Ramadan (France)

from: Le Nouvel Observateur, Sport.

translation: doxa-louise

RAMADAN: THE MORE ONE EATS BADLY, THE MORE THE BODY TAKES VENGEANCE

The fasting period has begun for many Muslims. At sundown, some confuse

‘getting one’s forces back’ and ‘eating uncontrolably’

It is warm. I feel like getting up to breathe better by the window, but I’m feeling too lazy.

I am lying on my bed, with open mouth, prey to some bizarre sensations.

Two hours earlier, I did some terrible things in the kitchen. What exactly, I can’t quite remember. Everything seems vague.

I just remember the Nutella jar and another one, with mayonnaise. And the colors in the

sandwich that I made and held with both hands.

There was green, pink, pastel-blue and violet, I believe.

My throat itches. My tongue is dry, despite the bottle of water which I downed like that

bear in the Valvert advert.

It is 5 in the morning and the end of fasting is scheduled 17 hours away. A drop of sweat on my hairless chest makes me laugh - one occupies oneself as one can at this hour. 

A little me, in his underwear, is laughing in my head. He knows that yet again I have broken all my resolutions in matters of diet and ethics - the aim of this month, is it not to learn to content oneself with little?

There are at least two ways of getting through ramadan :

• the soft and easy way. Light soups, fruit, vegetables, rice without sauce and oven-baked meats. You recharge on wellness and your gut says thank you.
• the brutal way, like a bear - like in the advert - in a spree involving booklets of

  restaurant meals.

«We’re outa here!»

During the ramadan 2007 season - it’s a bit like the Tour de France - my mother

had decreed a few rules, very simple and logical in execution.

No waste - thus no longer a choice between nine hot plates - , less sugar on the table

and no longer the right to take food with one to the bedroom, to eat in a resting position

like a roman emperor.

In a show of protest, my father and brother had risen spontaneously ffrom the table. In

their eyes, i could read the following message :

      What next, soya seeds and tree bark? We’re outa here.

Flying threats, such that three days later, the new rules were gone. As soon

as dusk had arrived, my father, brother and myself would embark on our favourite

discipline : the eating marathon, which consists in having until the break of dawn

constantly something in mouth.

So bad, you don’t go to the loo to waste precious minutes.

A midriff with ensconced padding

An exercise which results in but disagreements.

First of all, taste looses all importance. You hit on everything, without really knowing why. You don’t really communicate with others, because each is in his thing.

Then, on rarely finishes anything, which is embarassing and is called waste - quite

in opposition to the rest of the year nad the ramadan spirit.

Finally, one puts on weight, even if a fasting day in summer lasts almost 18 hours.

You don’t eat, you don’t drink, you don’t sleep, but you are becoming more shapely, which you only see in a clear and objective fashion after ramadan.

Yes, for before, goodfellows like me live with the illusion of having at best lost a bit of

weight, at worst not put on a gram. only no. it is not possible to scoff pounds of cakes - 

whose honey has the same texture as glue - and come through with no consequences.

Among the unfortunate effects noted oncensus (by myself) :

-buttocks which take on the form of a parallelogram,

-bulging cheeks, as if there were nuts inside,

-a midriff with ensconced padding, especially lying low.

«F** all that, and pass the bread»

For an example last year, my cousin - we recharge on similar junk - being no longer able to fit in his clothes had told my mother she could do well to take the buttons off his pants - he no longer needed them, his garbs held on their own.

Yet, medical doctors are virtually unanimous. The lapse of time to recharge being relatively short - five, six hours -, one should apportion between meals in a manner

to give the stomach an easier time of it :

• Start with something light, like soup and a piece of bread;
• Some time later, continue with a real meal, but leaving aside sauces and fats, in favour of starches which better recharge the batteries;

• Then, in the last moments, go for dairy, fruit and cereal to consolidate. And most importantly, continue drinking, to avoid being rescued by tourists after a faint on Metro line no.4.

Thursday night I said all that to mother (already on board) and to my uncle, who was our guest.

The latter answered in a brief manner :

     «F*** all that. Pass the bread and what you have on hand. I have great projects in the immediate.»

Butter cookies and sauce-drenched pasta

This week, my cousin, traumatised by last year’s experience told me he would be doing

sport, to avoid blowing up. «Be it early in the morning», because the belly is still full, and just before the beginning of fasting to be able to drink meanwhile.

Effectively this is what one should be doing, but in order to, one must be eating in a healthy fashion.

Wednesday - the first day - he had opted for the morning, trying for a half-hour run.

On the running green, he confessed having done two turns, seen leopards and cheetahs (it was in his head), before lying on the grass and begging for forgiveness.

     «It was a moment of absence.»

Of presence in fact. In his gut. Butter cookies, sauce-drenched pasta, ice cream, fruit,

pancakes et many more surprises, in total contradiction with a man who wants to do

sport, at the very moment when his body is going through a change of rythm.

Like an addict

What logic does overeating correspond to? none. Really. In one of his rare moments of lucidity, my father once told me :

     «During ramadan the more you eat and scoff, the more your body takes revenge.»

I acquiesce. What food-loving fasting individual has not awoken some morning with the feeling of being starved, when only a few hours earlier, he had ingested the equivalent to a half-bison.

And falling down, with regrets, like an addict who had promisd himself to not put his nose back in.

But who so appreciated his track, that coming home in the evening, he puts up another

one (still longer and bigger).

Nour K.