blunt or whatnot as a tiny fraction of what that 112 year old experienced for years - why would you not recover from it? If a man with such experiences as that Israeli can live to be literally the oldest male during in recent times, how badly do you imagine your longevity prospects are damaged by some tiny in comparison suboptimal health practices?

That's my reasoning. I figure I'm free to indulge occasionally in almost anything that strikes my fancy, as long as I don't make a practice of it, and limit it to occasional situations. I can go out to a restaurant for a large meal (well could, in any case pre-COVID-19), have an extra glass of wine and not feel I'm compromising my lifespan or healthspan by even a smidgen - and honestly, I don't crave more. Going to restaurants or boozing too frequently would get old very fast anyhow. It's fun when you do it occasionally, and on top of that, it's not damaging precisely because it's occasional - or more accurately, if it's occasional, you can recover 100%, with no deleterious long term effects.

So, I never feel deprived. I exercise regularly, but if I skip a day, it's not going to make any health difference either. But I exercise regularly because I feel better, and I eat my diet because I like it and enjoy it, and if I feel like deviating from it on occasion or for social reasons, I pay no penalty I can't recove from.

This way, my QOL is very high and I feel I get the best of both worlds - healthy behaviors for the majority of the time, and indulgences whenever I feel like it. YMMV.

As to treatments, rejuvenation, aging cures and so on - I wouldn't hold my breath. I've heard the hype all my life and it still remains hype. I recommend discounting it 100% - if something genuine comes along, hey, it's a bonus, but I'm not sweating it and not having my hopes diappointed either. YMMV.

[Saul]

11 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

As to treatments, rejuvenation, aging cures and so on - I wouldn't hold my breath. I've heard the hype all my life and it still remains hype. I recommend discounting it 100%

I agree 100% with the above quote.

But I think that the single exceptional examples such as the long-lived Israeli should be ignored.  There are always outliers -- they prove nothing.

  --  Saul

[Mike41]

I also agree with Tom. Exercise is fun or it certainly should be! I would like to drink more than 1 glass of wine a day, but I take the QOL perspective and I figure if I drink much more than that it will have negative effects that I will experience especially at my age. 
 

As for a big juicy steak as Clinton mentioned I personally haven’t had any in a very long time and don’t even remotely miss it or any meat for that matter. A whole food plant based diet is super satisfying IMO.