The Seattle Times: Local News: Slashing calories: Can it really lengthen your life?

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2024-09-03 17:30:05

Before taking up his fork, Micky Snir eyes his dinner plate solemnly, as if his life depends on it. In fact, that's what he's counting on.

It's his 38th birthday and his indulgence at Claim Jumper, a Redmond restaurant known for towering stacks of barbecue ribs, is a salmon fillet with the breading scraped off. He eats only part of the fish but dives into the side of steamed vegetables, more in keeping with the Spartan diet he's followed for two years.

The Microsoft software engineer figures that by subsisting on about 2,000 calories a day — nearly 30 percent less than recommended for a man as active as he is — he will tack an extra 15 years onto his life. "I think of it as a living savings account. Instead of eating everything I want now, I save calories so when I'm old I get to live a few more years," he says.

It's a brand of dietary providence foreign to the typical tubby American. But Snir is no crackpot. His regimen has 70 years of science behind it.