Plan your way to easy fasting

Unlike me, many people prepare for Ramadan a month ahead and when the big day comes it’s easy-peasy as they have got all that practice of not eating.

I received a PDF file in my email on the first Day of Ramadan that gave advice on how to prepare for the month of fasting, and though it was a bit late, I still read through the tips and hacks on how to navigate hunger during the next 30 days.

The first thing it said I should do was to cut down snacking a month before Ramadan, which is like impossible in our household, where we snack often instead of eating three large meals.

So, strewn around the apartment and kitchen in old biscuit tins, are salted cashew nuts, Gujarati ‘theplas’, spicy Indian flatbread which we buy from our entrepreneur neighbour, ‘puran poli’ or ‘holige’ as it is known in Bengaluru, which is basically flat bread stuffed with flavoured and jaggery sweetened lentils, and dark chocolate bars (70 per cent cocoa), which are supposed to be good for you.

There was also a meal plan attached to the PDF file. For ‘suhour’, morning meal at dawn, the plan chartered out one bowl of oatmeal, cooked with a cup of fat-free milk, one sliced banana, one chopped date, but the date was optional, and two glasses of water.

The daytime fasting hours in Bengaluru, where we live, is from 5.04am to 6.32pm, and that is 13.5 hours. Granted, there are countries such as Poland, Canada, Britain and France where fasting hours are even longer, between 16 to 17 hours, and during days that are dark and freezing, but I didn’t think I would survive on a bowl of oats, with one date.

‘Stick-to-your-ribs’ hearty breakfast

I however, watched an enthusiastic and healthy-looking woman on YouTube, showing how to make creamy steel-cut oats, which are basically, oats that are toasted, cleaned, hulled and then cut into pieces with a steel mill, unlike rolled oats that are rolled into thin flakes. The steel-cut oats are a ‘stick-to-your-ribs’ hearty breakfast, meaning it lasts for a longer time in your tummy, but it takes longer to cook, about 45 minutes.

For ‘Iftar’, the evening meal, just after sunset, the meal plan was even scarier: 3 dates with 2 glasses of water, cracked wheat grilled zucchini salad, a cup of tea or coffee.

The suddenly, in the middle of the Excel Sheet were these words: EXERCISE Total body workout.

Usually after Iftar I lie down to rest, because the food gives me a glycaemic rush, meaning there is a sudden rise in blood glucose or sugar and instead of making me hyper and energetic, makes me feel drowsy, and exercise is usually the last thing on my mind.

“Never give up exercise during Ramadan”, said the woman who presumably made the meal and exercise plan. “You will lose all the gain you have made.” I didn’t understand what gain she was talking about, because I rarely exercise.

After workout I could have a glass of smoothie or a glass of carrot juice, it said. Just a friendly warning, drinking too much carrot juice will make you look yellow.

The other way to prepare for the fasting month according to the hacks, was to slowly wean myself away from social media.

“Wha..?” I said to myself, because giving up my addiction to digital media seemed impossible. Earlier, when I was a heavy smoker, the first thing I did on waking up would be to light up a coffin nail.

Now, the first thing I do when I wake up is look at my smartphone. Usually, there are no exciting messages, so I look at my posts and think what a smart guy I am.

Giving up an addiction is easy, said the PDF file, if you make a plan, seek help from friends and relatives and have a strong will power.

Fasting on the other hand is even easier because after a couple of hours of starvation, the tummy gives up wanting food and goes into hibernation and you don’t even feel like peering into the fridge.

Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi