Fasten your health belt

When I was a kid, I used to think about the word "fasting”. I used to link the word "fast" which means being fast in doing something with eating the food. So I thought that fasting in Ramadan meant being able to eat the food as fast as you can and swallow it. So you can survive the whole day in Ramadan without being hungry.

Of course you will laugh at me now because of that confession! But really I see many people act in that way in Ramadan, they eat as much as they can in a short period believing that would make them don’t feel hungry during the day of Ramadan.

Allah blessed us with Ramadan to worship him, to pray, to read the holy Quran and to help poor people and all these means of worship are to make us closer to Allah so that Allah can forgive us as we do mistakes all the time.

But, beside the religious goal of Ramadan Allah created also health benefits in fasting! Fasting is an exceptionally ancient and powerful approach to healing many common disease conditions. It allows the body to rest detoxify and to heal. During fasting, the body moves into the same kind of detoxification cycle that it normally enters during sleep. It uses its energy during a fast not for digesting food but for cleansing the body from accumulated toxins and healing any ill parts of it. As fast progresses, the body consumes everything that is not essential to bodily functioning. This includes bacteria, virus’ fibroid, and tumors waste products in the blood any build up around the joints and stored fat. The historical record indicates that human beings are evolutionarily designed to fast. It is an incredibly safe approach to healing and the body knows how to do it very well.

Fasting helps in our recovery from many diseases like:

1. Fasting is exceptionally beneficial in congestive heart failure, reducing total cholesterol and increasing HDL levels.
2. Fasting has been found to be effective in the treatment of type II diabetes often reversing the condition permanently.
3. Because of its long term effects on metabolism fat stores in the body leptin and disease conditions associated with obesity, fasting has been found to be one of the most effective treatments for obesity.
4. A number of studies have found that fasting is beneficial in epilepsy reducing the length number and severity of seizures. Fasting is especially effective for helping cure childhood epilepsy.
5. Although the use of fasting in the treatment of cancer is controversial, there is some emerging data SHOWING that fasting helps prevent cancer. Intermittent fasting (2 days weekly) has shown an inhibitory effect on the development of liver cancer in rats.

At the first three days of Ramadan we may get tired of fasting, this occurs as the body switches from one fuel source to another. Normally, the primary form of energy of the body is glucose which is a type of sugar. Most of this is extracted or converted from the food we eat.

Throughout the day, the liver stores excess sugar in a special form called glycogen that it can call on as energy levels fall between meals. There is enough of this sugar source for 8-12 hours of energy and usually it is completely exhausted within the first 24 hours of fasting.

The holy month of Ramadan offers an excellent opportunity to lose weight especially by performing light exercise and eating the right kind of food recommend dieticians, so here are some advices during Ramadan:

1. Diet during Ramadan should be different from the normal one because you spend more than half of your day without water and food , so I want to give some tips for this diet:

- At the iftar time and before el-Maghreb praying, you should drink some water or low sugar juice. With tamr (date) if possible (don’t eat high glucose food or drinks , it will raise your blood pressure , so you will feel dizzy)

- After el-Maghreb pray , start your meal with the most light food like soup , salad or some snack , then start to eat as slow as possible , to give your stomach chance to start working normally.

- Don’t eat a lot of food in just one time, try to eat some and consider this meal as breakfast, try to leave some space empty to help you breathe during el-tarawih pray.

- After el-tarawih you can take your lunch (or the rest of your el-iftar meal ) then if you want to take some dessert ( but not too much , and remember , sugar will make you gain weight )

- After that, give your stomach some rest, try to get some sleep, and wake to qiam el-lail pray, and then el-sohour meal. El sohour meal should be light, high protein, rich with water, and calories. This food like beans, yogurt and some fruits. Water is so important, especially, Ramadan comes during the summer season this year.

1. One should drink as much water as possible between Iftar and bedtime includes fruits   vegetables dal and yoghurt in the meals at both Iftar and Suhur.
2. Limit the amount of sweet foods taken at Iftar and limit the intake of fried and fatty foods.
3. Avoid caffeinated drinks such as coke, coffee or tea four to five days before Ramadan. Gradually reduce the intake of these drinks since a sudden decrease will result in headaches mood swings and irritability.

It's not about how much you eat in Ramadan, it's about eating healthy food that would help you taking all its benefits, so be ready and fasten your health belt.

Thanks for Elhussain Gamal for his valuable addition