WHAT I NOTICE DURING RAMADAN.

Well ok I specifically notice two things, so far.

#1. This is the only time that your non fasting friends offer to take you out to eat and pick up your bill.

This can not only be happening to me, everytime I am fasting that is when I get the most offers to go out and get some lunch, breakfast, coffee, etc and they will pick up the bill.  What makes it even more so this year is that my birthday happens during Ramadan.  Some People get offended if you go out with them when they are treating and you ask for your meal to be all put in a container for later, after Ifta. and you just sit there watching your friend eat and drink.

#2. The Ramadan Police.  Oh my…ok my fasting is between me and Allah.  I do not need someone to point out what I already know and make me feel inferior to them on the Muslim plane.  There are times where fasting can not be done, it does not make me less of a Muslim. Truthfully, when I can not fast I already feel crummy, like I not only let myself down, but Allah..so I do not need someone else jumping on my bandwagon.  FYI, I do lift myself up as I know I am only sick and unable to do things as Allah wills it, there is a reason for everything and Like i said my life, my choices, my decisions are between me and God, Allah is the only one who can Judge me.  So thank you Ramadan Police but you are so not needed.

Plus I hate trying to defend my actions.  If approached by a Ramadan Po-Po (slang for police out here), they just don’t stop…

“How come you are not fasting?”

“I am sick.”

“You are SICK!!  How are you sick?”

“I am sick.”

“Tell me how you are sick.  Are you contagious?”

“No.”

“You have a disease?”

“NO”

“What do you have that makes you so sick that you can not fast for Allah, after everything he has done and provided for you?”

You stand there looking around and now all these people are just staring at you due to the Ramadan Police making a scene.  Sweat is pouring, your hijab is soaked (Your cell phone short circuited if you use the hijab as a cell phone holster).  You stare down at your feet.  You feel the stares weigh on you like stones, weighing heavier with each second of them waiting for your answer.

“Well, what is your sickness?”

Finally you blurt out, “I am on my period.” You watch as all the judgmental stares turn into facial expressions of disgust.

“Oh we didn’t need to know that, why didn’t you just say you were sick?”

SMH.(well how are they suppose to know, you weren’t wearing nail polish)

HIJABS ARE THE NEW CELL PHONE HOLDERS?

So I have been seeing more and more lately, Muslim woman who wear the hijab are stuffing their cell phone in their hijabs and talking on them.

I am confused about this.  Why is this becoming a trend?  Is it too hard to hear the caller through the hijab cloth using the cell phone the regular way?  Are the phones getting so heany that holding it to your ear to talk now hurts your wrist?

On hot days where you are sweating doesn’t the phone get moist, I know I used to put my cellphone in my bra and I had to get my phone replaced as the moisture caused the phone to malfunction?

If you wear makeup does it smear on your phone?

Does the weight of the phone pull down on the hijab so it is slowly coming undone, loose and falling of your head?

You know if you have a phone in your pocket they call it butt dialing, can you accidentally hijab dial?  You have that constant check pressure, so how can you not be pressing buttons when you laugh or smile?

Can the caller on the other end hear you or does your cheek muffle your voice a bit?

I am a big believer that blue tooths are linked to brain cancer.  No one can change me on that belief.  My brother died from brain cancer, he was always wearing a blue tooth. In 2010, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and it was cancerous.  During treatment he stopped wearing the ear piece of death.  In 2013, he was told he was tumor free, the treatments worked.  Ahumadullah, Great News!!  Well, my brother resumed activities and went back to wearing his blue tooth.  By the end of the year, tumors grew back in his brain in clusters and subsequently took his life.

So I wonder, what kind of harm can happen by wearing a cell phone like that, I don’t think that wearing your cell phone in you hijab is any safer than wearing a blue tooth.  I think the risk is still as high as you constantly have the it next to your brain.  When you go somewhere, have you ever noticed your mobile device searching for a WiFi signal and sometimes it searches for a long time?  Now imagine that your cell phone is currently searching, except the phone is next to your head and brain. Even when you are not using it, your cell phone is still operating and data is transmitting or trying to transmit.  What does that kind of signal frequency do to our brain health?  Or if you wear your smart phone in your bra, what can it do to your breast or heart health?

I have a basic non-smart phone.  I don’t have to worry about it connecting to a WiFi network.  My cell is small and light, so I imagine that if i tried using my hijab as a cell phone holster, the hijab would wind up swallowing the phone whole and I would feel the phone floating around my head bouncing back and forth from my head to the encasing of the hijab.

JALAPENO PEPPERS AND WEIGHT LOSS!

So today I was telling my friend how I was making some jalapeno cheese crackers.  She said how she did not like spicy, I said but spicy helps you lose weight.

She doubted me, so I googled and found information for her and I learned more than I knew so I wanted to share that information with all of you.

Prolonged exposure to cold temperatures and regular consumption of spicy foods may both help you burn more fat, according to a recent study published in the journal Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care.

