1 habit I won’t change even for a longer life

Growing up in Italy, Valter Longo was fascinated by what leads to longevity, especially when it comes to diet.

Longo began studying longevity on a larger scale in 1989. 35 years later, he is director of the Longevity and Cancer Laboratory at the IFOM Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan, Italy.

But even Longo, who hopes to live to be 120, knows it’s important to think about “what people can change and what they can’t change,” including himself.

Here’s one thing Longo says he doesn’t want to change, even though it might increase his chances of living longer.

After decades of research, Longo concludes that “diet is by far the most important factor” for longevity.

Although he eats foods that fit a Mediterranean diet, which studies show may reduce your chances of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes, Longo says it’s also important to eat all of his meals within a certain amount of time each day.

“I recommended 12 hours of fasting per day. Let’s say you eat between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. (or) 7 a.m. (and) 7 p.m.,” he says. This eating pattern is called a fasting-mimicking diet.

Additionally, the old adage that “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper” is also backed by science to lead to better health outcomes and closely aligns with diet food of the oldest people on the planet.

But Longo doesn’t make smaller portions for dinner earlier, and that wouldn’t be ideal for her schedule.

“I eat a pretty big dinner, pretty late at night, and it’s probably not ideal, but it makes my life a lot easier not to eat lunch,” says Longo, who is also director of Leonard Davis’ Longevity Institute. School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

“I don’t eat lunch Monday through Friday and then have a big dinner,” he adds. Longo understands that it would “probably be better to have a big lunch and a small dinner. (But) that’s the way my life is set up.”

Overall, he believes the negative effects of eating a heavy dinner later in the day are relatively small.

“It’s one of the compromises I live with,” Longo says.

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