The beginning of a new year provides an opportunity to change our life in a new direction. Many people make New Year resolutions to quit smoking or to lose weight, and by February the resolutions have been broken and life continues in the same old way. Why is this? Why can’t we keep the promises that we make to ourselves? The reason is very simple: no planning or thought is given to how the promise is to be accomplished.

Keeping a promise requires the same kind of preparation that you need to go on a trip. You need to decide what kind of things you will do. You need to think about what you will wear, how much to pack, and you need to make hotel reservations and arrange transportation. Similarly, keeping a promise to stop smoking or to lose some weight requires preparation and determination. You need to understand that you are going to have nicotine withdrawal symptoms or that you are going to feel hungry. How are you going to handle that? If you don’t have a strategy for coping with the problems that you will face, you are less likely to succeed at keeping your resolution.

Here are some suggestions that will help you:

• Remind yourself of your goal every day
• Learn as much as you can about your goals
• Get help from a support group or friends
• Keep a log to monitor your progress
• Every day, try to get one step closer to your goal
• When you reach your goal, don’t fall back on old habits

Learn how to quit smoking

Bread is a staple that has been around since the early Neolithic era, about 10,000 years ago. At that time, agriculture and domestication of animals started to displace the nomadic hunter-gatherer traditions. The selection of grasses with large seeds gave rise to our modern grains like wheat, barley, rye, millet, and spelt.

Grains consist mainly of protein and carbohydrates. The protein or gluten is sticky and insoluble in water, and the carbohydrates are in the form of starch, sugars, and fiber. A great variety of products can be made when grains are milled into flour.

Mixing flour with water produces a resilient dough which when rolled out thinly and baked produces crispy unleavened bread. When the dough is allowed to ferment by adding yeast to it, the dough becomes spongy with bubbles. This spongy dough produces soft bread when baked. Spongy dough can also be made using chemical leavening agents like baking powder. Crumbly shortbread is made by mixing a fat, such as butter, with dry flour to keep the gluten from aggregating and adding just enough moisture to form the dough. Puff pastry is made by layering fat-containing dough with water-containing dough. The steam pockets created during baking produce a flaky and crunchy pastry.

• Recipe for puff pastry
• Recipe for shortbread
• Recipes for unleavened and leavened breads

Cancer kills over half a million people per year in the U.S. and is the second most common cause of death. Many of these deaths could be prevented by not smoking. The popular concept that cancer is one disease is inaccurate. Cancer is the result of uncontrolled cellular replication caused by damage to the DNA of the cells. Toxic chemicals, such as those found in tobacco, can cause changes in the chemical structure of the cells. The body gets rid of damaged cells by a process called apoptosis which is a series of biochemical events that lead to disintegration of the cell and disposal of the cellular debris. Tumors develop when damaged cells are not destroyed and they continue to reproduce.

German biochemist Otto Warburg (winner of the 1931 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine) proposed that abnormal energy metabolism caused cancer. He showed that tumors have an acidic extracellular environment, and proposed that a switch from oxidative respiration to glycolysis, which produces lactic acid, starts the cell transformation toward cancer. Warburg’s work stimulated interest in the possibility that there was some kind of link between pH and cancer, but it has taken seventy years to show this.

Recent research has identified cellular signaling pathways that become active under alkaline conditions. Dr. Rui Zhao and her colleagues have found that artificially increasing the intracellular pH removes amide functional groups from key cellular proteins (Bcl-xL) and result in apoptosis. This research raises hope that inducing alkalinization may prove an effective strategy to treat a range of cancers.[1]

[1] Gross L (2007) Manipulating Cellular pH Suggests Novel Anticancer Therapy. PLoS Biol 5(1): e10

Cecilia J. Kim, a journalism student at New York University, recently asked me some questions about my practice of Calorie Restriction.  This is a transcript of the interview:

Q: Why did you start CRON? How did you come across it and do you advocate it to others?

A: I needed to lose some weight at age 60, and I started researching several diets to determine which might be the best one for me.  I liked the scientific foundation of the CRON diet as described by Dr. Walford.  The CRON diet puts emphasis on Optimum Nutrition which is what you need to do when you reduce your calories.

Q: Are you aware that most research has been conducted on lab mice, simple unicellular organisms and non-human primates? Some scientists believe that extrapolating findings based on experiments with such animals is not valid for humans, but from your experience do you feel physically younger?

A: You are right, the longevity studies for CRON have been conducted on laboratory animals, but CRON is not only about longevity.  It is about longevity in good health.  There is already substantial scientific evidence that being overweight or obese leads to many health problems.  CRON helps you to stay thin and avoid the problems brought on by excess weight.  Even if humans cannot live longer with CRON, they can stay healthier longer.  That is already beneficial.

Q: Do you experience perpetual hunger? or has your hunger subsided with the duration of your practice of CR?

A: I am not perpetually hungry.  I am quite satisfied for several hours after I eat.    However, I eat only three times per day and I don’t snack.  This means that I am hungry for an hour or two before my next meal.  I think that these periods of hunger help my body burn excess fat and keep my blood glucose from increasing as I age.  If I don’t lose weight on a day-to-day basis, I know that I am not starving myself in spite of being hungry.

Q: How many additional years (approximately) do you expect to gain from from your practice of CR, basically how old do you expect to live to?

A: I probably already increased my life expectancy by at least 10 years by learning how to eat right.  Before CRON, I was eating a lot of pastries, hydrogenated fats, and fried foods.  Since I started eating the right foods in the right proportions, my cholesterol and my weight have both normalized.  Being lean reduces your chances of getting cancer, but if you want to live long you also have to avoid risky activities like mountain climbing, driving without seat belts, and riding bicycles in the streets of Washington, D.C.

Q: Is exercise a part of your CR lifestyle? If so, do you believe that exercise or your restricted diet plays a larger role in your general health?

A: I exercise approximately 30 minutes per day.  I do vigorous, strength-building exercises to try to stay fit.  Exercise has improved my lung function and eliminated some of the allergies and sinus problems that used to bother me.  Scientific studies have confirmed that people who exercise regularly have a lower death rate than sedentary people.  Exercise and diet are two different aspects that contribute to overall health.  You cannot really separate one from the other.

Q: I’m also interested in how CRONies handle American traditions like Thanksgiving.  Can you describe your Thanksgiving dinner (how it was prepared, the thought that went into it) if it were indeed prepared to fit the CR diet?

A: Holidays can be celebrated with healthy meals.  A nice plate of roast turkey with stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and a mixed salad fits very nicely into a CRON diet as long as it is prepared wholesomely.  This means no butter or hydrogenated fats.  Avoid double helpings. Stuff the bird, not yourself.  With modern conveniences like freezers, you can have a nice Thanksgiving dinner and save the leftovers for many, many meals.