By Cadence Alexia

9.8.12

Eat, fast, go to taco bell, live longer?

I have some sad and worrying news, a documentary came out on the bbc and according to this Italian scientist guy who hangs out with mice, I'm going to get cancer because I eat too much protein, and too much food in general. Basically, I have sky high levels of IGF1 because I eat like a starved bear at a free picnic.

This kinda sucks, because although I can be quite attractive when I've cleaned up a bit, I'm no where near hot enough to pull off being pale and bald with a fashionably tied headscarf. I have to change my ways, quick.




If I was going to follow the advise of this documentary I would half, or less than half my protein intake, I would have child size meal portions, and eat more plants, and take up alternate fasting every other day, and on the days I wasn't fasting I could eat as much junk food, bread and sugar as I want and it's fine because the day before I only ate a grape and half a taco. Riiiiiight.

BBC - Eat, fast, and live longer.

and here's a link to the 4 parts on youtube, because I don't think the beeb works outside the uk.




Part 4

If you can't, or can't be arsed to watch this I'll explain a little about the important parts of the theory.

Insulin like growth factor one - If you have low levels of this you won't get cancer or heart disease, because instead of your cells making new cells, your old cells start repairing. Awesome, sounds like Claire from heroes. To have this low level naturally though, you have to be a dwarf from a remote village in Ecuador, or, actually be Claire from heroes. Oh. must be nice. 

Generally not eating a lot of food every day means your cells will be more inclined to repair than divide and reproduce, this means low risk of disease because you will have low IGF1. They met up with a skinny guy who calorie restricts on fruit and veg and he was in tip top shape and had super fast reactions, compared to the guy who was normal looking and had shit reactions, fatty insides and high IGF1, so, there must be something in this, I sat up and paid attention to the science.

Starving yourself on 50 calories per day for 86 hours makes these levels go down by half, you will also enjoy tripping balls on hunger and having vivid dreams about sandwiches. The Lower IGF1 only lasts a few weeks so you have to do a four day fast once per month. Four consecutive days per month without food? Fuck. that.

Option 2 - the fast, feed, fast approach. Fast day is 400/500 calories around lunch time. That's it. Sounds miserable.

Feed day. Eat whatever the fuck you like. Order supersize at burger king if you fancy, you'll be fine, because you won't be eating tomorrow either, remember, it's portion sizes and alternate starvation that counts kids, not nutrients, it's a way to extend your life by 20 years or something. 20 more years of being hungry every other day. Joy.

Go Go Mode - If you eat lots of protein your cells are dividing too fast to repair any damage to old cells, and of course, they didn't say how much was too much, they said follow recommended guidelines, and possibly eat less than that. - No mention of who was doing the recommending, no mention of what exactly 'normal' protein intake was. sigh. Anyway, high protein levels mean your cells are always on go go mode, which means they are always dividing and making new, never repairing old. This is how cancer happens. Well, it sounds plausible. I do eat a shed load of protein.

I have to make a choice - No more steak breakfasts, or dust off the trucker cap from 2009 and prepare myself for chemo.

Maybe I was a little too hard on this docco, because it's asking me to eat less food, and that totally touches my nerves. I mean, they did look at science, and play with a fat mouse and a small mouse, and talk to skinny people and little people who never got sick, and a 101 year old marathon runner who eats like a sparrow, and I think they did raise some valid points.  It kind of gives me one more incentive to just try and eat a little less than I do.

I'm now sulking because I've just eaten my second breakfast of the day, because my calorie restricted half size omelet one hour ago just did not cut it.

Paleo Banana Pancakes!!

totally worth dying young for.  




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