By Kevin Kolodziejski
He called it “absolutely surprising and mind-blowing.” And while you may or may not come to agree, it’s an example for sure of something else. Why you should never stop looking for ways to increase your health — or ever get bored with cycling.
So who’s the “he” and what’s the “it”? Not so fast, my friend.
After all, you’ve come to a cycling website and this is a cycling article. So what needs to be addressed next to give the “he” and the “it” the utmost impact is an in-depth explanation of why I wrote what I wrote four lines ago. That is, why I didn’t indulge my adoration of alliteration (as I’ve already done twice in this paragraph) and write bored by bicycling.
Because bicycling and cycling, you see, are not quite the same to me.
Bicycling provides excellent exercise, inexpensive transportation, and a whole lot more. Cycling’s all that and includes lifestyle, a lifestyle that’s easy to love. That love leads to a certain mentality. You become, as I like to say, a “cycologist.” Case in point: Chris Horner.
Why Chris Horner’s a Cycologist
A psychologist studies the human mind, its functions, and how it affects behavior. Same with a cycologist. Except many of the latter’s studies take place at a decent speed rather than a respected university — and are performed on oneself instead of others.
While I’m sure he had earned his first diploma sometime before he turned pro, Chris Horner kept accruing degrees while he rode as one for a mind-blowing (there’s that word again) 23 years. And guess what he said about that fact on a recent Chris Horner’s Corner podcast? That because he never enjoyed them, being forced to do intervals as part of his training would’ve probably kept him from racing. Instead, he did “big efforts” during training crits, fast group rides, and solitary climbs.
But even when that day’s ride called for big efforts, he’d “first and foremost [go] on feel.” Alone on a climb, for instance, he’d listen to his body as if it were a patient reclining on a couch and recounting its childhood. If Horner didn’t feel right early in the effort, he wouldn’t stick to the plan where he had to do “this now.” Instead, he’d sit up and shut it down.
What You Can Learn From Horner’s Cycology
Part of the cycology that led to Chris Horner wining both a stage of the Tour DuPont in 1996 and the overall GC at the Vuelta a España in 2013 — making him at 41 the oldest ever Grand Tour GC winner, by the way — can be encapsulated in a cliché that provokes the PETA people to no end: “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” And whether use of the phrase offends you or not, the fact is a cycologist applies that idea to his cycling circumstances constantly. It’s why — as a result of my advancing age more so than a distaste for intervals — I now do something similar to Horner’s “big efforts” in lieu of intervals (without feeling too guilty about it). Such an example is why I lay claim to a bachelor’s degree in cycology.
While my degree is no match for Horner’s multiple PhDs, it certainly has done right by me. It’s kept me from ever getting bored as well as kept me healthy — and feeling much differently than the mysterious “he” mentioned in the intro.
The Mysterious ‘He’ and What’s Blown His Mind
That would be Dr. Min-Dian Li, professor of internal medicine and cell biology, and director of the Center for Circadian Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease at Army Medical University in China. What’s blown his mind are the results of a study he led and was published in the June 2023 issue of Nature Metabolism. To be specific (and repetitive for emphasis), he called those results “absolutely surprising and mind-blowing” in a Medical News Today interview.
But I was not surprised. My mind was not blown. That’s because I have gotten — and am still getting — similar results in an ongoing experiment of one that’s part of my never-ending postgraduate studies.
The Change That Made Mice to Run Twice as Far
As you may know, recent studies with mice and humans have shown significant health benefits resulting from a pattern of eating that’s usually called Intermittent Fasting. The diet has many forms; the one that appears to be most popular has you consume food for 8 hours during the day and follow that with a 16-hour fast. To simulate an antithetical diet, Li’s team fed a group of mice during their typical resting period for 3 weeks. Mice are nocturnal by nature but you’re not, so while the feeding occurred during the day, it’d be during the time you’d be fasting if on an IF diet.
What blew Li’s mind was how the change in eating time affected the mice’s ability to exercise.
When compared to other mice fed during the time mice are normally up and about, the mice fed when they should’ve been in bed ran on the exercise wheel twice as far and twice as long. And because Li’s mind was blown, he had his team recheck the results using every imaginable cohort, but the results held firm. The mind-blowing discovery, in Li’s words, was “robust” and “reproducible.”
From Mind-Blowing to Mind-Knowing
My mind, though, wasn’t blown away by Li’s findings. Because when I was initially pursuing my degree in cycology — riding 10,000 miles or so a year in my quest to win road races and time trials, while working about 60 hours a week teaching and writing — I did (had to do, really) most of my eating at night. More than half and sometimes closer to two-thirds of my daily calories were consumed during supper, an after-supper snack, and — here comes the really weird part — two snacks I’d have after sleeping a bit. Even weirder, I’m still eating this way at 63, and it’s still working for me.
To this day, my body fat percentage has remained low. Back in the day, it was always really low and my racing results were often really good. Yes, I know that eating much at night as well as fasting for no more than 8 hours each day flies in the face of what’s the general medical consensus today. But hey, how many MDs also have degrees in cycology?
All the more reason for you to keep hitting the books by riding the roads, my friend.
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.
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