 My area of understanding is in nutrition and I really want to talk a little bit about fasting and nutrition. So some of the benefits of fasting that we know of, first and foremost, of course is weight loss. Particularly in that midsection area is the area that we find the best weight loss comes from there because that's where we start to see more insulin sensitivity. So people that are having blood glucose issues, diabetes, maybe they're pre-diabetic, they're not quite there yet. That visceral fat when it gets lost is really good for helping keep your blood sugars in normal range. Fasting also stimulates human growth hormone. So even at an older age one can still be producing that growth hormone and by fasting, even if you're doing what's called intermittent fasting, which is just finishing dinner around 7 and then skipping breakfast and maybe going all the way to 10, so you're getting a good maybe 14-15 hour break, even that will help stimulate this human growth hormone. As I mentioned, it helps with insulin sensitivity, so for diabetes, ghrelin. Has anybody heard of this hormone ghrelin? It's the hunger hormone. So we produce this hormone and then we start to feel very hungry. Now, interestingly enough, so if you sleep enough you get the other hormone which is called leptin. So when people don't sleep enough sometimes they have too much production of this ghrelin and not enough of that suppressing satiety inducing hormone called leptin. And so sometimes people that don't rest enough, if they can just start getting good sleep at night, they can help, they can even lose some weight. So this hormone, the other thing I want to mention about this, sometimes people eat a very low calorie diet to try and lose weight. That might initially help them lose weight but it doesn't really last because this hormone continues to stay high, which makes you very difficult and very hungry all the time, but fasting suppresses it. So it lowers triglycerides. This is the end, it's the kind of lipid in our blood that we don't want too much. I want to eat a lot of high carbohydrates or sugary foods. We eat a lot of high triglycerides. So when you start the fast you'll find out triglycerides go down, the bad cholesterol goes down, and the good cholesterol, you must have heard of HDL and LDL, the good cholesterol and the bad cholesterol. So the good cholesterol stays okay, it remains untouched and the bad cholesterol goes down. And then studies in animals right now, they haven't done it in humans yet, have shown that it's slowing down in aging. So we know that it's wonderful for us. Some of the impacts of fasting. Okay, so I put a passage in here just to highlight maybe who should be fasting and that even in the Quran it does state that some people may not be suitable for them. If they have for instance unregulated diabetes and their blood shows are really out of control, that's not necessarily the best candidate and in the Quran it does say that it should be really for people who can handle it medically. So in the beginning, the first eight hours of your fast will be burning off glucose, the sugar, you know, the carbohydrate that you eat. And then after that it'll resort to what's called glycogen which is the stored glucose that's stored in our muscles and liver. So it starts to come out of the liver and it sometimes takes a full one or two days for it to completely deplete but it starts to burn off fat and then it goes into burning off the fat. Okay, so it breaks down the fat into what's called ketones. Maybe you've heard of the popular diet of this ketogenic diet now, so many people are doing. What it's doing is it's the same thing I was telling you about the intermittent fasting. You stopped dinner, you skipped breakfast and now you're eating this big break and you're now burning the fat and the fat is breaking down into what's called ketones for your brain so your brain can keep getting fuel. So again, I wanted to point out some of the risks when someone isn't having regulated blood sugar that they should keep in mind, hypoglycemia which is the shaking, sweating, these are some of the symptoms that might be experienced, blurred vision, tingling of the lips, feeling that irritability and you know, heart is racing. This can be a symptom. So again, if one is going to do the fast and their blood sugars are not in control, it's really important to seek your healthcare provider's input and also to have them adjust medications that may need to be adjusted. If one is having high blood sugar and they're taking medications, they may need less of it when they're fasting. It was a passage I saw because I have to preemptively tell you when I first found out like last week I came to do this talk over in San Ramon and my friend Nadia Anne had invited me but she was telling me ah, my biggest concern is that after we break our fast so many of us are eating agoras and samosas and spring rolls and some people are even gaining weight during this time and I would just love for you to talk about how we can avoid some of that and get the benefits. So I found some of the passages the most that I could that are very supportive in the Quran about healthy eating. So eat what is lawful and wholesome of the earth. Okay, what