Thursday June 1st

Hello Everybody - Welcome to the first day of June 2006. Today the scales read 220.5lbs. Almost out of the 220's - I'm looking forward to the day when I see my weight begin with a "1".

Yesterday was another long day. It was my first day back from being off studying, and like any first day back the e-mail, phone messages and unexpected events where all there. I left work around 7pm at night. Not getting home to close to 8pm again, eating late again. Seems to be a pattern. I rarely get home before 7pm - usually close to 8pm each night. I'm going to have to work on this to get a better balance. Which means cutting back on after work commitments, and leaving work on time!

It was 3pm before I had a chance for Lunch yesterday. A couple of co-workers ordered pizza. I joined them as they ate pizza and I had salad. Smelling the pizza was delicious! If I had not proclaimed to the world by wedding dress goal, I would have given in and ordered pizza with them. Every ounce of my body screamed to me "we want pizza" - I had to keep my mind in check with "no we want health!". Again, another interesting internal dialouge with myself.

Here is an article I found that was interesting. I found it at:

http://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/

STAYING YOUNG WITH LESS CALORIES

The hearts of women who followed a low-calorie, nutritionally balanced diet resembled those of younger people, according to the results of ultrasound function tests. Additionally, they appear to have less inflammation and fibrosis, say researchers in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"Eating less, if it is a high-quality diet, will improve your health, delay aging, and increase your chance of living a long, healthy and happy life," said Luigi Fontana, from the Washington University School of Medicine. "This is the first paper to show that long-term calorie restriction with optimal nutrition has cardiac-specific effects that ameliorate the age-associated decline. This is the first report ever to show that calorie restriction with optimal nutrition may delay primary aging in human beings."

Hearts tend to stiffen and pump less effectively as people get older, but ultrasound examinations showed that the hearts of the people on caloric restriction appeared more elastic than those of the other study subjects. Also, several heart disease risk factors and inflammatory markers - blood pressure, C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and transforming growth factor-beta1 - were lower in the caloric restriction group than in the unmodified diet group.

But the researchers sounded a note of caution, emphasizing that caloric restriction does not mean simply eating less. "Calorie restriction is associated with longevity only when is coupled with optimal nutrition. On the other hand, calorie restriction coupled with malnutrition accelerates aging and causes severe diseases. Therefore, eating half a hamburger, half a bag of French fries and half a can of soft drink is not healthy caloric restriction and is harmful," said Fontana. "It is important to note that the caloric-restriction subjects ate a healthful balanced diet with at least 100 percent of the recommended daily intake of each nutrient, providing approximately 1,671 plus or minus 294 kilocalories per day. The average diet was 23 percent protein, 49 percent complex carbohydrates, and 28 percent fat, including 6 percent saturated fat."

According to Fontana, the diets of people on caloric restriction resemble the traditional Mediterranean diet, which is based on a wide variety of vegetables, olive oil, beans, whole grains, fish and fruit. The diet avoids refined and processed foods, soft drinks, desserts, free sugars, white bread and white pasta.

Commenting on the study, Daniel E. Forman, from the Boston Medical Center, said that the researchers have presented exciting data showing benefits of caloric restriction. "These data provide insight into the impact of diet on intrinsic myocardial function. Our normal Western diet likely induces inflammatory peptides that bring about changes in ventricular histology and function, including higher collagen content and associated tissue stiffening. Nutritionally balanced caloric restriction may constitute a key means to modify these detrimental patterns and mitigate age-related morbidity and mortality," said Forman.

Small Calorie Restriction Benefits Longevity

Adding to previous related research, a new study from the University of Florida (UF) has found that eating a little less food and exercising a little more over a lifespan can reduce, or even reverse, aging-related cell and organ damage. The study, in the journal Antioxidants and Redox Signaling, indicates that even small reductions in calories could have big effects on health.
Working with rats, the UF scientists found that feeding them just 8 percent fewer calories a day while moderately increasing the animals' activity extended their average lifespan and significantly curtailed the negative effects of cellular aging. An 8 percent reduction is the equivalent of a few hundred calories in an average human diet. "This finding suggests that even slight moderation in intake of calories and a moderate exercise program is beneficial to a key organ such as the liver, which shows significant signs of dysfunction in the aging process," said Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, the study's senior author.

In the study, one group of animals ate as much food as they wanted and did not exercise, while another group of animals exercised lightly and were fed slightly less than they would have eaten if allowed to have their fill. Liver samples from these groups were then compared with samples taken from young rats. The old sedentary rats that ate until they were full had increased levels of harmful oxidizing and inflammatory molecules in the liver that were associated with cell damage caused by aging.

Meanwhile, aging rats that exercised and consumed a calorie-restricted diet, had the reverse outcome - they showed a decrease in these molecules in the liver. The researchers believe the study results support the theory that cell death and aging-related organ damage are caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals and by cellular oxidation and inflammation. "In a calorie-restricted environment, you reduce the inflammatory response and prevent cell death," Leeuwenburgh explained.