Time really flies when you are busy! It’s been a whole month since I’ve last checked in on for my Ramadan preparations!
We’ve talked about preparing for the food aspect of Ramadan for a while now. I’ve made some spring rolls, shami kabobs, chapli kabobs, and marinated some chicken for iftars and dinners during Ramadan. I’ll also be making some fruit & veggie smoothie packs this month to prepare for Suhoor.
Most of our Ramadan diet includes lot of drinks- water, milk, tea, coffee, smoothies, lemon-cucumber water, and the occasional soft drink. We also like to keep the iftars very light opting for some dates, fruits, and one spring roll per person. My parents generally do elaborate iftaris but hubby and I have started to keep our month focused primarily on our prayers and not feeling overwhelmed with preparing lavish iftars.
One of the ways I’m going to use this month to prepare for Ramadan is to start limiting myself on certain food items like sugar, and heavy carbohydrates. One of the biggest reasons why we feel like we’re exhausted or get bad headaches during the fasting periods is because as a whole we tend to enjoy breads, rice and items containing high levels of sugars.
By slowly limiting yourself during the month of Rajab, you allow your body to slowly adjust to the withdrawal of these food items.
For the first 10 days of Rajab, I am going to cut out all additional sugar items- in my coffee, in my breakfast etc. Nothing I intake will have additional sugar added. I also cut out candies, chocolates and limit dessert to only fruits or yogurt.
Then, the next 10 days will be to stop eating rice and breads. This is generally the most difficult step for me. I tend to eat rice with my dinners and cutting those out of my diet is hard. I usually supplement the rice with veggies for my dinners.
The last few days are maintanence. I try to keep myself on track and remind myself that Ramadan is coming closer.
This year the last 10 days will most likely not work out that way as we are going on vacation and my cousins are coming from out of town.
This year we don’t plan to have a lot of iftar dawats as we live further from our friends. But we do plan on celebrating each day because Ramadan is such a huge blessing!
Find Your Noor 