Protein

When it comes to nutrition, we seem to know so little. Of the three major components of our diet, we debate quite a lot in this day and age, whether to eat low carb or low fat, mainly because we are preoccupied with obesity.

What about protein?

The US guidelines recommend a daily protein dietary allowance, measured as intake per body weight, is 0.8 g/kg. However, this recommendation is based on structural requirements, but disregards use of protein for energy metabolism. Too much protein puts strains on kidney. Proteolytic fermentation in our gut, breaks down proteins in food, and can produce toxins and carcinogens. Thus, a diet lower in protein reduces exposure to toxins.

Proteins are made of amino acids, out of which 8 (or 9 if we count histidine) are essential for humans and must obtain from food sources.

I do not know how much research has been done, but the optimal levels for essential amino acids as recommended by the Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition Board are as follows:

Essential Amino Acid/ mg/g of Protein
Tryptophan/ 7
Threonine/ 27
Isoleucine/ 25
Leucine/ 55
Lysine/ 51
Methionine+Cystine/ 25
Phenylalanine+Tyrosine/ 47
Valine/ 32
Histidine/ 18

Unfortunately, unless you are doing research, nobody can follow the above profile.

Most animal sources have the complete complement of all the essential amino acids in adequate proportions. Apart from soybeans, vegetable sources of protein are more often lacking in one or more essential amino acids than animal sources, typically being deficient in lysine and methionine. Therefore, it is more complicated to be a vegetarian. I am a non strict vegetarian, as I eat fish, seafood and eggs. My grandmother was a strict vegetarian (vegan) since the age of 60 and lived till 91. So I do believe that one can be healthy and vegetarian. Tofu was her source of essential amino acids.

It is generally accepted that caloric restriction extend life span. Methionine restriction imparts at least some of the effects of CR without the CR.

One interesting aspect of all those long lived Chinese people (over the age of 90), is that they all eat very little in general and even less in meats. Practically people who could remember the years of great famine (1958-61), were forever affected and even if they could have a lot of foods available to them today, they still would not eat a lot. Therefore, it seems to me that they are not only doing CR, but also methionine restriction.

New way of counting calories

Instead of counting daily calories, I just tabulated the last 100 days of food by weight from grocery bills.

On average two of us ate 3700 calories per day with 38% fat, 44% carbohydrates and 17% protein. Omega 6 to 3 ratio is around 3, not taken into consideration of occasional spoonful of flax oil.

My BMI is at 18.8 and Richard is at 22.1; most people “hate” us because we look so thin.

Here are some of the foods we ate:

25 kg of fish
108 eggs
9 kg of nuts
18 kg of cheese
46 kg of grapes
32 kg of apples
Over 100 kg of vegetables
22 liters of red wine
3 kg of chocolate
& etc.

Looking at the amount of foods we ate, I would assume that we are over-eating. In reality, we are 10 to 20% caloric restricted.

I would like to pad myself on the back and say “Keep up the good diet”.

Meditation or Oxygen Restriction?

There is an interesting article which explores intermittent calorie and oxygen restriction as means for periodic rejuvenation:

Live Happy, Healthy and Long

We do not know what the deciding factors are for us humans to live a long healthy life, say 100 years of independent and disease-free life. But there are some in the world who have achieved this, so it must be possible.

For all I have read and heard, there are at least 4 things we have to do in order to extend our health span.

1. Eat with restrain (Caloric Restriction).
2. Stay physically active.
3. Have a purpose
4. Have a society of friends (a sense of belonging)

- Eat with restrain (Caloric Restriction)

How I tried to achieve this is by first calculating my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate):

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )

Daily caloric intake can be estimated simplistically as follows:

If you are sedentary: BMR + BMR x 20%
If you are moderately active: BMR + BMR x 30-40%
If you are very active: BMR + BMR x 50%
If you are extra active: BMR + BMR x 60-80%

In my case BMR = 1195
50% more of BMR = 1790

To eat with restrain or to practice caloric restriction, I have decided to cut back 30% from 1780, which comes to 1255.

Next step is to decide what to eat.

The easiest way to cut down calorie is to cut down starch, which includes potatoes, bread, rice and pastas. What we do is to eliminate potatoes and bread, and eat moderate amount of rice and pastas.

We also started to adhere with one rule, which is to avoid refined sugar. Read labels on ingredients, if you see sugar, glucose, fructose or sucrose in the ingredients, simply do not buy them. You will be surprised how much junk food you can avoid. Most ready made foods (even those that claimed healthy) have sugar added. We still drink fruit juices moderately that are processed without added sugar.

Right now food we eat in a typical day constitutes of:

Breakfast: Egg, Apple, Cheese & Tea
Lunch: Frozen Peas (eaten raw), Ceviche (tuna or scallop marinated with lemon juice, tomato, garlic and oregano), Grapes, Raw almonds/ pecans/walnut & cheese
Super: Rice or Spaghetti with fish (tuna, salmon, mahi mahi, haddock & basa) or seafood (shrimp and scallop, lobster if in season) and vegetables (typically carrots, onion, tomatoes, okra, paprika, cauliflowers & broccoli)

The difference between what Richard eat and what I eat is that I do not eat cheese and I only eat one egg yolk.

Calorie intake in a day is around 1400 to 1600, so I am only cutting back 10 to 20% instead of the 30% goal I have set for myself.

This practice reminds me of my youthful days trying to limit my monthly expenses to below $800. I never succeeded strictly speaking, always exceeding by $50 or so, but still cutting down my monthly expenses drastically.

My BMI at the moment is 19.8. Two years ago, my BMI was 17.6, which was way better in my opinion. The normal BMI (18.5-24.9) was probably set for Caucasians. I am Asian and have a small bone structure. At 17.6 BMI, I was way more flexible and felt smarter.

My goal for BMI in 5 months is 18.8 or less.

- Stay physically active

We are walking 8 to 14 km a day which takes 1.5 to 3 hours and I have a small perennial garden, which takes some physical upkeep.

- Have a purpose

Have purpose means that you know why you get up in the morning. I am working on to extend my health span for as long as possible, say 58 more years until I am 105. I want to be able to live independently until the day I die and enjoy every minute of it.

- Have a society of friends

The most important friend is oneself. We often forget that.

According to Marvin Minsky, a human mind is made of many smaller processes, of which he called them agents. I believe whenever conflicts arise among these agents in one’s mind, one is losing oneself as a friend. Or simplistically in Freud’s language, the id, ego and super-ego should all be aligned with the same purpose.

When you have yourself as a friend, the next most important friend is your spouse, whom I am lucky to have.