Laboring to be fit

Ramadhan is special and for me this is the detox , cleansing and recuperate and regenerate month physically mentally emotionally spiritually.

Detox diet, toning exercise, contemplations, extra solat ....

Yes it is not easy , not easy at all but this post is a proof that it can bear fruit !

Detox diet from Maryam's Light of Healing Center while observing Ramadhan fast:
First week: No red meat ,no caffeine , minimal salt , loads of vegetables , no wheat , no sugar , minimal fat , loads of fresh fruit and uncooked vegetables ...
Believe it or not I almost manage to eat this without batting an eyelid over what the others were eating , fried food , tempting sweets , santan based food , coffee..oooh the smell of it .

First day : headache , sluggish , sleepy , inertia but a sweet temperament which I always get when I fast ..well not so sweet..I yelled when my staff told me they did not plan a break and I was to work non stop till 5 pm!

Now going onto 5th day , alert, body feels light , mind is clear and still holding on to this bland diet with a surprisingly good appetitte...there is no hunger involved at all !!

Exercise :
Boy it is tough , especially because these exercises are for core muscle strengthening , and indeed I need that . What with menopause beckoning me , and extra kilos of blubber ! I have been exercising regularly for more than two months now and the results are showing . I can bend my knees and keep in the bent position for some time without feeling any pain which I used to. My ankles are also stronger and I hardly get the stiffness I used to get .I can also walk for longer hours without feeling tired as proven when I did my walkabout in Perth !

Contemplations :

Yes these are my special meditations for this Ramadhan , phrases from the Quran towards selfrealization ...Among my favourites

Fa ayna ma tuwallu fa tamma wajhullah 2:115

Where so ever you turn there is the Divine face

I am slowly building up my extra solats , no shock treatment for me , I let my body find its own pace and build up as I strengthen physically.

Yesterday evening Maryam decided to get my stats , well is that not a bit late considering I was already on the detox. But , about three weeks ago I weighed ........ and now the scales show that I am 4.2 kgs lighter ...wow , what do you know ? Nah , I still do not have an hourglass figure and still look grandmotherly , what do you expect, the hormones ( more like lack of it ) are reshaping my body to menopausal figure ...

Looking good and awakening passion

I have dropped one dress size and probably can drop a few more when I am done.


What has made it easier to shed my excess bagage was my daughter's detox meals she prepared for me and several of her clients for the fasting month. It is not easy to take because this first week it is a very low salt diet but she promises me it will get easier . I am however beginning to get used to it and there is an added bonus of tastebuds becoming more sensitive to the subtle flavours which the salt used to mask. There is an analogy here about the food. I think focusing on eating masked something that genuinely wanted to find expression within me , and removing food as a focus unmasked it. Now , removing salt is unmasking something that was always there in the food but could not be appreciated by me because of the salt. I wonder how much in our lives we have masked with something and therefore fail to benefit from the blessing that we could not recognise?

I had succeeded in getting myself to a size ten two years after my last child was born , then, after getting quite ill with endometrioisis , going on hormones , I regained the weight I had lost and more! From time to time I would get upset over it and then lose a few kilograms only to get it back whenever I had a training to do or to attend . We Malaysians eat so many times when we attend meetings at hotels. Once I had invited a lecturer from the UK to give our three day International workshop and she commented , you people eat as many times as I would take a walk! I had to accompany her for a walk down the dusty, smokey roads of old KL simply because she did not like being cooped up in the hotel even though I had protestd that her notion of getting some air was misguided in view of the pollution!

I have another reason for self sabotage, ie for not getting myself into normal weight , being content with a BMI just oustide of the normal range . When I succeeded in reducing my weight to normal, I found my physical energy increased. I had more strength, I could walk more, I could run up the stairs and shop without getting aching feet. And then , I also found my emotions began to create havoc. I was not the staid , serious , no nonsense , sensible person that I thought I was. Steadily plodding along doing what needed to be done out of duty and all. With the energy increase, I began to feel a need for action. I used up some of that energy doing aerobic workouts but this did not seem enough and I did not know what to do with emotions running high and causing me to laugh one minute and feel a depth of sadness the next. I think this is what finally developed into my endometriosis and the severe pain that came with every menses. I had to take hormones which brought my weight up again. I later stopped taking hormones , put myself to work studying endometriosis until I came up with a method to treat the disease using homeopathic remedies . The thesis I wrote can be found here.

As I mentioned earlier , I am quite a survivor . No matter how badly broken I am inside of me, I plod on , I try to find answers, I do not give up on myself , on God and on humanity, even though outwardly you would find me distant or flat or indifferent.Through it all I kept doing things to improve myself , read, take courses, attend workshops , bring up my children while all the time having so much pain within me in my physical and emotional bodies.

My breakthrough came when I decided I had enough and wanted to heal. I went to the US, after my husband gave a grudging permission, I studied sufism and spiritual healing, came back to practice what I learned and slowly began to heal from very old wounds buried deep in my soul.

After this , almost every year I travelled abroad to continue my spritual journeys, meet my teachers , meet others on the Path and every time I came back I found some area within my being had changed, I had learned something new , I had internalised some new realisations.

And it is only in the past month that I had found the strength to give up eating to fill a void within me . Perhaps it is not so much a void as a part of me that lay dormant for as long as I filled my belly with food. That part of me is my passion. I know it for what it is now , and perhaps as I am much older now and hopefully much wiser, I will find a way to harness this passion to serve me and to serve my fellow humans better.

