Eid Mubarak from Meddy

From the team who brings you the best of Qatar’s doctors, Eid Mubarak to you all!

The holy month of Ramadan has now concluded and it is time to celebrate and rejoice with Eid. We wish you all great health and everlasting blessings.

Although Ramadan was a time to limit consumption, it is essential to understand that over-eating and exhaustion can also occur when you go back to your daily routine. During Eid, people tend to over-compensate for the “lack of” food and sweets that they couldn’t find time to consume during the holy month.

Here are a few tips from our top doctors to think about when you are thinking about your next meal in Eid:

• Don’t starve yourself! Our bodies may have adjusted to the fasting, but getting back into your normal routine can be tough. Have a light breakfast, if you still feel hungry then organize your three “big” meals based on your preferred time, and snack in between.

• Snack time! Studies of weight loss have found that consuming “healthy” food every 3-4 hours during your day can help you ward off hunger and allow you to maintain a balanced dieting schedule. Food should be consumed like a pyramid. At the base, a large breakfast, then a snack, then a light lunch, then a snack, then a very light dinner at the top!

• Healthy Smile! Everyone knows that consuming lots of sweets can cause damage and decay to the teeth, so why do we still consume so much? More and more people are switching to alternates to added sugars and this is great news to our smile and overall health. When eating any food, especially sweets, try to freshen up your mouth with some non-sugary gum or better yet, floss whenever you get a chance. This will keep your breath fresh and your teeth clean for your next visit.

• Just take one sweet per house. In Eid, people go on house rounds visiting their family and friends, but how many houses are we visiting each day? And how many pieces of sweet have we already consumed? It is good hospitality for the host to provide sweets to the guests in Eid but limit yourself to just one piece of sweet per house. That way you can be sure that you are making the host feel happy as well as maintaining your blood sugar levels.

• High blood pressure! Eid can be a very stressful time for some. Preparing for guests and ensuring that everyone leaves your house happy and fulfilled can be a tough job for some. Although it may seem effortless for those who come as guests to just walk in and leave to the next house, it can be stressful for them as well. Traffic and road works can pop up at any moment, along with the heat and ensuring that the entire family is comfortable in the transportation, can really raise people’s blood pressures and leave them angry and frustrated. Try to always have cold water to drink, whether in the car or in the house for guests, this will be a clean break for everyone to just calm down and relax before it all starts up again!

• Heartburn warning! There’s no need to say this more than once! Consuming too much all at the same time can cause adverse effects to your stomach, heart, and your overall health. Avoid greasy and oily foods straight off the bat. This is your chance to start fresh, get into a healthier diet perspective and allow your body to regenerate with healthy alternatives. Avoid added sugars and lots of caffeine also as they can seriously cause irregular heartbeat and other heart complications.

• Exercise! Now that you’re starting fresh with your food and your new healthy lifestyle, you should start regular exercise. Just moving from one house to the next can be considered exercise, actually! Doing some stretching or some yoga poses right before you go to bed can get your body to the relaxed position you need to have a good night’s sleep.

• Festivals! Eid is a time for celebration, so naturally there are a lot of festive events with lots of food, shopping, and fun. Although some people prefer to visit family and not go out to really crowded malls, others find that joining in on the festivities doesn’t just give Eid the celebratory feeling you wish to feel but also provides you with a sense of happiness to see other people around you happy to share the celebration with you.

• Connect with family! Eid is a time of giving and is a time to relax and catch up with family. Usually we are all about what is going on with our life like work or school, or even just going out with friends. Take this time to stay in with family and really bond over a healthy breakfast or a movie night. This will definitely put you in a better mood and will release tension in your brain about anxieties that you have been dealing with. Who else would give you great advice on life that the people who know you best?!

• Relax!! Mental health is often overlooked when it comes to stress management. This is especially true right after dealing with a month of not eating right and maybe not sleeping right. Frustration might build up very quickly and before you know it you are going through rage fits. Calm down! Take a deep breath and just take a day for yourself to sleep in. Read a good book and don’t think about next week’s work schedule. This will give you some time to break your stress cycle and allow you to really start fresh once you’re back to work!

We hope that these tips can help you celebrate Eid in the h