Feasting after dark

I’m thinking about two things today:

How little I’ve eaten

There I was yesterday evening thinking I would enjoy a veritable feast having fasted the whole day.

Wrong.

After 5 dates, 1 banana, 1 yoghurt, 1 samosa and 2 pakoras I felt more stuffed than I have after a full Sunday roast with all the trimmings. They (I don’t know who ‘they’ is) say that your stomach shrinks when you fast and it’s no joke. After a brisk walk I could stomach some pasta and salad and that was me done for the day. I woke up at 2am, had a bowl of Fruit and Fibre, another banana, a yoghurt, and back to bed I went.

A lot of people ask me whether I feast after the sun sets. The answer is quite simply no. It’s almost impossible! It’s quite a strange feeling not being physically able to eat what and when you want to but I have to say I’m finding it really refreshing. I’m more productive (helped by working from home) and despite the odd moment, really focussed.

It remains to be seen what impact the lower food intake will have on my waistline. Cue the oft-cited: “gosh you’re just disappearing before my eyes” looks with :emoji: concerned face.

How many Ramadan articles I’ve read

Oh my days. There were so many Muslim memes doing the rounds yesterday. It wasn’t just Buzzfeed – I even spotted one on the Telegraph (yes they are frightfully similar articles)! That’s a pretty nice thing to see. Back when I wrote about Ramadan for the Huffington Post there were so few articles out there…it’s promising to see the mainstream media – online at least – providing a space for Muslims to talk about Ramadan. It’s always bugged me that for one month a year we were pushed to media such as Sunrise Radio and BBC Asian Network. Great as they are, it’s good to see fish where the fish aren’t swimming if you catch my drift.

Oh, but then there was this vitriol from Katie Hopkins. Here’s the funny thing. She’s right. Britain has changed. And Ramadan could be seen as a slight on productivity. Yes in manual labour that could be dangerous as the example in her article shows, but in the service industry (which I’m in) I’m finding it’s providing a great sense of productivity and focus.

It sometimes feels like one day is actually two (waking up twice in a 12 hour period I suppose) but I’m thankful that fasts are going well so far.

Onwards!