This topic is lockedAll:
You may have noticed that there is a "Topic Prefix" dropdown box that includes the option "CR Diet." This tag is for members to post their CR diets for comment, inquiry, and critique, similar to the "Regimens" subtopic in the supplement section.
I get requests for this myself, as does my Beloved, and it's a subject of significant interest on the CR list and (informally) in the CR and Nutrition topics already (but just scattered in with the regular posts).
It doesn't fit well under any existing heading: all specific-individual-diet posts get mixed in with more topic-specific posts in Nutrition and in CR, and clearly the nutritional issues in CR diets are distinct from general Nutrition subjects.
This tag is not for general questions about a CR diet or topics within it, but for presentations of whole diets. Similarly, it is not for the diet of people just eating healthy AL diets, nor people who think they're on CR but haven't actually crunched their energy intake or nutrition; even for people practicing CR, it is not for one to just idly throw up a summary of one's eating pattern. Having a general description of a healthy- (or unhealthy-) looking diet and discussion of how to improve it is certainly a subject of interest in the general nutrition discussion, but useless for CR discussion.
Rather, this tag is for posting representative diets of people who are serious about doing CR, rigorously defined as such: Calorie Restriction with Adequate Nutrition, documented with data from nutrition software for a representative period. One must have these minimum issues addressed before you can even begin tweaking around the edges ("get some lycopene!" "what, no fruit?" "There's an awful lot of dairy there"); they are the baseline, minimum threshold issues that need to be addressed, quantitatively, for analysis of a CR diet per se.
This standard will be enforced, with posts not meeting the requirements moved to 'Nutrition' and/or the "CR Diet" tag removed. The rule will be that posts must include dietary records run through nutrition software for a representative day or (preferred) average data for a week, to show quantitatively intake of Calories and essential nutrients. CR is a quite specific kind of diet, where first and foremost the issue is to ensure Calorie Restriction with Adequate Nutrition, and you can't meaningfully discuss that balance in the absence of hard data: are you getting your vitamins and minerals, or not? Are you meeting your Calorie targets, or not? And now, arguably: is your protein intake excessive? (To get a handle on this last question, eg, you need intake in GRAMS, not "I get most of my protein from fish").
On the other hand, the requirement for documentation is not intended to imply that a poster would have to be at a certain "level" of Calorie restriction to qualify for inclusion here. I don't even personally think one CAN quantify "%CR" in humans, and I don't think that being able to do so would be of much practical utility IAC. I have my own, hopefully informed ideas on how to determine whether you're on CR at all, but there will be no attempt at enforcement of this or any other standard of "enough" CR (which would be impossible anyway: one could just make such things up
). The point is simply for the posts to be data-driven, for meaningful analysis, working from CR + AN, and not useless abstractions.I will be posting my own diet within the next week, as an example -- but if you've been ready to do this forever, and just needed the right nudge -- please post away!
Edited by Michael, 15 March 2011 - 09:38 PM.