does that mean? Maybe I can ask you, does anybody want to share? What do they think is wholesome of the earth? Vegetables. Yes, whole grains. Okay, yes. Help vegetables, fruits, whole grains. Okay, so eating during Ramadan. So I told you all these amazing benefits that are coming from fasting and the last one I didn't even mention this one before I'll move on. There's, I don't know if you've heard this term hormesis. Has anybody heard this word hormesis? Hormesis is a term for the kind of the good stress that we put on our body. So there's many kinds of hormesis. Fasting is one, cold therapy. Sometimes people do that so they heat the body up and then they go into a cold ice bath or they take a pot shower and then they switch to cold and shiver. So this whole thing, it seems like who would want to do that? Well that kind of stress that we put on the body produces good things too. It's making the body hearty. Sauna, using the sauna is one thing also. So when we're going through all this beautiful effort of fasting and it's deeply spiritual, I realize that. But there's a very strong health component that's coming with it, almost like a reboot. So think before putting the food in that body. What was it designed for? What kind of food? So the first thing you want to think about is electrolyte replacement. And when you think of that you're thinking of what kind of foods would be nourishing for my body after having no liquid and no food. Probably something with some salt in it, something that has a lot of minerals. One of the things I was thinking of, like dates for instance, is a good way to break the fast. Dates have some protein, they have a little bit of, they have some fiber. They have some, it's going to break down pretty quickly into sugar, which is what you need initially. And it has these minerals and electrolytes in it. Celery is another good vegetable. If you know it has a slightly salty taste to it. So celery is a good electrolyte replacement. So what does that do? That helps the body hold on to water. And we want the body to hold on to water so that we can last. And other vegetables, they're all filled with good electrolytes. So maybe a soup made with some celery, some tomatoes, vegetables, lettuce. This is so very good to break the fast. Olives, bananas and coconut water. Do any of you know that coconut water is a good electrolyte? Have you heard of that? You can use coconut water to rehydrate after being dehydrated. So complex carbohydrates. Does anybody know what I mean by complex carbohydrate? Yes, slow digesting carbohydrates. So whole grains. That would not be white flour or white bread or white pasta. So much as it would be maybe whole wheat or bulgur. Or quinoa or these other whole grains. Use those. Even if you're making something from flour, make it whole wheat. Fiber rich foods. So foods that have a lot of vegetables, beans, whole grains. Plant foods have a lot of fiber. And then to have moderation with dates and honey. Yes, it's definitely mentioned in the chron. It's supposed to be very healthy for you in the beginning to break fast with dates and to have them. But they are still filled with a lot of sugar. So you want to make sure that you have it for that fast rate. And then paste yourself so that it's not raising the blood sugar from very low to really high. And then choosing healthy cooking methods. So what would be a healthy cooking method that you know of? All of it. Baking. All of it. So it's a healthy oil to use. But instead of deep fry, maybe shallow fry. So a lot of falafel doesn't absorb as much as say deep fried purin or samosa or something, right? A little bit of that is fine. But choosing healthy cooking methods and you'll absorb the right oils. And especially if you are deep frying, that same oil shouldn't be used again. Because it starts to fractionate and it's not healthy then at all. Can you start from that point again? That's something that we'll be doing it for years and years. We're using the same oil? Yeah. So it does. The oil quality breaks down. And so now you're refrying in an oil that's a poor quality oil by the time it's been recorded, heated up and used once before. And the kind of oil I would recommend. So for high temperature cooking, coconut oil is good. And ghee is good. I don't know why it's gotten such a bad rap as being saturated fat and real. But it's a real food. It's a recognizable food. Low heat frying or cooking or salad dressing, I would use olive oil. You can use for salads more extra virgin olive oil. But for cooking low temperature, don't do high temperature because again it has a low smoke point so it breaks down. Canola, the problem with canola, even though it's good for high temperature cooking is you should try and find organic because it's a seed oil. It's not as good quality oil. Avocado oil again is good for the low temperature or salad dressing type of thing. Yeah, but I would say for frying it would be coconut oil and ghee. So is there any oil that would spawn beyond the smoking point? No, it's already breaking down and it's not healthy. The key part, that is my favorite. But I avoid it because I have a fear of how I could do it. So is it like you can use ghee throughout your cooking and all your... You can