I really love the Zero fasting app and have been using it for the last few weeks. It says that my daily average for fasting is about 20 hours a day. I usually do 20-24 hours during the weekdays and 16 or 18 on the weekends. I know that longer would be better, but at what point do we just say to ourselves that this is “good enough”? I’m already eating better than the majority of Americans and I’m experiencing a lot of health benefits. I’ve made it to the 50% progress mark, which I had begun to think was an impossibility for me. So, maybe fasting 42 or 72 hours would speed up my losses considerably (only averaging 2.5 pounds a month), but with small children around who watch what I eat...or don’t eat, maybe slower is better for now?

There’s still so much we don’t know, according to Dr. Phinney, about the longer fasts. Is it possible that longer than 24 hours, on average, gets into diminishing returns territory with regards to body composition as well as quality and enjoyment of life? I don’t know. It’s probably different for everyone. But since introducing IF, I broke a 2 decade setpoint and weigh the same as I did as a Freshman in college. So I can’t deny the benefits of fasting for someone like me. But is more better? Is this something we just have to wait out? Robb Wolf says that sometimes it can take more than 6 months for the body to decide it can drop more weight. Maybe sometimes we just have to keep doing what we’re doing and wait for our body to decide it’s okay to be smaller or bigger, in the case of people who are looking to gain weight. I think fasting can be like anything else that brings results. We can fall into the more is better mentality. But maybe it’s not true? And maybe people with that mentality are what’s drawing all the criticism for even TRE or IF of any sort.