 Hey everybody, Dr. O here, another frequently asked question, should I take breaks from fasting? Now there are times that I've taken breaks from fasting. I don't think you need to, but I do think it's important if you have a lot of weight to lose that occasionally you do focus on maintaining your weight. So the two reasons that I've taken breaks from fasting and not from a health standpoint not because they were no longer working, but number one, I take breaks from fasting when my focus is building muscle, right? If fat loss is your primary goal, then you should focus on the calorie deficit and you should keep fasting. If building muscle is your goal, then you should focus on training and fueling that training. So I have done that, so because fasting is a great tool, but you should only use it when it's the right tool for the job. Fasting is not the right tool when you're trying to build muscle. So why do I try to build muscle? Well, it makes you look better, but I really want to keep my metabolic rate high, right? I think one of the main reasons that we gain weight back so easily after we lose it is that our metabolic rate is dropped. So if we go back to eating like we used to, not only will we gain the weight back, we'll probably gain back more. So I think that so I do like to keep my metabolism stoked up by focusing on building muscle and retaining and building lean mass, but also taking breaks from fasting and taking breaks from really dieting and focusing on maintaining your weight can be really important because who cares how fast you can lose weight if you can't keep it off. So taking breaks where you focus on maintaining your weight, basically reset your kind of body set point and say, okay, I can live here. I can live here forever and then move on to the next one. So taking breaks is good probably physically, but especially psychologically. Let me tell you about the first break that I took from fasting, right? I'd lost a lot of weight. I don't know, I don't know exactly where I was at, but let's say I'd lost a hundred pounds and we were coming up on Thanksgiving. So the week before Thanksgiving, I decided I'm going to, I'm going to take a break and focus on maintaining through the holidays, right? Most people gain weight during the holidays. So I was, I was hoping that I would just maintain my weight and I was going to be okay, even if I gained a pound or two, because if you're eating more, then you're going to, you're going to be holding on to more glycogen and more water and things like that, even just having more food in your stomach. So I purposely took that break. I wanted to maintain my weight through the holidays, not because I was trying to prove it to myself, but I did. And then I, on January 2nd, I weighed myself and I had lost three pounds during a six week break. So my, what I thought was going to be maintenance for the rest of my life was still putting me in enough calorie deficit where I was losing half a pound a week. I was so, so happy because honestly, I'm 44 years old now, I was 43 then. This was the first time, maybe 42. This was my first, the first time in my entire life that I believed I could keep the weight off. I have lost a thousand pounds and gained it all back. I've lost weight 49 times, gained it back, or 40 times and gained it back 39 times. And that was honestly the moment that I realized I could do this forever. It was a breakthrough moment for me psychologically. So should you take breaks from fasting? You don't need to. If you're having great progress and things are going awesome, then go for it. If your weight loss is stalling or you have a vacation or holidays coming up or you just want to focus on maintaining or if your goals switch from fat loss to performance and building muscle, those are all times that you, you could or should take breaks from fasting, but it is never required. But I, you know, let's think about the long haul, short breaks from fasting where you can focus on maintaining your weight and making it a lifestyle you can stick with forever. It's more important than eking out another half a pound here or there. Hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.