use ghee but again, we're talking, you know, you're using moderation. So for instance if you're cooking, we're not talking about deep fat frying, right? We're talking about say you're making a substance, right? Yeah, so you're putting some ghee in there and you're frying your food. You're not putting this thick a layer, you're putting some, a couple of tablespoons. Yes, yes it's good. It has something in it called butyric acid which is actually very good for the gut. And in Ayurveda, you know, traditional Indian medicine has been used for just thousands of years. It's even medicinally used. And there are two words, it's like a cow and something. So which one would you recommend? The ghee? I only know of it from dairy, from cow. I don't know about... Yeah, and oh, and the butter that I would recommend in this country would be carry gold which is from Ireland. It's a grass fed butter. It has a nice golden color and in Ireland they just don't seem to be doing what we're doing here with the butter. It doesn't say organic on it, however, it is the only grass fed butter I have found and Trader Joe's is the most economical place to get. Okay. So some of the food choices. I loved this plate. I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago called Mind, Mood and Food and it was put on by this, the Center for Mind, Body Medicine. And they share this plate because we see a lot of plates where they show you how to divide up the food. Half the plate should be filled with fruits and vegetables. The other quarter of the plate should have meat or a protein source and beans. And then the other quarter should have your carbohydrates, the grains, whole grains. But here you can see that fish is very, very good. And, you know, eggs, very good for you too. The yolk, particularly do not throw out the yolk because that has what's called choline and it has retinol, which is good for your eyes, it's vitamin A source. So these are all brain foods, okay? Lots of foods, vegetables, nuts and seeds, olives. Drink lots of water. That should be the beverage of choice. Question on the fish. What fish do you recommend that have the most? Mercury. So there's an acronym, SMASH. Salmon, mackerel, anchovy, sardines and herring. Yeah, SMASH. SMASH. So salmon is on the top? Yeah, wild salmon. Very high in omega-3. So this is the highest for your brain, brain food. Yeah? So this is, not that we're going to go into depth about the microbiome, but you might be hearing so much in the news about the microbiome. So I'll just touch upon it. You know, there's two to four pounds of what we call the microbiome. It's not just bacteria. It's protozoas and yeast. And there's just a variety of species there. And you kind of think of it like a garden growing, but there's so much of it. There's actually more DNA of these species than our own human DNA going on in our body. If you think about that, they're completely outnumbering us 10 to 1. So, and we have a symbiotic relationship with them. These bunks, you can call them, they're good bunks. So what they want is they want fiber-rich food. They want fermented foods. And I know in, I don't know necessarily, at least in Indian tradition, every culture has some fermented food. So Korean may have kimchi. Germans have sauerkraut. Japanese have miso. And we have yogurt. So these foods are very, very nourishing for the gut. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because we're talking about brain and feeling good. Emotions, we want to feel good. In the gut, we are creating 90% of our serotonin. And serotonin is that neurotransmitter that makes you feel very happy and good. And we thought that that was going on in the brain. And now after recently, a few years ago, they've realized that 90% of it is being produced in the gut and going up through that brain connection. So that's why it's important to feed the microbiome proper food. And then you want to eliminate processed foods. You want to eliminate these refined carbohydrates like white flour, dough, white things, white food. And omega-6 oils. So these are particularly the worst ones are soybean oil and cotton seed oil. So sometimes I see that Costco has wonderful pre-made salads and it's tempting. They're fine. But the packet of salad dressing that goes with it always seems to have soybean oil in it, so I don't use those at all. So try and be picky. So when you're making a salad dressing, it's not that hard. You can use olive oil, a little balsamic, a little honey and a little mustard and mix it up and that's a nice dressing. So make your own, you're worth the time to put good food in your body. Don't go for these kind of foods. And a lot of packet foods, you'll see on the back a lot of times there's soybean oil and cotton seed oils. I just don't eat those. Okay. So I found, I did get some help for this. I had a, there was a presentation and I listened to a woman, Sarah from Rutgers, who's a Muslim dietitian and then also, so she presented this medicinal foods in the chron and I also got some assistance from a Canadian, a Muslim Canadian dietitian and I'll share some of the information they shared with me. This one, this medicinal foods. There are healing foods listed in the chron that you can consider them in the