From the FightAging newsletter
So, if you can’t exercise, then you should starve yourself to retain your muscle mass and strength?
This is counterintuitive, but the timescales matter. Surely the body would shrink itself down to accommodate the 55% CR. The shrinkage would include muscle mass and strength, especially in a sedentary creature.
Perhaps this study is really examining the long term effects of over eating (ad libitum) while being sedentary. After a lifetime of gluttony, the body has become so dysfunctional that the muscle wastes away. The CR creature, while still pissed off about the lack of food, is much healthier despite its own sedentary lifestyle. Now, if they entered into the competition a properly fed rat that was exercising regularly, how would that fed, exercised rat compare to the CR rat? I don’t think the pissed off CR rat wins the contest. What about an exercised CR rat?
I think that the best path is to consume the least calories and protein necessary to build and maintain the body needed for whatever goal is desired. I don’t know how to do this other than trial and error. Does anyone?
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vongehr
#2
Without CR/fasting or intense exercise, muscles are never long glycogen depleted. This may have long term effects.
Btw, this is yet another red flag for those who rely on CR mimetics, such as rapa, thinking they can do away with most cumbersome fasting etc. and not pay something in the end.
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JKPrime
#3
As I understand it, cr/if (seems that it was a combined treatment with very limited feeding time window) rat muscle will be of higher quality. This, however, doesn’t mean that the cr rats will have more muscle that non cr rats. Hence, depending on a competition such as weightlifting rat Olympics non cr rat that exercises regularly may win against any cr restricted rat.
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