On August 27, 2023, I celebrated a somewhat arbitrary but (I think) noteworthy milestone: my 1,000th consecutive day of fasting. Yet even after all those successful fasts, I can still vividly remember when my consecutive-day streak would wind back to 0 and I’d wonder, How the heck do people fast every single day?
Now that I’m a 1,000-day guy (and counting), I want to share an answer. It’s not The Only Answer, but it’s how I’ve kept my Fasting Streak going, my weight in check, and my health balanced. Don’t expect this answer to be groundbreaking; in fact, it’s going to sound corny and probably anticlimactic. But the truth is, I take fasting one day at a time.
That Old Advice Again?
“Take it one day at a time” is advice I’ve heard all my life, applied to any number of things. Learning to code. Forming an exercise habit. Recovering from the flu. It always struck me as overly simple — because I have some big ambitions! For example, I want to help Zero make a difference to the lives of millions of people around the world. Surely that requires bigger-picture thinking than just focusing on “today?”
Well, I’ll let you in on a secret. People overestimate how much time company leaders spend thinking about big, audacious, long-term goals. Yes, we do some of that work, but much of leadership — at any level — is about making incremental progress day after day. None of us can achieve big, audacious, long-term goals without breaking them down into smaller tactics and then executing them. And what could be a bigger, more audacious, long-term goal than living a long, healthy life?
Steady Progress Is Sustainable Progress
Of my 1,000-day Fasting Streak, I’ve spent 634 of those days as CEO of Zero. Throughout that time, Zero has helped our Members break down their health journey into actionable steps, with fasting as the keystone habit. Of course, health is more than just fasting, which is why we’ve added exercise, sleep, and restoration tracking to Zero. We’re making incremental progress so you can make incremental progress, because that’s the only kind of progress that really sticks. It’s progress that, like it or not, you have to make one day at a time.
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