By Kevin Kolodziejski
After being introduced to a really fit-looking middle-aged female (thank you, my brother) and small talking with her for a while, the Jack LaLanne in me asked her what she does to look the way she looks.
My best guess about the matter (and I love guessing about such matters) was that she had been a serious soccer player in high school and college and now sates her competitive desire by doing CrossFit workouts four to five times a week. (Though I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she raced at the local velodrome and lifted weights to augment her cycling.) Instead of saying anything about physical activity, however, she praised her diet.
The 16/8 Diet
“The 16/8,” she said, “has been really good for me.”
To which I replied, “That’s interesting,” and meant it. For I had tried that diet where you fast for 16 hours every day, eat all your meals in an eight-hour window, and it just didn’t work for me.
More importantly, the 16/8 diet may not work for you.
Not if, besides having a really fit-looking body in the present moment, you want to have more total future moments and healthier ones at that. As well as eat supper at what’s considered the normal time, between 6:00 and 7:00 pm. I issue these warnings based on the key takeaway from a study published this September in Communications Medicine — and the following bit of simple math.
A Bit of Simple Math
If you’re following the 16/8 diet and finish supper at about 7:00 p.m., that means you can’t eat again until 11:00 a.m. the next morning. Which may present no problem if you’re working from home, not working at all, or have a boss who allows you to take an early lunch.
But what is sacrificed in all of these scenarios is breakfast. Or is it? For you could very well argue that the first meal of the day — whenever it occurs and whatever it comprises — breaks the fast created by sleep and therefore serves as breakfast, regardless of the time it is eaten.
I’d agree with that, and the researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital probably would, too, even the ones who analyzed data from the University of Manchester Longitudinal Study of Cognition in Normal Healthy Old Age. Doing so gave them access to surveys about meal timing and health behaviors taken on five different occasions across a span of 22 years by nearly 3000 British adults who were between 42 and 92 years of age at baseline. Those surveys contain something concerning about delaying eating after rising.
The Concerning Something
That the sort of delay in eating after rising that almost certainly occurs when following the 16/8 diet can be linked to a higher risk of death. The number crunching revealed that each additional hour’s delay between waking and eating increased the risk between eight and 11 percent. Furthermore, the published paper notes that a later breakfast time “was consistently associated with having physical and mental health conditions such as depression, fatigue and oral health problems.”
Ask the Jack LaLanne in me what to make of this, and I’ll shrug my shoulders (possibly as the finishing movement to the squat thrusts I’m doing while we’re having our conversation). But my silence stems not from uncertainty, lack of knowledge (and certainly not shortness of breath from the squat thrusts), but from a conviction I hold, one I often convey in the health-and-fitness column I’ve been writing for 36 years, and one I expressed here two weeks ago. That any time you read about health-related studies, you can’t assume those results will hold true for you, and that you must always ask yourself this question:
‘How Do I Differ From the People in the Article?’
While you very well may be close to 64 years old (the average age of the participants in the aforementioned study) and female (as 71.5 percent of them were), what are the odds you also eat breakfast around 8:20 a.m., lunch around 12:40 p.m., and supper around 6:00 p.m. as was found to be typical in the study? Moreover, what are the odds that, like the average of those in the study, you go to bed five and a half hours after your last meal?
Now if you’re thinking all of this is interesting, but that this guy has no right comparing himself to Jack LaLanne, here’s another name for you, and it comes with no comparison: Jeff Cavaliere. He’s a middle-aged guy who just happens to be a physical fitness expert and the creator of the 90-day workout program ATHLEAN-X™ — and whose body is so impressively sculpted that it probably makes even that really fit female mentioned in the intro a little bit jealous. He’s 49 years old and when his body fat is measured with skin calipers, it comes in at under 6 percent.
He’s that ripped despite the fact he usually finishes his dinner far later than recommended, often around midnight. No, that isn’t a typo. After his normally late day at work, Cavaliere comes home, plays with his kids, and only then works out. But that means, as he once told Peter Attia on a podcast, “Dinner could come at 11:30, sometimes even 12:00.” But that practice doesn’t seem to hurt his physique one bit, even though a paper published this September in Communications Medicine warns “emerging evidence largely suggests that later meal times, particularly eating during the biological evening, is detrimental to health.”
So my second question to you is about the first one I asked: Do you now better understand why it’s so important to continually ask ‘How do I differ from the people in the article?’
Ongoing research in health and fitness is crucial; it’s not gospel. That’s why you always need to recognize the ways in which the research participants are different from you, and then — based on your abilities, goals, and what’s been uncovered in the study — intelligently experiment.
That is, if you want to really benefit from all the ongoing research.
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.
You are saying exactly what Peter Attia said in an article I read recently. No big news.
I backed into restricted time eating by accident. I eventually realized I wasn’t hungry at 6:30 in the morning so I stopped forcing myself to eat breakfast first thing in the morning before going to work. I started waiting until I was hungry to eat, which usually occurs between 10 and noon. I also try to stop eating by 7pm so I fall into a 14-16 hour fast each day.
However, I need to modify this depending on my riding requirements – I do eat early on days when I ride in the morning, and eat later when I ride in the evening.
It is said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I agree, but it doesn’t say when one has to eat breakfast. It could be at lunchtime.
Find out what works for you – listen to your hunger.
I’m confused and gained no new knowledge from the article. Studies can skew things. People over 60 that don’t eat breakfast or eat it later probably have other factors affecting that. If you’re on the 16/8 plan, why can’t I eat breakfast at 7AM and dinner or “Linner” as we like to call it by 3 or 4PM.
Breakfast before a workout is very important. I was leading a group. around a banked turn in a velodrome and a rider warming down in the apron rode straight up the banked turn into me… He apologized after meeting me in the ER by telling me passed out. because he skipped breakfast that morning. He had his helmet off and fractured his skull. I escaped with an AC separation and broken helmet.
I just asked myself “How do I differ from the people in the article (i.e. Kevin)? My answer is I am nothing like him and will therefore ignore everything negative in his article.
Weekdays P-90-X at 8 am. Breakfast 9:30 or 10am, dinner at 6pm for the past 14 years