 Hey, everybody, Dr. O here. You've done your research, you've done your homework, you know it's time, you're now ready to try fasting. I want to give you some tips to help you prepare for your first fast to make it as successful as possible. Start with a little funny quote here. You can't lose weight by talking about it. You have to keep your mouth shut. We're done talking about it. We're done thinking about whether or not we're going to fast. It is time to get started. What do we have to do to prepare for your first fast? What do you have to do to make sure your first fast goes as well as possible? I'm going to walk you through five different steps here. Number one, you're going to do a pantry overhaul. Number two, you need to get your family or your support system on board. Number three, you've got to get your sleep and stress in order. I'll explain why. Number four, you have to make sure you're properly hydrated. Then number five, you need to have a busy day planned. These are the top five things I would tell anyone that's getting ready to try their first fast. Let's dive in. Number one, do a pantry overhaul. New habits, new behaviors take time. Fasting is a muscle. You get better at it. The more often you do that, do it, but in the beginning, it's not going to be easy. You haven't had time to adapt to fasting. You haven't had time to change any true behaviors or make any new habits. You need to change your environment instead. Early on in fasting, you need to be in an environment that helps you fast. Remove all the foods that will tempt you. Don't make fasting harder than it has to be. At some point in the future, you'll get to the point where you don't have to worry about those kinds of things. I don't care what my family is eating around me. I just don't when I'm on my fasts. When I first started, I needed help. I needed to change the environment to make it easier for me. That's number one, do a pantry overhaul. Get rid of the things that will tempt you. Create an environment that makes it easier to get through your first fast. Your first few, your first dozen fasts. Number two, get your family on board. This is going to be different for everyone. Your support system, whoever it may be, coworkers, explain to the people around you, your support system, explain what you need from them. You might be a stoic and you might need nothing from them. You might need a ton of support. You have to decide how much support you need. You have to decide who you need it from and you have to ask for it. Make everyone around you a part of your team. Have them help you succeed, not the opposite. You don't want people around you when you're first learning how to fast that are tempting you with food and asking if you want to go out to eat. Let people know what they can do to support you. Ask them to keep tempting food away from you. Maybe ask them to go on walks with you, these types of things. So get your family, get your support system on board. Number three, get your sleep and stress in order. I talk about this constantly because it's so important. I think that sleep, issues and stress are the two biggest roadblocks to weight loss success. What I mean by that is they make it harder to stay on a diet. They make it harder to lose fat. Fasting is a stressor. You need to minimize all the other stressors in your life as much as possible so that you can maximize the benefits you get from fasting. I always like to say there's no perfect time to start fasting, but there are times when it's a really bad idea. Maybe you're super busy at work, super stressed about something at home. Maybe you have finals week as a student. Those are all really, really bad times to start fasting. Give yourself the best chance of success. Make sure you can minimize the other stressors in your life so you can get the most out of your fasts. Making sure you're properly hydrated. It's very important to understand hydration does not just mean water. Hydration is water and electrolytes. Most of the issues people have with fasting, if you're having headaches or any sort of physical symptoms that come with fasting, most of them, the solution is proper hydration. Make sure that you're well hydrated when you go into a fast as you prepare for your first fast. Make sure you're getting electrolytes. We'll cover this more in detail later, but make sure you're getting sodium. You're getting potassium. You're getting magnesium and you're getting water, so don't start your first fast dehydrated. It's only going to make it harder for you to get through it. And then lastly, I can't overstate the importance of this one. Have a busy day planned, right? Everyone's been too busy to eat. I mean, oh, I'm so busy. I skipped lunch today. Take advantage of that kind of thing. For your first few fasts, make sure you're so busy that you don't even really have time. Maybe you look forward to the fact that you're not eating because it's saving you time. Just keep yourself occupied. Keep yourself busy. Keep your mind off of food so you can stay on your fast. I build my fasting schedule. I build it around exercise, but I really build my fasting schedule around when I'm busy at work. I do all of my longest fasts when I'm super busy, when I'm actually too busy to eat. Either I'm teaching all day in the classroom, so if I'm teaching for eight or nine hours straight with only 10 or 15 minute breaks, it's a perfect time to fast. I wouldn't have time to eat if I wanted to. Or like a day like today, I'm keeping myself real busy recording these videos one after another so I'm actually glad I don't have to stop to eat. Keep your mind off of food. That's going to keep yourself busy. That's going to make it more likely that you make it through your first fast. All right, so that's how you prepare for your first fast. Voila. Good luck. Happy fasting. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.