During my third year of medical school I stumbled upon an online article about calorie restriction with optimal nutrition. I read about an apparently simple diet intervention that prolonged the average and maximum lifespan of laboratory animals such as yeast, fruit flies, worms and mice. At that time, I wasn’t aware that such experiments were already done on non-human primates too. Honestly, I dismissed it as a curiosity, an intervention that could have some effect in simple organisms such as fruit flies, but something which would never work in complex beings like us. It just seemed too good to be true.

Time passed and proved me wrong. Given an early childhood fascination with the limits of life extension, I studied engineering and medicine in an attempt to radically prolong human lifespan. After a short stint of research in neural prosthetics in a German lab, I realized implanting artificial devices into the human body is not a long-term solution. I returned home where I started the medical residency in geriatrics, the branch of medicine specialized in age-associated diseases.

A funny thing happened then. Reading about theories of aging is one thing. Daily caring for people 3-4 times your age is a completely different thing and I started to connect the dots. I noticed some people aged like wine and others aged like vinegar. According to their skinny frames and detailed lifetime stories, it looked like calorie intake had something to do with it. That’s how I got started in typing the first words for this book.

********* TABLE OF CONTENTS ***********

• Introduction
• Basic Principles of Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition
• What You Will NOT Find in this Book
• How Should You Use This Book?
• Less is More for Rodents. Is It the Same for Humans?
• Indications and Contraindications of Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition
• Medical Tests for Monitoring Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition
• How Do You Choose Quality Food?
• Where to Source Quality Food
• When Looks May Deceive You
• Which Food Choices Provide the Most Nutrients for the Least Amount of Calories?
• Beverages
• The Smoothie Formula
• The Joys of Vegetables
• The Basic Soup
• The Wonders of Roe
• How to Serve Fish Sushi – the Perfect Ocean Food
• Edible Mushrooms
• Pates, Dips and Spreads
• Animal Products and Offal
• A Small Guide to Culinary Herbs and Spices
• The Comfort of Herbal Teas
• Desserts
• A Raw Vegan Cake
• Eating out When Restricting Calories
• How to Turn Quality Ingredients into Amazing Dishes
• Where Can You Source Nutritious Low-Calorie Recipes?
• Cooking Utensils or Tools of the Trade
• Calorie Restriction for the Long Term
• The Ups and Downs of Fasting
• How to Implement Calorie Restriction as a Full-Time Professional
• The Practical Shopping List
• How to Choose Dietary Supplements
• Are There Alternatives to Calorie Restriction?
• The End
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography