Can­di­da Khan

Many of us ei­ther par­tic­i­pat­ed in fast­ing dur­ing the month of Ra­madan or are aware of it and have been on a type of fast at some point in their life. Eid is a time for cel­e­bra­tion. For women, I’d like to fo­cus on reg­u­lat­ing our eat­ing habits and re­turn­ing to reg­u­lar meals af­ter on­ly eat­ing with­in cer­tain hours and fast­ing from dawn to sun­set. Due to this, the temp­ta­tion to in­dulge in rich fes­tive foods might in­crease or might be dif­fi­cult at first, but then re­turn to nor­mal over time and even lead to over-in­dulging as hor­mones be­come ir­reg­u­lar.

The first habit that I would sug­gest is bal­anc­ing and hav­ing a nour­ish­ing break­fast. The first meal is vi­tal be­cause the body has adapt­ed to a dif­fer­ent rhythm of eat­ing and now needs to change back to what it used to be. If we choose heavy, oily, sug­ary foods, it can lead to bloat­ing, fa­tigue, and dis­com­fort. As women, our bod­ies process foods dif­fer­ent­ly, and hor­mon­al im­bal­ances af­fect our en­er­gy lev­els and di­ges­tive health. My ad­vice is to choose lighter, colour­ful meals and snacks that are nat­ur­al from the earth to pro­vide the right nu­tri­ents with healthy cook­ing meth­ods such as bak­ing, grilling, steam­ing, and air fry­ing in­stead of fried, high-fat and sug­ar op­tions. A nu­tri­tious meal can in­clude buss-up shot for the car­bo­hy­drates, pump­kin, baghi, cu­cum­ber, let­tuce, car­rots in a sal­ad for the veg­eta­bles, cur­ry chick­en for the pro­tein and cur­ry chick peas for the legumes. A nu­tri­tious snack can in­clude pineap­ple chow with cu­cum­ber. Lo­cal, bal­anced snacks and meals are ef­fec­tive ways to build a bet­ter body com­po­si­tion, me­tab­o­lism and im­prove your qual­i­ty of life.

Hy­dra­tion is a nec­es­sary nu­tri­ent that is vi­tal for every process in the body. It’s im­por­tant to re­hy­drate the body if this was ne­glect­ed dur­ing Ra­madan. The is­sue is that we think six to eight glass­es of wa­ter is suf­fi­cient to hy­drate the body every day, but this is a myth. Every­body, es­pe­cial­ly women, needs dif­fer­ent amounts of wa­ter based on their weight. If you don’t like wa­ter on its own, try lemon wa­ter or co­conut wa­ter and even, my favourite, herbal teas in iced form or warm. The con­cern is sug­ary drinks, as they would cause a spike in blood sug­ar and a crash in en­er­gy lev­els lat­er on.

If your gut needs help re-ad­just­ing, my sug­ges­tion would be to fo­cus on lo­cal foods rather than phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts. Fresh fruit such as wa­ter­mel­on and ba­nanas pro­vides nat­ur­al sug­ars, wa­ter and di­etary fi­bre, which is gen­tle on the stom­ach. Yo­gurt is an­oth­er favourite that sup­ports gut health. My favourite com­bi­na­tion is yo­gurt, some nuts and cin­na­mon with ba­nana.

Bal­anc­ing every food item con­sumed and every drink that en­ters the body is an es­sen­tial part of main­tain­ing sta­ble blood sug­ars, en­er­gy and me­tab­o­lism. When our body is ex­treme­ly hun­gry, our crav­ings in­crease, which can lead to large por­tions. Dur­ing this time, it’s im­por­tant to take things slow­ly. Start with wa­ter, then work your way in­to a colour­ful meal or snack. From my ex­pe­ri­ence as a Reg­is­tered Di­etit­ian Nu­tri­tion­ist, this method works best to con­trol hor­mon­al crav­ings that can lead to weight gain caused by overeat­ing. I tend to fo­cus on the wa­ter first and move my way in­to the dif­fer­ent colours, eat­ing slow­ly and en­joy­ing every bite rather than gob­bling up my food. Try it.

Prac­tis­ing mind­ful eat­ing is a gen­tle start to the days that fol­low af­ter fast­ing ends. It should be fo­cused on car­ing for your body with the right drinks and bal­anc­ing all the food groups in your meals and snacks. Feel re­freshed and en­er­gised by en­joy­ing all foods.

Can­di­da Khan, MSc RD al­so known as Di­di is a reg­is­tered di­etit­ian nu­tri­on­ist.

She is al­so the CEO of Di­di's Nu­tri­tion Con­sul­tan­cy

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