Over 40, fit, and still showing up for everyone.
I'm Coach E: active-duty soldier, soccer coach and father of three. I walk 5 miles a day, eat clean within a time-restricted eating window, and keep all four burners lit: family, friends, health and work.
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Blog
Short reads. One idea, one thing to do today.
Nutrition
No breakfast. A 16-hour fast, an 8-hour eating window, whole foods and no alcohol.
My daily window
Mornings are water, black coffee or plain tea. My first meal comes at noon, my last bite by 8 PM. On heavy training days I may open the window a little earlier.
My rules
- Hit 140+ g of protein in two or three meals.
- No alcohol, no fried food, no sugary drinks.
- Vegetables or fruit at every meal.
- Water all day, electrolytes on long or hot days.
- Walk 10 minutes after every meal.
- Meal-prep on Sunday so there's never a reason to grab junk.
Weekly grocery list
Chicken breast, ground turkey, lean beef, salmon, tuna, sardines, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, lentils, black beans
Spinach, broccoli, peppers, sweet potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, berries, bananas, apples, avocados
Quinoa, brown rice, oats, whole-grain wraps, olive oil, almonds, walnuts, chia seeds, natural peanut butter
Fasting isn't right for everyone, including people who are pregnant, on blood-sugar medication, or with a history of disordered eating. Talk to your doctor first.
How has eating clean changed things for you?
Share what you eat, what changed, or what helped you stick with it.
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My Day
Five miles split into three walks, fitted around duty, practice and family.
How do you fit movement into your day?
Share your routine, your walks, or what finally worked.
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The Four Burners
The old theory says turn one off to succeed. I say turn the flame down, never off, and check every burner each Sunday.
Family
One undistracted meal a day. A walk with the kids every evening. Date night every other week.
Minimum: one real meal togetherFriends
Sunday walk-and-talk with friends. One call a week to an old battle buddy.
Minimum: one real conversation a weekHealth
5 miles a day, strength training 3 times a week, time-restricted eating, 7+ hours of sleep.
Minimum: 3 miles on the worst dayWork
Lead well, do the hard work early, coach the team, leave work at work.
Minimum: protect focus, end on timeThe Sunday Burner Check
- Rate each burner from 1 to 5.
- Pick the lowest one.
- Choose one small action for it this week.
- Stack burners when you can: a walk with your kid is Family and Health at once.
Where the Four Burners comes from
A story told on an Australian road trip
The idea was popularized by writer David Sedaris in his 2009 New Yorker essay "Laugh, Kookaburra." On a road trip through Australia, a friend who had retired after a successful career described life as a stove with four burners: family, friends, health and work.
The lesson was blunt. To be successful, you have to turn one burner off. To be very successful, you have to turn off two.
From "turn one off" to "seasons"
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, helped spread the theory and suggested ways to live with it: hand off or automate what you can, set clear limits on your ambition, and turn burners up or down through different seasons of life.
Greg McKeown's book Essentialism makes a related case. Trade-offs are unavoidable, so choose them on purpose and focus your energy on what matters most.
Turn it down. Never turn it off.
I agree that you can't run all four burners on high at once. But I've seen what happens when one goes out completely. When I let my health go cold for years, it nearly took the other three with it. So I keep every burner lit, give each one a minimum flame I never go below, and turn them up or down as the season demands. That's the whole idea behind Keep All Four Lit.
How do you keep your burners lit?
Share how you balance family, friends, health and work.
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The Science
Every habit I teach is backed by research. Here's what it says, without the hype.
Fasting, simply explained
Fasting just means going a set time without food. People do it for health, discipline or faith. Here are three common kinds.
Eat in a window
You cycle between eating and not eating. Popular versions are 16:8 (eat within 8 hours), 5:2 (two low-calorie days a week) and alternate-day fasting.
Studies show it can help with weight and blood sugar, mostly because a shorter window makes it easier to eat less. It works about as well as plain calorie cutting, so pick whichever you can stick with.
de Cabo & Mattson, NEJM, 2019 · Liu et al., NEJM, 2022Dawn to sunset, for a month
During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset for about 30 days, with no food or water, as an act of faith. Meals are eaten before dawn (suhoor) and after sunset (iftar).
Research shows modest weight loss during the month that often returns afterward. The big health tip: drink plenty of water and eat slow-digesting food at suhoor to get through the day.
Fernando et al., Nutrients, 2019A full day and a half
You stop eating after dinner and don't eat again until breakfast two days later, drinking only water, black coffee or plain tea.
By this point your body has used most of its stored sugar and runs mainly on fat. It's an advanced step: keep up salt and fluids, break it gently, and talk to your doctor first.
Cahill, Annual Review of Nutrition, 2006Your body's day
Your body doesn't sit idle while it waits for food. Press play to watch four key signals rise and fall across a day with a noon-to-8 PM eating window.
Illustration of typical patterns, not real measurements. Everyone's timing and levels differ.
What happens after you eat
Food is broken down into fuel. Here's the simple version of what your body does, hour by hour, from your last bite.
Digesting
Carbs become glucose (sugar), protein becomes amino acids, fat becomes fatty acids. Blood sugar rises, and insulin moves that sugar into your cells.
Using stored sugar
Insulin falls. Your liver releases glycogen, its stored sugar, to keep your energy steady.
Switching to fat
Glycogen runs low, so your body burns more fat. The liver starts turning fat into ketones, a backup fuel.
Running on fat
Ketones climb and become a main fuel, including for your brain. This is the deep end of fasting.
Times are rough guides. They shift with what you ate, how active you are and your body.
What to eat first, especially in the morning
Whether it's breakfast or the meal that breaks your fast, what you eat first sets up the rest of your day.
