I was thinking in particular of a guy named Mawson who went through
hell at the South Pole and lost something like half his body weight,
starting at something like 270 (been 15, 20 years since I read about
it) and very little of it fat. Now this is extreme, nuking the
calories to stave off cold and damned near starving to death. (His
dogs and supplies went down a crevasse, bye-bye, then his skinnier
partner went terminal croaked and he couldn't bring himself to leave
before he croaked or to eat him afterward.) Gets my vote as Toughest
SOB Ever To Walk The Earth.
Anyway, even a situation not so extreme--anything demanding reserves
for survival (whether because of illness or environment), if you
don't have 'em, you're outta the game.
I've been poking around, looking at CR--and (aside from thinking
people of that bodyweight CAN'T be healthy) it just seems to me that
depending on personal habits (office worker or mountain climber/south
pole explorer, for example) and the fickle flagellae of
microorganisms, CR could make you more likely to die early. (This
excluding attack by large fur-bearing mammals, which may require some
serious body mass for protection/attack.)
Then you take something like cancer and chemo, which sucks up the
pounds--the more you start with, the longer you seem to last.
All told, I'm not sure CR is a reasonable bet you'll live longer.
??
jm
On 18 Apr 2001, at 1:13, Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
>
> John Marlow wrote:
>
> > To wax completely anecdotal for a moment, it's often the case that
> > when a severe illness strikes, bodyweight plummets and a healthy man
> > of 250 may quickly drop to 180, and then recover. Sometimes they put
> > the weight back on, often they are "never the same."
> >
> > It occurs to me that someone starting out this skinny can't be
> > healthy, and has no reserves to spare; you get hit with a severe
> > illness, you die. True, you may (or may not) be less likely to
> > contract it--but it seems a bad bet overall.
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> >
> > looking for excuses, the not-skinny
> >
> > jm
> >
>
> About the reserves, it is true and false. Think about this, body reserves form
> fat are left over as a defense from back in the days when food might be
> unavailable. Also, there are large people and then there are people who are not
> as mobile because of higher concentrations of body fat, but some people that are
> large actually have larger muscles, so there are fat people and fat people.
>
> My metabolism, for example, is fast to the point that there is more body fat for
> being relatively sedentary and eating fatty foods than before. When I say
> relatively sedentary that means sitting at a computer for hundreds and hundreds
> of hours mixed with sleep and walking around.
>
> Is there a particular reason that Spike's physical characteristic is of note
> herein or is this moreso recognition of Spike for something? I will reread what
> is there.
>
> >
> > On 17 Apr 2001, at 20:43, Spike Jones wrote:
> >
> > > > "True, alas true. A quarter century of CR has left a mere
> > > > shell of a man, 6 ft tall, 125 pounds. I have a washboard
> > > > back. I prefer the phrase "brain and bone" however."
> > >
> > > Al Villalobos wrote:
> > >
> > > > Do people flee in horror when you take your shirt off at the beach? ;-)
> > >
> > > No. I flee in horror from the beach.
> > >
> > > Actually if I ever go there, I cover all my skin, long pants, long
> > > sleeves, sox, shoes and hat.
> > >
> > > > ...have you been tracking your CR with blood
> > > > chemistry tests of any kind?
> > > > CBC, glucose, IGF-1, or any of those?
> > > > If available, I think they would be MOST interesting to the group.
> > >
> > > How do I get all that stuff? I have records from 18 blood donations,
> > > but I dont think they measure any of those parameters.
> > >
> > > Ive never been scientific about CR other than to alternate
> > > vitamins, a few months with, a few months without for
> > > several years to see what they do, and to vary the calories
> > > to see if there is any correllation, CR with depression/anxiety,
> > > or anything else. I kept a record book for a few years
> > > as a teenager. My admittedly unscientific finding: the
> > > vitamins didn't do anything at all, and if there is any
> > > correllation between CR and depression it was weak
> > > indeed in my case. Perhaps I was using the wrong
> > > vitamins? Mine were standard grocery store variety,
> > > nothing exotic. I eventually gave them up, but I may
> > > go back again to a limited regimen.
> > >
> > > > Were you a skinny sort of guy before you started CR? To me, at 70.5" and
> > > > 165lbs and 8% bodyfat, 6' 125lbs seems almost borderline impossible.
> > >
> > > Ja, its scary. My BMI has always been in the
> > > neighborhood of 17. On the brighter side, Ive
> > > escaped the health problems that have cursed
> > > my family. Im 40: several people have told me
> > > that I dont look a day over 39.
> > >
> > > Of course, they told me that 10 years ago, but
> > > lets not get hung up in the details.
> > >
> > > On the down side, Im pretty sure that CR causes
> > > severe brain damage. Thats my story anyway, and Im
> > > sticking to it. spike
> > >
> > >
> >
> > John Marlow
>
> I do not think I exercise that much. I think Spike has said things about
> motorcycling. I think action sports are interesting, like driving sports.
>
> What is CR?
>
> There are all kinds of drugs. Basically, drugs are chemicals. Alcohol, for
> example, drinking alcohol, is a simple and unsurprisely effective drug.
>
> Ross
>
> --
> Ross Andrew Finlayson
> Finlayson Consulting
> Ross at Tiki-Lounge: http://www.tiki-lounge.com/~raf/
> "It's always one more." - Internet multi-player computer game player
>
>
John Marlow
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:47 MDT