With this passion comes a deep longing for a meaningful communication with people I find worthwhile . What is it that prevents this closeness ? Can people not have a meaningful platonic relationship without any need or want for a physical closeness? Perhaps blogging is one way for me to have this depth of communication , as I lay bare my soul for those who care to read. Sometimes after I write something and post it to my blog, I find my heart filled with a sweet joy , and I think to myself, someone somewhere is reading what I wrote and resonating with it and is sending me loving thoughts and I say a prayer of gratitude to my Lord for sending me the sweet love in my heart.

Revision of my article on Healthy Fasting.....

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem
Published on 7 Ramadhan, 1424.

The Muslim Fast and our Body

By Dr. Suriyakhatun Osman
Medical Doctor, Sufi Healing teacher and Homeopath

Contents

• Beginning the Fast
• Gastritis
• Detoxification
• Supplements and Drugs while Fasting
• A Scientific Experiment
• Physical Activities and Sports
• Ketosis
• Bathing
• Food Allergies
• Inward Looking Time
• Spices
• Some Questions and Answers
  

I wrote this lecture years ago after reading a book on fasting written by an American, Dr Alan Cott, the book was titled Fasting, the Ultimate diet. What I wrote was in Bahasa and, it was in the form of a presentation. Now I m trying to rewrite it in English adding to it what I learned from my many years of experience fasting as well as treating fasting related problems in my clinic. This writer was talking not about the Muslim fast but the fasting that some people undertake, while not taking any solid food, they would take water, or some would take juices.

The Muslim fast on the other hand is a semi fast but also a complete fast. One goes without food and drink and, more that this, one goes without negative thoughts, if that is possible. The fasting one undertakes is to fast from all negative things, including negative thoughts. It is also a withdrawal from fulfilling some of our bodily needs that are related to our desires and urges. While these are not forbidden in themselves, they are to be abstained from while in the state of fasting. This includes all actions pertaining to the sex act. However it is only abstained from while observing the sun up to sundown fast and is permitted in the night-time while not fasting even in the fasting month of Ramadan.

It is not my intention to discuss the merits and demerits of fasting but it is my intention to address some of the benefits, problems and mechanics of fasting to help the individual who wants to undertake the fast. It is also not my intention to go into great technical details nor is it my intention to write a scholarly treatise with references since there is a time constraint to my writing. Having said that, most of what I am writing have been verified and data on it can be easily found on the internet and in books.

Beginning the Fast:

The fast begins with a pre fast preparation. The pre fast preparation for the average Muslim faster is to get up before dawn to eat a meal! Of course those who are afraid of going hungry will eat a big meal if they have the appetite to eat at this hour! But, in actual fact, the bigger the meal you eat, the faster you'll get hungry. It would therefore be wise to eat a small meal that is packed with the nutrients one needs for the day. A complex carbohydrate meal with a lot of essential fatty acids and a helping of vegetable protein would be good. If you take a cup of muesli with yoghurt and honey adding some flax seeds, it would make a good pre fast meal. A liquid meal made from a complete food powder may be a good choice for those who have no time to waste preparing a meal, a light wholesome meal may be another option. Milk with dates is also a good pre fast meal, adding a whole food vitamin and mineral preparation would not be a bad idea. If you are allergic to milk, substitute the milk with soya milk. Taking refined carbohydrates like white flour and white rice is not such a good idea because these foods digest pretty fast and you get very hungry very soon, as well as your blood sugar will rise very fast and then drop very fast. A complex carbohydrate on the other hand, will digest much more slowly keeping the blood sugar steady.

Examples of complex carbohydrates are brown rice, whole meal cereals including wheat and all vegetables and fruits except for the very starchy ones which have much less fibre and a lot of carbohydrates. Fruits are very good for breaking the fast because they have a lot of easily utilised sugars but they are not likely to cause the sudden rise and then fall of the blood sugar. It is eating simple sugars (white sugar) that sometimes make people dizzy after breaking the fast, because the blood sugar shoots up suddenly releasing insulin which then works to bring down the blood sugar again super fast as well. The fibre in the meal slows down digestion, hence the blood sugar rise is gradual when we eat complex carbohydrates.

Detoxification

For those who are usually constipated while not fasting, the bad news is that it is going to get worse when fasting and it is also going to negate any beneficial detox effect of the fast! For these people, I would suggest that a few days before beginning the fast, eat light foods, avoid animal proteins, drink lots of water and take a preparation that would cleanse the bowels. Depending on the type and manner of constipation, these are the suggestions : Take a fibre preparation before bedtime with a large glass of water, ones that can be bought at a pharmacy are psyllium seed preparations or asperghula husk. You can make your own preparation using local ingredients (getah anggur, kembang semangkok, selasih). Take a tablespoonful of Lactulose (available over the counter at the Pharmacy) or if this is too mild, add two senokot tablets or granules prepared according to instructions on the pack you bought. Senokot may cause some griping pain while being a good bowel cleanser and each person has got to find their own suitable dose! Start taking more fibre with your meals but, if you have been used to eating low fibre meals, you may find that suddenly increasing fibre intake will cause bloating! Adding a suitable amount of chlorella and spirulina may help with the detox but having said that, please make sure the brands you use are from pollution free sources and, also there are some people allergic to chlorella and spirulina so please start with a small quantity, way below the recommended dose! You may want to know why I suggest a detox to begin the fast. Most Muslims do not do any kind of detox and simply plunge into the fast. Many will have been fasting for a few days in the week the previous month and this will be a detox in itself. Those who plunge into the fast may have a tough time the first week of the fast if their bodies are having a lot of waste matter that has not found its way out of the body in the normal course of its metabolism. How is this possible you may ask?

A Scientific Experiment

This post is very long so I am sending you to my website to read the rest....

HERE


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