superfoods. So pomegranate. Pomegranate is a wonderful food. It's mentioned at least three times in the chron. It has something that I had never heard of until very recently called omega five. I've heard of omega three, six and nine but this is something that's very, very helpful for you. And it's been known to pomegranates. The studies are showing it even inhibits breast cancer. So try and eat pomegranate and I don't need so much the juice because again, there's a lot of sugar that will come with that. A little bit, it's fine. But get the seeds, you know, and if it's a mess, do this trick where you cut it under water and so all the red juice, you know, you don't get it staining everywhere but put those seeds on your, you know, your biryani or put it on top of salads. Just have that. It's very, very good for you. Of course, we talked about dates and how it's such a good food for breaking the fast. Figs also, very good for you. They're high in vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and it seems like you can find these dried figs year-round. Olives, healthy fat. Very, very good for the body. Wheat is mentioned in the corn so I don't know if any of you are experiencing issues with wheat if you're having gluten issues but it wasn't the case until, you know, recent times because wheat used to be very different, we say. But try, with wheat, corn and so I try to get organic for those for sure. Okay. Those are the ones that most of the GMOs that genetically modified food is. Corn and soy, yeah. Actually, even just looking at organic I know it can get expensive but if you look up what's called the dirty dozen you can look up there's a list called the dirty dozen and then there's the clean 15. The dirty dozen would be the list of 12 of the most contaminated foods and so you want to make sure you buy those organic. So strawberries, for instance, who's peeling the skin off of the strawberry? You eat the whole strawberry but so they absorb a lot of the toxins. But a banana, you could peel the banana skin and so you don't need to have organic for that. Okay. So look up the dirty dozen, you'll know. Okay. Beans are wonderful for the body. They're full of fiber. They don't, you know, they don't cause a lot of heaviness in the body. Some gas but then you can take some digested enzymes if you're troubled by it. Lentils. Lentils? Now sometimes, I should mention about lentils. Sometimes people are, their blood sugar seems to go up a lot with lentils. So, you know, take a look. If you find that you're borderline getting close to diabetes, you might find that your blood sugar goes really high with lentils so you want to have a little bit less of that. And then pumpkin and squash. Does anyone know what vitamins are really high in orange foods like squash and pumpkin? And do you know? Huh? Well there's some C but it's mostly high in A, beta carotene. Think of, they're all the carotenoids and tomatoes are part of that and green leafy vegetables are part of that but if it's got orange color, except for orange, but you're right about the fruit orange, it is definitely very high in vitamin C but these are the most rich in beta carotene. List it so you want to think, okay, why is this listed? So I should be eating more of that. So instead of worrying about, oh, I shouldn't have this. I should know that. Find first the foods you should have and by the time you're done eating those see if there's even room for anything else. I wanted to mention one more medicinal food that I wish I had a slide to show you but black seed. Have you heard of black seed? Yeah. And it's used in, and I saw it was saying in the ground, can cure all diseases except death? Here's all diseases except death. So black seed, there's a person who's put out a bar. Have you heard of it? It's called cure. Has anybody heard of this bar? Cure. Let's see if I have the website for it. You can go on this website, cureyourworld.com And what it is is a woman, her grandmother used to make black seed and mix it with superfoods. So basically foods of the Quran, she has taken that and turned it into a bar. So do take a look at that. So again, back to breaking of the fast and looking at some of the foods that we want to be eating. From everything I've been eating and seeing this passage to the kind of way we're supposed to break the fast is not again stuffing, stuffing, stuffing fast and the feast is not fast. It's supposed to be like here, it says one third food, one third drink or water and one third space, air, so that the food has some place to move around. So if this is a time of restraint and control then this is where we want to exercise it too is during the breaking of the fast. So keep that in mind. And I did hear this again from Sarah, the person from Rutger. She said, sometimes the ladies will say it's difficult for us to say no because people keep on saying just eat hot, hot food, I've just made it. Come on, eat more, eat more. And so she said just you can say that you're following the sun now of the prophet and not eating too much. So you can always use that as an excuse to not overeat if you feel the pressure to do that. So what shall we eat? So I mentioned that a Canadian dietitian he had created a sample meal plan for us. So he