HealthyRetired · My Story · Personal experience by Healthy Retired

In the first parts of my story, I described how my interest in food and health developed. But what does that look like in everyday life?

A normal day is quite simple: a morning shower, perhaps a swim, food prepared at home, some exercise, a little reading and an early dinner.

A morning without breakfast

I usually wake up between 6 and 7 a.m. and take a cold shower first.

I do not eat breakfast. I believe in intermittent fasting—but with my own twist: I drink a cup of matcha tea with lemon juice.

Intermittent fasting means alternating periods of eating with periods without food. One version, called time-restricted eating, keeps food within a particular daily window instead of spreading meals and snacks from early morning until late at night. It is about timing, rather than a particular list of foods. [1]

My routine is a personal version of that approach. Matcha powder and lemon juice contain small amounts of energy, so my morning drink is not a strict, calorie-free fast. I prefer to describe what I actually do rather than claim a perfectly strict fasting schedule.

For more on the science, see our article Autophagy, Food and Gentle Fasting. Autophagy is part of the cell's maintenance and recycling system; skipping breakfast does not prove that it has reached a particular level, and there is no universal hour at which it suddenly switches on.

If the weather is nice, I go for a swim. That gives my morning some movement before I turn my attention to lunch.

Preparing lunch at home

At around 10 a.m., I begin cooking. We eat lunch at 11 a.m.

My girlfriend is Thai, so I mostly prepare Thai food. It might be yam woon sen, a green curry, a massaman curry, or simply fried rice.

Cooking at home allows me to choose what goes into the meal. I prefer to avoid added sugar and MSG, and preparing the food myself makes that choice easier.

When we go out, I usually choose Western food because I want to avoid the added sugar and MSG that can be used in Thai restaurant dishes. That is my personal preference, rather than a guarantee about either cuisine: Western dishes and sauces can contain them too, while Thai food can be prepared without them. Asking about ingredients is more reliable than the name of the cuisine.

About 30 minutes after lunch, I eat a piece of fruit as dessert—usually a banana or mango.

That half-hour gap is simply part of my habit. I am not suggesting that everyone needs to wait before eating fruit.

Movement and reading in the afternoon

In the afternoon, I do some more exercises and read newsletters.

Food and movement belong together in my approach to health. I want to nourish my body, but I also want to keep using it. My exercise routines are small enough to fit into an ordinary day.

Reading gives me another way to keep exploring the subjects that interest me. HealthyRetired grew out of that curiosity, and it remains part of my daily life.

An early dinner—and my evening seeds

We eat dinner at 5 p.m. Around half an hour later, I have another piece of fruit.

At 7 p.m., I take two tablespoons of my mixed, ground pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Those seeds count as food. This means my usual eating window extends from lunch at about 11 a.m. until the seeds at 7 p.m.—roughly eight hours. From then until lunch the next day is approximately 16 hours, with my matcha-and-lemon drink during the morning.

So it would be misleading to count my overnight break from the 5 p.m. dinner and ignore the seeds. They are part of the routine too.

I keep the ground seed mixture refrigerated in an airtight container. Their evening timing is my personal habit; it does not establish that seeds work better at 7 p.m. for everyone.

Bedtime at ten

At 10 p.m., we go to sleep.

And that is what a normal day looks like in my life. Nothing particularly elaborate: two meals, fruit, seeds, movement and time to read.

It is the routine I have chosen for myself. Other people have different needs, responsibilities and health conditions, so their day may look quite different.

For me, this is another chapter of MY Biotics: taking ideas I have encountered over the years and shaping them into the way I actually live.

A note for readers: This is my personal routine, not a fasting prescription. Before changing your diet or eating schedule based on this website, consult your doctor or another qualified health practitioner, especially if you take glucose-lowering medication, have a medical condition, are frail or are losing weight unintentionally. Eating enough energy and protein remains important. Do not change medication without professional advice.

Background source: NIDDK: time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting, checked on 12 October 2026. The daily schedule, meals and preferences are the author's own account.