How to Fast 23 Hours a Day: The Amen Method of Daily Extended Fasting

To fast 23 hours a day, you extend your nightly fast gradually until only one deliberate meal remains, taken at night over about an hour. In the Amen Regimen, beginners hold a 21-hour fast and advance to 23 hours as the body adapts. Nothing caloric passes the lips during the fasting window: water and non-caloric fluids only.

I have kept this fast daily for decades, through doctoral study and through world-championship deadlift competition. What follows is the method, in the order I teach it.

How do you build up to a 23-hour daily fast?

1. Fix the meal, not the fast. Choose a nighttime hour for your single meal and defend it. The fast is simply everything outside that hour. An anchored mealtime removes the daily negotiation that defeats most fasters.
2. Begin at 21 hours. Eat your meal over a generous window at first, up to three hours if needed, then narrow it week by week toward a single deliberate hour.
3. Remove caloric drinks first. Most failed fasts are drunk, not eaten. Within the fasting window take only water and non-caloric fluids.
4. Train inside the fast. Do aerobic work in the morning, fasted. The fasted state is not a state of weakness; it is the state in which the body's repair mechanisms do their work.
5. Meditate when appetite argues. Craving is a thought before it is a hunger. A short contemplative practice at the hour appetite protests will do more than any distraction.
6. Make the meal worthy of the fast. One plant-based meal, roughly 1,500 kilocalories, low in glycotoxins and rich in antioxidants, eaten slowly and without apology.

What can you drink during a 23-hour fast?

Water, first and always. Non-caloric fluids are permitted. Anything bearing calories, including milk in coffee, juice, and caloric supplements, breaks the fast and restarts the metabolic clock. The rule is absolute because an absolute rule is easier to keep than a flexible one.

Is a 23-hour fast safe?

A daily extended fast is a serious physiological undertaking and is not for everyone. Those who are pregnant, underweight, diabetic, on glucose-lowering medication, or living with any chronic condition should consult a clinician before attempting extended fasting. The Amen Regimen's transition curriculum exists precisely because the move from ordinary eating to a 23-hour fast must be gradual, monitored, and informed.

Why fast 23 hours instead of 16?

Popular intermittent fasting protocols such as 16:8 leave an eight-hour feeding window, which in practice invites grazing and preserves the habits the fast was meant to break. Compressing feeding to a single nightly hour accomplishes three things at once: it enforces caloric restriction without counting, it extends the daily period in which the body runs on its own reserves, and it converts eating from a recurring temptation into a single disciplined act.

How the Amen Regimen structures the fast

In the full regimen, the fast is one of five daily practices, alongside dietetics, exercise, education, and meditation. The Amen Regimen app prescribes each day's practices, walks you through the fasting and feeding curriculum step by step, and scores your adherence, energy, and focus each night, so the discipline becomes measurable.

Do I have to reach 23 hours to benefit?

The regimen's standard is 23 hours, and 21 is the sanctioned starting point. Progress deliberately: the practitioner who holds 21 hours for months has accomplished more than the one who forces 23 and abandons it.

What should the single meal contain?

Plants, in measured abundance: the full prescription, meal structure, and the aliksirs of the apothecary are taught in the Feeding and Aliksirs plans inside the app, and in full scientific depth in the Amen Library.

When do I train if I eat once at night?

Aerobic exercise in the morning and resistance training in the evening, both within the fast. The meal follows the evening training as the day's conclusion.

The fast is the regimen's foundation. Learn it properly. Begin the Amen Regimen.