was saying to use the dates soaked in a cup of milk or small soup at the break. Now of course the timing is different because he's in Toronto so it may be that I think that will be earlier hopefully for us here. Then he said stop and go complete the sunset prayer. So now you've had a chance for the sugar to go into the system so you can kind of calm your system down a little bit then go to the prayer then come back and have the meal. And try some of it like he had a meal plan. He actually has a seven day meal plan he shared with me. So then have a snack again you can have another snack and he has a couple of them so that they're going on a little bit of food is going in the system. And his suggestion was also to prepare the breakfast if you're going to eat it. Somebody will skip it entirely and sleep through or they will the recommendation is to prepare it in advance so that you can maximize your sleep. And then Sarah shared this lentil soup recipe looks very tasty very rich in the garlic and if you don't have an instant pot that is most wonderful tool I don't know. Does anybody know what I'm talking about instant pot? It's a pot that you can soak your beans you don't have to do an overnight soak it's lovely you can put all of that in the pot and then within 30 minutes 40 minutes you get proper soft beans soft garbanzo beans everything is nice and tender meats you can cook very quickly and so you can put the best part is you can put a lot of vegetables in it and if you use that immersion blender you know blend it up you can really get a lot more vegetables in your diet that way a lot of people tell me they're eating much healthier now than they have this pot so it's really just a it's electric pressure cooker essentially but it's safe if you've heard those horror stories of pressure cookers opening up and then you know it exploded on some everybody has one story of burns this will prevent any of that and then my friend had made me some bolani my friend Wajima she said instead of these heavy burratas I made bolani and do you want to see the recipe? let's do it but she don't use the yeast so skip the yeast and um don't she doesn't use oil to just be you know there's recipes and people are writing in articles so please feel free to sign up next thing I want to point out is there are some different things that happen during Ramadan that you might be experiencing and you want to kind of preemptively start to think about what am I going to do so for instance you know having a little bit of indigestion sometimes people are feeling a little bit of reflux so reflux you know where the acid starts to rise a little bit perhaps eating too soon next you know right before going to sleep might aggravate that so consider maybe giving yourself a little space before you go to sleep and then one of the suggestions was mint tea if you're having kind of any kind of digestive issues so that can help even though they say mint tea I also in Ayurveda we have what's called CCFT cumin, coriander and fennel and you can mix those things with hot water and make a tea out of that and that's very good for digestion as is the spice we call it bajuan it's caraway seeds yeah very good for digestion constipation sometimes people feel constipation because they're not eating that much the digestive tract has slowed down so remember lot more fiber will help push these along and water you need both not just the fiber you have to have enough water and that will help and then headaches calm sometimes just because of water you know it's usually dehydration but if one is really experiencing headaches a lot more headaches you can consider taking magnesium magnesium at night before going to sleep can help to headaches set aside time for questions if you have any questions anything really fasting on the last slide first point shouldn't you look at it with meals avoiding drinking liquids with meals so they're saying for indigestion if you're having digestive problems if you drink the liquid in between you're going to take a sip but not a lot of water yeah just during the fasting or in general just in general they're saying it but yeah it's provided for survival during this time so how about tea is tea and tea or tea is fine you know black tea the char oh char if you know if there's a lot of caffeine going in then that's dehydrating you must compensate by having more water but char is fine if you're having one cup or even you know one and a half cups and just drink plenty of water to go with it the headache all of us for the first week we all get into the morning every morning our head is hurting so you recommend taking magnesium at some point you say at night it's good for you'll get good sleep magnesium glycinate is very good for that form you can get it yeah magnesium glycinate or you can get what's called chelain and magnesium and I can share with you the link for that it's very good for yeah particularly people who are having more headaches even during the rest of the year but see your body is so used to using glucose for the brain and it craves it the first few days the headaches are probably intense just because your blood sugar is just off but yeah hopefully that subsides all the time yeah I think you know honestly water