SAXON's BIFF BYFORD Hasn't Made A Lot Of Lifestyle Changes Since Suffering Heart Attack

SAXON frontman Biff Byford has told Full In Bloom in a new interview that he has made modest dietary changes in the two years after he suffered a heart attack and underwent an emergency triple bypass surgery. "A little bit," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "I don't eat dairy anymore. I suppose I'll eat an occasional piece of cheese, but I don't eat dairy anymore because of the cholesterol level thing. But pretty much [everything] else, I haven't really changed. We'll have a veggie week some weeks where my wife will just put vegetarian food all week, which is a bit of a change, really, and it gets rid of toxic things in your body. But I haven't really changed that much, to tell you the truth."

The 70-year-old singer went on to say that he has added 16:8 intermittent fasting to his lifestyle, a type of dieting where people fast during a portion of the week and then eat on the other days. The 16:8 type of intermittent fasting involves eating only during a specific right-hour period each day.

"I will do that," Biff said. "I mean, I did do that today, actually. I didn't have lunch until 2 o'clock and I'll eat dinner at 7:30 and then I try not to have anything else until the next day. So most of your fasting is done while you're asleep; that's how it's supposed to work. What you try and do is eat all your meals in the eight hours. Don't go stupid. And then if you go to bed at, say, 11 o'clock and get up at eight or seven, then you had nearly eight hours in bed. A lot of people do it. It's quite positive. I think it's a bit easier than some diets.

"If you don't eat until the morning until quite late, you definitely feel a hit of energy," he explained. "And you're also quite hungry, so you appreciate the food [that you are eating]. Keeping to it is difficult sometimes, obviously. You want a glass of wine or you want a beer or something; you're always being tempted with these things."

According to Biff, he still drinks alcohol occasionally. "Oh, yeah," he said. "A couple of glasses of wine some nights, it's no problem. As long as you're not drinking two bottles of wine, it's fine."

A year and a half ago, Byford described his heart attack to Planet Rock, saying "it wasn't like a Hollywood heart attack, [where] you drop on the floor with your legs up in the air. I was biking, I was on my bike — I do a lot of biking and walking. And I was getting a bit breathless. And I went to the doctor. They sent me in to the hospital straight away. One of my arteries was getting blocked. They couldn't get to it easily; it was risky. So they gave me a heart bypass. And so while they were in there, they did all three… So, yeah, they did all three. And then I came to, and that was it. I was really ill."

A heart bypass surgery, or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, is used to improve blood flow to the heart. A surgeon uses blood vessels taken from another area of the body to bypass the damaged arteries.

The term triple bypass refers to the number of coronary arteries bypassed in the procedure. In other words, a triple bypass means three coronary arteries are bypassed.

SAXON will release its 23rd studio album, "Carpe Diem", on February 4, 2022 via Silver Lining Music. The LP was produced by Andy Sneap (JUDAS PRIEST, EXODUS, ACCEPT) at Backstage Recording Studios in Derbyshire with Byford and Sneap mixing and mastering.