First, I wish you all a happy and blessed Ramadan. But I want to warn you: going without food for a while is a rest for the stomach and digestive system, and breaking the fast with a heavy meal is, for your stomach, like eating a rich meal at dawn. It's like waking a worker in the middle of the night and asking him to dig foundations while he's still half asleep. Don't do it: your digestive system will hate you for it.
The best way to break the fast is with water, which wakes the stomach up. To stir it gently, give it a little sugar, from milk or dates. Dates also help balance the body's salts, and eating them first is a well-known tradition among those who fast.
A very common mistake is to start with vegetables. Vegetables contain fibre that we can't digest, which triggers strong movements of the gut to sweep it clean, so starting with vegetables is a painful way to wake the stomach, like waking a baby with a rough bath scrub. My advice: wake your gut slowly. The best start is fruit before the main meal: its natural sugar gives a feeling of fullness, which also helps anyone trying to lose weight. Let's teach our stomachs to say "welcome" to milk and fruit.
Then pause eating for a little while, so the stomach's "coffee" (the fruit) can do its work and the gut can wake up. After that, have soup and then the main course. Stick to one main dish: having many dishes makes us eat more without noticing. The main dish should be rich in protein and low in fat.
Don't eat sweets straight afterwards: give your stomach a chance to deal with the work it has started. You can have a small piece of something sweet later, but keep it small, especially if you want to lose weight.
It's very important to stop eating at least three hours before sleep. Don't be afraid of hunger: I've never heard of anyone dying from fasting from evening to dawn.
The pre-dawn meal (suhoor) is also very important, but these days it has become a burden: many people stay up until morning, eat suhoor, then sleep until just before iftar. For your health, don't do this: turning night into day harms your health far more than feeling hungry for a few hours. Remember that feeling hungry is one of the religious aims of fasting. It's best to wake a little before suhoor, do some very light exercise, drink water and then eat suhoor as you would your usual breakfast. Afterwards, rather than going back to sleep, get on with your day, and when you feel sleepy, take a short nap during the day.
I wish you a good and healthy month.
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