The Longevity Diet: The Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality--Through Calorie Restriction

The book persuasively states the arguments as to why caloric restriction is likely to extend human life spans in the same manner in which it extends the life spans of other species. In addition, there's some good stuff on the cellular changes that take place in the body's cells as one goes on a CR diet. One of the best aspects of the book is the flexibility possible with CR - you don't have to put yourself on a quasi-starvation diet to reap many of the rewards of CR. In 6 months, merely by eating a low cal lunch and avoiding desserts, I have dropped from 185 lbs to 164, and have seen my blood pressure drop back into a normal range. This book has been invaluable in changing my life - it gives one a science-derrived motivation for sticking to a diet that's really powerful. I had never been on a diet in my life, and yet I have found a moderate CR diet to be extremely easy to handle. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

This book is an excellent guide to living healthier, longer, and losing weight -- a little or a lot. What I most liked about the book is the flexibility of the program. There's nothing necessarily extreme about this diet at all. You can be adaptive with it. The book makes it easy I first heard about in the WSJ, where one of the authors (Delaney) is described as "stuffing his face" for breakfast. That got my attention. I bought the book, and, via changes in *what* I eat, I am actually spending less time thinking about how *much* I eat. I think the reviewer from May 6 is reviewing a different book. Roy Walford, the father of Delaney's coauthor, wrote a couple books about this diet (or a similar diet) where he stressed the extreme version of it. The Longevity Diet is different. It's *flexible*, that's what I like about it. And, by the way, I'm now *stronger* than I was before starting the diet, and my doctor says that changes in my cholesterol levels alone may give me an extra ten years of life. There are no guarantees, of coures. But I feel better, and am stronger, so I'll stick with this diet. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be healthier and lose weight. It's well worth the pocket change it costs. You may not want to follow the diet, but you will have learned a *lot* about the connection between what you eat and fast your body ages. You can use that information to fine-tune lots of aspects of your life, even if you don't go on the diet "whole hog".

***** I really liked everything about this book: the personal stories, the simple explanations, the research-based (not hype-based) nutritional advice. Basically, the Longevity Diet can be summed up as eating less overall, and coping with hunger by eating better quality food so that you don't experience malnutrition and food cravings. The value of buying the book is that when you're done reading it, you feel more MOTIVATED to do this. I am very familiar with current nutritional research, and appreciate having a concise summary of timely information like this book. Another great thing about it is that it's very, very flexible, encouraging you to listen to your body and to find a way of eating that is right for you. It gives, in the personal examples, illustrations of how people apply the diet so that you can see how to customize healthy eating to fit your lifestyle. Although you will lose weight, the orientation of the book is primarily on being healthy and living a long, high-quality life. At one point in The Longevity Diet, it makes the point that many people will choose to continue eating to excess because it is what they enjoy, and it is the quality of life they choose to make their life meaningful; they also state that this is a valid choice, and do not make people who take this path "wrong". This book, however, is for those of us who have tried eating to excess, have tried being obese, have experienced food cravings, and want something different and doable. I would give this book my highest recommendation, and think that everyone should understand the information in it, then make a choice that works for them! *****

I've been looking for a book like this for a long time. Calorie restriction - which the authors are also referring to as "the longevity diet" - is the only way of slowing the aging process and becoming more youthful (at least so far!). I had been hearing about the diet for a long time, but it always seemed too extreme. CBS had a special calling it The Starvation Diet: "it will help you live 30-40 more years, but would you really want to?" But Walford and Delaney explain that the diet can be followed in less extreme forms, and they present a lot of evidence (without blinding me with science) that milder versions of the diet have extraordinary benefits as well. The second section of the book explains how the diet works in practice. I've already tried some of the recipes and suggestions. The "CR" phenomenon really isn't that complicated. The book explains how you can sort of "ease into" the diet, taking it to whatever level you want. There are no weird quantities of fat or protein, no complicated supplements or seaweed from distant parts of the planet: just common sense eating informed by science. My only disappointment was that there wasn't more discussion of non-dietary findings in anti-aging research. They explain the science of CR so lucidly, I'd want to see more from their pens about related matters. Maybe that will come in the next book. I'm already losing weight and feeling better. I probably won't take the diet to an extreme, but having the book around keeps my motivated.

This book complements Doctor Roy Walford's books very nicely. The basic idea is that, by designing a diet which is lower in calories, but adequate in vitamins, minerals, etc., you can live a lot longer. Dr. Walfords books introduce the idea, explain the evidence for believing that it will work, and tell you how to get started on such a diet. His books tend to be a bit technical, though very well written. You should at least read "The Anti-Aging Plan" by Roy and Lisa Walford before jumping into "The Longevity Diet." "The Longevity Diet" isn't just a rehash of Dr. Walford's work. The authors' discuss the human, nontechnical side of the plan. How do you change your eating habits? How do you deal with cravings for ice cream, or social situations where you are expected to feast with others? One of the recommendations involves keeping a diary of what you eat, and what situations make you over-eat, so that you can plan strategies to overcome them. You also use the food diary to count your calories, and nutrition. They cover a number of other topics, introducing some recent developments, such as the ORAC index of foods, which tells you which foods are the best anti-oxidants (Blueberries), and the idea of energy density, which has to do with eating foods which have few calories in a large volume of food. Other topics include Exercise, Relaxation techniques, major Theories of Aging, and the balance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. For those who don't know, here's a synopsis of the CR (Calorie Restriction) movement: In the 1930's, some researchers at Cornell discovered, by accident, that if you feed mice less than the normal amount, they live A LOT longer. Further research indicated that if you feed them a diet very low in calories, but with complete nutrition (vitamins, minerals, etc.), the mice can live EVEN LONGER. In the most extreme situations, they can almost double the life span of mice. Later, scientist started looking for a way to make a pill (or something) which would allow people to live longer. The only known way of making something live longer was to restrict it's calories, so they began to study caloric restriction. The idea was to make a pill which has effects similar to calroic restriction. This accomplished nothing fast. Along comes Roy Walford of UCLA. Walford thinks the life extending pill is a great idea, but he's pretty sure it isn't going to be developed in our lifetime. Having a keen sense of the obvious, Walford recommends that people start practicing caloric restriction themselves. It works on every other species for which it has been tried, and it has the same biological effects on human cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. as it has on other species. WHY NOT??? By all means buy this book! While you're at it, pick up "The Anti-Aging Plan." Also, grab a copy of the Walford's free software at http://www.walford.com/software.htm .