Practically Speaking
3 weeks into Ramadan, and I can officially remove every pair of pants I own without undoing any of their buttons. I don't think I've lost much weight, but apparently just enough to change the way things fit. Hmm. Probably should have anticipated this, but didn't. Which brings me to a few observations on the practical side of fasting.
I just met another international student for the first time, at the request of the international office on campus. She's from the same general section of planet as me (the west part of North America), we have quite a lot in common, she's having a bit of trouble settling into town and the international advisers thought we'd get along. And so we did! Except that throughout a significant potion of our 90 minute conversation, over (her) coffee, I was thinking about how I was having trouble really focusing on what she was saying. And how hungry the smell of her coffee and biscotti were making me. Lesson: it gets progressively harder to think about anything other than feeding myself throughout the day - better to plan meetings early!
A certain level of normal activity is fine, but in addition to becoming a space cadet each afternoon, my body also doesn't have the same get-up-and-go that it's used to. I still walk quite a bit, work, play on the wheel in the pottery studio, go out with friends. But no matter how much I'd like to, swimming + fasting is not a particularly good idea. I only tried it once, which is probably not a fair sample, but...wow. It's easy to forget how much water our bodies lose while exercising in water until trying to do it without the benefit of a handy water bottle (and snacks!) waiting at the pool edge. I tried to time my swim to be as near the end of the day's fasting as possible (the pool isn't open in the evening), but that just meant that the whole getting out, getting dry, getting home, getting fed routine was WAY more effort than is probably healthy for a person. Ditto other strenuous workouts (or too much time on my feet in general). A good part of Ramadan turns out to be learning to balance energy and output, which means prioritizing the things that really need to be done and letting some of the other things wait a month. All in all, not a bad lesson to learn, especially for someone like me who tends towards perpetual (but not always purposeful) motion.
Dehydration/rehydration is another thing. This hasn't been the issue that I expected when I started fasting, ie. feeling parched all the time. It's certainly not an issue here like it must be anywhere not blessed with a steady temperature of about 10C and relatively short days. Imagine fasting in northern Canada right now, where an hour before daylight is something like 2:30am and sundown isn't until after 11pm. Or in Iran, which has long days AND high temperatures. Or in Korea, which has high temperatures AND ridiculous humidity. And yes, I'm pretty sure that there are people faithfully observing Ramadan in all of those places right now. And I am truly humbled by their dedication. For me however, it's not the slightly hollow, achy feeling in my stomach or the slightly bitter tackiness in my mouth that's the problem (I got used to both of those things fairly early on, though have often lamented not being able to swallow a breath freshener during the day!), but rather figuring out how to spread out my liquid intake over the hours available so that I don't have to pee every 15 minutes while trying to get to sleep. Which is really annoying and really disruptive of normal sleeping patterns. Which is next on my list.
Sleeping. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not all that good at falling asleep again after waking up early for pre-dawn breakfast. Also, being aware that I need to get up earlier than usual often wakes me up during the night...oh no...I've slept through my alarm...reach for watch...hmph, only 2:48am, 54 minutes since the last time I looked...drift back to fitful sleep. And I'm a person who needs sleep. A lot of sleep. I function best on between 8 and 10 hours a night usually. So functioning on 5 or 6 hours of not-that-great sleep has had a much bigger impact than the actual going without food or drink. Though I think that I may actually be getting used to this new schedule now...3 mornings in a row I've managed to get back to dreamland before getting on with my day!
Stomach noises are something else. Also, the timing of cooking so that food is ready to eat at the appropriate hour without requiring too much contact time with it before I can eat it. And I wouldn't recommend baking during the daytime, unless you're awfully confident with your recipe, because it's hard to keep fingers out of bowls to check on the progress of things. I ruined two batches of icing in a row yesterday because I didn't sample it to check out how it was coming along. The cake however, I am pleased to report, turned out just fine!
I have plenty of observations on the less mundane side of the experience as well, but at the moment (45 minutes until sundown, roughly), I'm having trouble focusing on anything at all other than the incremental movement of the sun in the sky, and how eager I am for dinner tonight. Clearly those are observations for a more lucid time of day!