in between the meals even in Ayurveda they say just have a sip but not lots of water with the meal because you're really trying to keep what we call the digestive fire strong right but in between it should be fine so what I'm saying about having that strong you want that strong digestive fire you don't want to cool it and the other thing is you consider using drinking warm water yeah and I don't mean hot from the tap like use the kettle and boil water and then keep and sip warm water throughout the day so your body it just it accommodates that more than cold cold yeah again for that digestive power to be strong then we tend to eat low food because we get only certain windows to eat food mostly after mother's time so unfortunately those behavior turns into that you try to eat as much as you can to survive for the next day right so I know normal course of the day we eat small portions to keep ourselves healthy but at a sudden our body starts like eating so much food so how we can stop our behavior not to eat so much food at that one window that because at Subur we really don't eat that much we try to eat that one window we try to eat the most protein and everything we want to dump in ourselves so yeah and that's why this whole discussion about fasting and looking at it from a different perspective before you start saying this is how I want it to be I want to break my fast with healthy foods I don't want to over-indulge because ultimately people can fast without any food they need water for sure refrigerators wherever there we used to hunt and have you know eat and then go days sometimes because there was nothing as long as you're hydrated and people are doing that and finding chronic disease management and coming to that so with so much effort of fasting you have to think why would I want to mess it up by just indulging so much in that scarcity mindset that's not going to be any more food and even then your stomach is starting because you're not eating so it really can't handle that much food as we're trying to force it on right and another thing to consider because of the circadian rhythm and we do follow that rhythm and feel sleepy at night so there's a hormone melatonin it makes you sleepy at night time it causes also a little insulin resistance so you're not really absorbing the same way as you would in the morning hours the food because that's the window time you normally are eating and it's the most robust and you're going to digest and you're you're going to absorb the best at night time the absorption starts to go down naturally so keep that in mind that it's from what I've read it's lighter meals that are it's not supposed to be very heavy on the taxing to go to sleep with a really heavy stomach anyway yes well you do need to get sleep and right? and you have to eat and I know that because of that and it looks like because of window time I've seen even on Muhammad's my sample meal plan that he gave he's still eating at 11.30 again you do the best you can with the time that you have so on a regular day you would not want to do that you would want to give yourself at least a two hour window before you before you go to sleep exercise so one suggestion was that because the energy is really low by then some people after they do the dates and the milk and then have that initial break and the prayers sometimes yoga or some gentle movement Tai Chi that kind of exercise that's lighter and then they have their or they do it after the main meal where they have enough energy now come it's come from the food that's the best time it's just you set yourself up for failure trying to do things on a very weak tired body and remember metabolism slows down you don't eat as much and you're very sedentary it slows down so keep in mind what's reasonable for what's sensible what feels right probably after the meal even go for a light walk you know the board making around yeah okay any other nutrition questions I do I do yeah you talk about sleeping after some milk I do I do outside sometimes you just leg and arm I do but it's a habit yeah right I do I do I do I do I do you can do that for sure it's very good at helping with jet lag lately though even fasting has been known to be more helpful to jet lag it's hard to do but it's fasting or the flight until you get into that time zone you get into water and then then you enter that time zone and then you eat I do it resets your I do I do it's so much easier to prop the little toe than dad would of course I do okay thank you so much I really appreciate you inviting me here to talk yeah and anybody that wants to I do I can have my cards if you wanted to I do I do I do I do so I'm pregnant my duty is in the Ramadan so I have plan to fast is that safe for me to fast no not for pregnant pregnant breastfeeding it's clearly stated not to you want to make sure baby is properly learned during that time this time I know this time is very long like 15 days 15 to 15 hours but still I really wanted to wanted to yeah well that's what it says in the Quran too inviting pregnant you can talk some more with your doctor about that but I would recommend or maybe maybe you want to do part of it a full day might be a little bit much for pregnancy yeah thank you thank you