Are You Cycling Slower Than You Need To Be?
By Kevin Kolodziejski
Today’s title is a curiously phrased question, made that way by the seemingly puzzling use of need to be. For we all know that if you want to be a successful racer, avoid burnout, or fully enjoy cycling regardless of your commitment level, you need to ride slower rather than faster much of the time you’re in the saddle.
But what about all that time you’re not in the saddle? Such as the time you’re at the dinner table. Are there things that you’re doing then, like eating too much, that adversely affect the speed you achieve on the bike, whether it be during a group-ride sprint for bragging rights or a solo 30-miler with five four-minute VO2 intervals?
Now that’s another question worth contemplating, and particularly at this time of the year, for research has determined that on average people eat 222 calories more per day in the fall than in the spring.
Why We Eat More in the Fall
In an article Michael Greger, M.D., wrote for NutritionFacts.org — the website he founded “to improve public health by providing the latest in evidence-based nutrition and health research in an accessible format” — Greger explains this increase can’t be attributed to colder temperatures “since we eat more in fall than in winter.” But the fact that fall precedes winter may help explain the discrepancy.
For a “primary driver” in human evolution is avoiding starvation, and winter is the most likely time for this to happen. So our caveman ancestors became genetically programmed to prepare for it and would eat all they could before it. Since that genetic programming’s still in place — our DNA is a 99.7-percent match with a caveman’s — we eat more in the fall, too. But we do so unnecessarily, in an erroneous attempt to protect ourselves against “the deprivation of winter [that] no longer comes.”
In light of that, it would seem to make no sense to go against genetics and go on a diet as the days get shorter and shorter. But regardless of when the sun rises and sets, what really makes no sense is a misbegotten notion too many people hold.
The Misbegotten Notion Too Many People Hold
That a diet is something you go on, and the only reason to go on one is to lose weight.
While a diet can indeed be used for that, it’s important not to forget what the word diet primarily means: the selection of foods you habitually eat. So even though the fall may not be the best time to adopt a diet with the intention of losing weight, it’s as good a time as any to improve the quality of yours.
For while there’s no doubt that losing weight when you need to helps your health, what’s just as true is improving your diet does far more good than create weight loss.
The Other Good Things a Healthy Diet Can Do
Ask the people at UnitedHealthcare and they’ll tell you it will lower the risk of serious disease, provide additional energy, permit deeper sleep, aid the immune system and eyesight, strengthen bones and teeth, lessen the pain in joints, and sharpen the mind.
All of that will allow you to answer the question posed in today’s title in the negative and — far more importantly — slow the rate at which you age. At least that’s the presumptive conclusion of a study published in the April 2026 issue of Aging Cell. Titled “Short-Term Dietary Intervention Alters Physiological Profiles Relevant to Ageing,” it took 104 people between the ages of 65 and 75 who were non-smokers and non-vegetarians with no serious health complications or food allergies and had them follow one of four diets for four weeks.
Two of the diets were omnivorous, with one being high in fat (between 37 and 41 percent) and low in carbs (between 41 and 43 percent). The other was high in carbs (53 percent) and low in fat (between 28 and 29 percent). Two were “semi-vegetarian,” meaning mostly vegetarian with about 30 percent of the protein being animal-based. Both of these diets followed the same high-fat, low-carb or low-fat, high-carb pattern as the omnivorous ones.
All four diets provided the same overall percentage of calories from protein, and all 104 participants received all meals via a food delivery program. One important note about the study that shows it wasn’t designed for weight loss is that participants were instructed to eat as much as they wanted and were deliberately provided with an excess of food so that they could do so.
The Most Important Note About the Study
The most important note about the study is that through the assessment of 20 different aging biomarkers — things such as measuring blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin and C-reactive protein (which is used to assess the degree of inflammation in the body) — the researchers discovered the participants who ate the high-carb omnivorous diet had a “statistically significant” drop in biological age from the beginning until the end of the four-week study. (In the scientific world, the term statistically significant means it’s rather unlikely an outcome occurred by chance.)
Those who ate either of the semi-vegetarian diets also showed a reduction in biological age, just not enough to be deemed statistically significant. Those who ate the high-fat omnivorous diet — the diet the researchers felt was most like the typical American’s — “showed no meaningful changes.”
And while the researchers still consider it to be “an open question” as to “whether these changes represent meaningful shifts in ageing biology or transient physiological fluctuations,” they do stress that their findings “align with broader literature linking high-fibre, plant-forward diets to lower inflammation, improved metabolic function and reduced age-related disease risk.”
Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.
A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.