I just met another international student for the first time, at the request of the international office on campus. She's from the same general section of planet as me (the west part of North America), we have quite a lot in common, she's having a bit of trouble settling into town and the international advisers thought we'd get along. And so we did! Except that throughout a significant potion of our 90 minute conversation, over (her) coffee, I was thinking about how I was having trouble really focusing on what she was saying. And how hungry the smell of her coffee and biscotti were making me. Lesson: it gets progressively harder to think about anything other than feeding myself throughout the day - better to plan meetings early!
A certain level of normal activity is fine, but in addition to becoming a space cadet each afternoon, my body also doesn't have the same get-up-and-go that it's used to. I still walk quite a bit, work, play on the wheel in the pottery studio, go out with friends. But no matter how much I'd like to, swimming + fasting is not a particularly good idea. I only tried it once, which is probably not a fair sample, but...wow. It's easy to forget how much water our bodies lose while exercising in water until trying to do it without the benefit of a handy water bottle (and snacks!) waiting at the pool edge. I tried to time my swim to be as near the end of the day's fasting as possible (the pool isn't open in the evening), but that just meant that the whole getting out, getting dry, getting home, getting fed routine was WAY more effort than is probably healthy for a person. Ditto other strenuous workouts (or too much time on my feet in general). A good part of Ramadan turns out to be learning to balance energy and output, which means prioritizing the things that really need to be done and letting some of the other things wait a month. All in all, not a bad lesson to learn, especially for someone like me who tends towards perpetual (but not always purposeful) motion.
Dehydration/rehydration is another thing. This hasn't been the issue that I expected when I started fasting, ie. feeling parched all the time. It's certainly not an issue here like it must be anywhere not blessed with a steady temperature of about 10C and relatively short days. Imagine fasting in northern Canada right now, where an hour before daylight is something like 2:30am and sundown isn't until after 11pm. Or in Iran, which has long days AND high temperatures. Or in Korea, which has high temperatures AND ridiculous humidity. And yes, I'm pretty sure that there are people faithfully observing Ramadan in all of those places right now. And I am truly humbled by their dedication. For me however, it's not the slightly hollow, achy feeling in my stomach or the slightly bitter tackiness in my mouth that's the problem (I got used to both of those things fairly early on, though have often lamented not being able to swallow a breath freshener during the day!), but rather figuring out how to spread out my liquid intake over the hours available so that I don't have to pee every 15 minutes while trying to get to sleep. Which is really annoying and really disruptive of normal sleeping patterns. Which is next on my list.
Sleeping. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not all that good at falling asleep again after waking up early for pre-dawn breakfast. Also, being aware that I need to get up earlier than usual often wakes me up during the night...oh no...I've slept through my alarm...reach for watch...hmph, only 2:48am, 54 minutes since the last time I looked...drift back to fitful sleep. And I'm a person who needs sleep. A lot of sleep. I function best on between 8 and 10 hours a night usually. So functioning on 5 or 6 hours of not-that-great sleep has had a much bigger impact than the actual going without food or drink. Though I think that I may actually be getting used to this new schedule now...3 mornings in a row I've managed to get back to dreamland before getting on with my day!
Stomach noises are something else. Also, the timing of cooking so that food is ready to eat at the appropriate hour without requiring too much contact time with it before I can eat it. And I wouldn't recommend baking during the daytime, unless you're awfully confident with your recipe, because it's hard to keep fingers out of bowls to check on the progress of things. I ruined two batches of icing in a row yesterday because I didn't sample it to check out how it was coming along. The cake however, I am pleased to report, turned out just fine!
I have plenty of observations on the less mundane side of the experience as well, but at the moment (45 minutes until sundown, roughly), I'm having trouble focusing on anything at all other than the incremental movement of the sun in the sky, and how eager I am for dinner tonight. Clearly those are observations for a more lucid time of day!
posted by Roberta | 11:03 AM
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