Two days ago, I stopped fasting.
I know, I know. I made this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed plan to fast for the full 29 days of Ramadan and now I am a quitter, but let me explain why:
Fasting is freaking hard.
I thought it would get easier after the first couple days, but in fact, it got harder. Your mind slows down, your body gets tired more quickly, and your energy reserves fall to all time lows. For me, an already thin person, I was starting to drop weight like Sarah Palin "drops" endorsements (as in, she is endorsing a lot of people).
Plus, it's hard fasting by yourself. Of course, locals were impressed and interested in my fast, but none of them opted to do it with me. Take that and the fact that I wasn't sleeping well, the weather was unbearably hot, and my normal work day went from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. everyday, this fast just was not in the cards.Of course, this morning I was listening to Inside Islam [link] and found out that many people in Muslim countries augment their daily schedules during Ramadan to make fasting more manageable. After Iftar, they often eat two more small meals at 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. and then wake up around 1 p.m. to start the process all over again. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that.
So, my fast is broken. I am so lame.