Sugary or refined carbs
Pastries, sugary cereal, juice, white bread. They turn into sugar fast, blood sugar shoots up, insulin floods in, then you crash and feel hungry and tired again within a couple of hours.
Protein, fiber and healthy fats
Eggs, Greek yogurt, oats, berries, nuts, avocado. They digest slowly, so blood sugar rises gently and you stay full and focused for hours.
Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol
All three change how you sleep and recover. Caffeine is the sneaky one, because it stays in your body much longer than the buzz lasts.
How long your coffee stays with you
Caffeine has a half-life of about 5 hours: every 5 hours, about half of what's left is gone. Pick when you have a cup and see what's still in your body at a 10 PM bedtime.
Simplified: assumes about 5 hours and full absorption within the hour. Real half-life ranges widely. Smoking shortens it; pregnancy can stretch it to about 15 hours.
Late coffee steals sleep you don't notice
In a sleep-lab study, caffeine taken 6 hours before bed cut sleep by more than an hour, yet people didn't feel they had slept worse. A 2023 review of 24 studies found caffeine cut about 45 minutes of sleep and recommended finishing a regular coffee at least 8.8 hours before bed.
My rule: coffee in the morning only. With a 10 PM bedtime, my last cup is before 1 PM.
Drake et al., J Clin Sleep Med, 2013 · Gardiner et al., Sleep Med Rev, 2023The worst one before bed
Nicotine is a stimulant with a half-life of about 2 hours. In a study that tracked 785 adults over 5,164 nights, nicotine within 4 hours of bed was the substance most strongly linked to broken sleep. People with insomnia lost about 43 minutes a night.
Spadola et al., Sleep, 2019 · Benowitz et al., J Pharmacol Exp Ther, 1982Helps you fall asleep, then wrecks the night
Alcohol knocks you out faster, but it delays and cuts REM sleep, the stage tied to memory and mood, and the second half of the night gets restless. The same 785-adult study linked evening drinks to more broken sleep. That's a big reason I quit.
Ebrahim et al., Alcohol Clin Exp Res, 2013 · Spadola et al., Sleep, 2019One twist: in the 785-adult study, caffeine within 4 hours of bed wasn't linked to worse sleep, even though lab studies show it is. People react differently. If you sleep badly, cut the afternoon coffee first and see.
Taking pain relievers every day
Over-the-counter pain relievers are safe when used as directed for short stretches. Taking them daily, "just in case," puts real strain on your heart, stomach, kidneys and liver.
Heart-attack risk with common NSAIDs
A study of 446,763 people found every common NSAID raised the odds of a heart attack, even within the first week of use. The risk was highest in the first month and at higher doses.
Odds of a heart attack compared with not taking an NSAID (1.0). 1.5 means about 50% higher odds. Lines show the study's range of likely values. Bally et al., BMJ, 2017.
Stomach, kidneys and blood pressure
They block chemicals that cause pain, but those same chemicals protect your stomach lining and keep blood flowing to your kidneys. Daily use raises the risk of ulcers and bleeding, strains the kidneys and can raise blood pressure.
Bally et al., BMJ, 2017 · FDA drug label warningsEasy on the stomach, hard on the liver
It's the number one cause of acute liver failure in the U.S., behind about 46% of cases, often from doubling up without knowing it, since it's hidden in many cold and flu products. Never go over the label's daily limit, and skip alcohol when taking it.
Acute Liver Failure Study Group, UT SouthwesternThe pills that cause the pain
Taking simple pain relievers on 15 or more days a month (10 or more for combination pills, triptans or opioids) can cause "medication-overuse headache," daily headaches driven by the medicine itself. It affects about 1 in 100 people worldwide.
ICHD-3 criteria · StatPearls, Medication Overuse HeadacheThis isn't medical advice. If you're reaching for pain relievers most days, talk to your doctor. Daily pain usually has a cause worth finding, and there are safer long-term options.
The research behind my habits
More steps, longer life
Risk of early death drops as daily steps rise, leveling off around 8,000–10,000.
Paluch et al., Lancet Public Health, 2022Walk after you eat
Short walks after meals lower blood-sugar spikes.
Buffey et al., Sports Medicine, 2022Muscle is medicine
Strength training keeps muscle as you age and lowers mortality.
Momma et al., Br J Sports Med, 2022About 1.6 g per kg
That much daily protein supports muscle built through training.
Morton et al., Br J Sports Med, 20187 hours minimum
Adults need at least 7 hours of sleep a night.
AASM and SRS consensus, 2015Processed food makes you eat more
People on ultra-processed diets ate about 500 more calories a day.
Hall et al., Cell Metabolism, 2019Friends add years
Strong social ties are linked to a longer life.
Holt-Lunstad et al., PLOS Medicine, 2010What did you learn, or what changed for you?
Share what surprised you or what you've tried.
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Hi, I'm Coach E.
I grew up on three continents, and in the inner cities of most of the countries I lived in, I learned fútbol on the streets and local pitches. The game taught me teamwork, grit, and how to connect with people anywhere.
At 23, I joined the Army. More than 20 years later, I'm still on active duty, and that time has shaped me as much as the game did. Leading thousands of soldiers taught me how to talk to anyone, earn trust, and bring out the best in people. I learned that the best leaders are mentors and coaches first, and that a team only wins when everyone on it does.
Along the way, I earned a master's in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology from the University of Florida. I don't just live the science of performance and health. I've studied it.
But by my early 40s, I'd let it slide. I was heavier, prediabetic, and having a drink every night to unwind. I didn't want my kids to remember that version of me. So I started walking, quit drinking, and rebuilt the way I eat.
Today, I'm in the best shape of my life. I coach youth soccer and raise three kids with my wife. And I share what works so you can do it too.
Let's get to work.
— Coach E
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