Researchers have known for a while now that, while white fat leads to weight gain, brown fat actually helps your body burn more calories and promotes weight loss. What they didn’t know? How exactly to increase the amount of brown fat in people who don’t already have a ton of it. Since previous animal studies have suggested that cold temps might do the trick, researchers exposed a group of people with low or nonexistent levels of brown fat to 17° Celsius (that’s about 63° Fahrenheit) for two hours a day for a total of six weeks. It worked: At the end of the six weeks, they had more brown fat and were burning more calories. What’s more, their body fat mass had also decreased by the end of the study.

Of course, it’s not realistic for everyone who wants to lose weight to spend two hours a day in the cold—so researchers wanted to see if they could mimic this effect in another way. They took another group of people with low or no brown fat and had them consume capsinoids, which are naturally present in chili peppers, daily for six weeks. While a placebo group didn’t see any major changes, the experimental group had significantly higher calorie burn and lower body fat at the end of the study.

How cool is this???  Now I am a fan of spicy food already andiI live in Michigan where the winters, the fall and spring, lol, even this summer have been pretty cold. So maybe this is my fat burning year?

Maybe this can be an experiment for you to try.  Eat some spicy foods to your normal eating and exercise routine then measure the difference,  if you don’t like spicy, well, you can always turn down the thermostat—particularly when you’re sleeping.

But makes me wonder what would be the results if I did both??????  And what if I am in the cold longer than two hours???

Now I am not sure how many jalapeno peppers were consumed in a day, I will probably do more research to find that answer.

But I see this being a dinner experiment.

STUBBORNNESS!

Growing up, how many times have you heard how stubborn you were and that when you had children of your own, your kids will be even more stubborn.
Well, if that is the case, where do you think my stubbornness came from?
My dad.
When I became disabled, I moved back in with my dad.
Recently, he was told his colon test came back positive for cancer, which is either he has cancer and it was caught early or he has pre-cancer cells that exists.
Well today, Doctors were going over his tests and it was confirmed that he has some internal bleeding going on in his colon. His doctor told him to go to ER right away.
Where is my stubborn father? He says he doesn’t want to go to hospital and is outside the home doing his own thing.
Know if I was told that by my doctor..I would have hung up the phone immediate and drove over to the ER.
I try to convince him it is best to go, be he explains he isn’t ready, he needs to get things done first.
I am like really, what stuff is more important than you health, which is a life or death situation.

What is a child to do when their father is more stubborn than they ever were as a child?

I WOULDN’T WANT IT ANY OTHER WAY!!

TABOULEH SALAD!

So today I experimented and made a low carb, gluten free TABOULEH Salad.  I have been craving the salad for so long.  So as I wait so the salad can marinate in the refridgerator for a few hours, I am giddy with anticipation to try it.

COME ON IFTAR!

CAN ANYONE RELATE?

We have had a feW Very humid days.  I am very thankful that Michigan has had the cooler temperatures currently but also on the humid days I am thankful that my household has an air conditioner And if our electricity every failed down the street’s the community park with a lake to swim in.

Makes me feel more compassion for those in other parts of the world this Ramadan where they have no luxuties of air conditioning, fans or even bodies of water they can safely swim in.

WHEN FRIENDS SHOW TRUE COLORS

Now I have a personal Facebook page and I friend people that I know and had a bond with, at least I thought I did.

I understand that there are many companies out there that hire you for a playtime easy money making gig, and unfortunately some of them are aimed at weight loss.  I see why as people will pay to get rid of what you are pointing out they have a problem with, which happenes to be my insecurity.  In the last 2 weeks I have had two friends mention they’ve a sure fire way to lose weight quick.  One of my friends, had the decency and enough respect to private message me telling me about getting a personal life coach that will work me out and put me on a weight loss eating plan.  My other friend, who I have known longer, not only posted his need to recruit people needing to lose weight on my Facebook page for me to see, he posted it as all my friends could see it too.

How embarrassing, as my friend you, why would you do something like that and hurt my feelings so much?

Yes, I know exercise is important for weight loss, however, as your friend, you should think and be like whatever plans you have to offer, realize that I am unable to do as my mobility is limited, more some days than others. I am open and honest about my disability.

I am on a healthy plan and my doctor is on board with me with my weight loss efforts. He knows my struggles and my limits.

Is making money more important than the feelings of your friend?

Am I only your friend just for a potential to be your money making customer?

GOOD INFO TO REMEMBER

I know it is Ramadan, but that is no excuse to not still stick to your healthy way of eating.

The only one not applicable front the list at this time is eating every 2-3 hours.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

“God’s pleasure is in the pleasure of the father,

and God’s displeasure is in the displeasure of the father.”

Fathers are significant because they are commanded by Allah (swt) to work hard to provide the physical, educational, psychological, and spiritual needs of a child.  ‘Ali ibn al-Husain (r) is reported to have said,

“The right of your father on you is that you should know that

it is he who brought you into existence, and you are a branch of the tree of his life.”

Fathers have a powerful influence on the healthy development of their daughters and sons.

• School-aged children show significant gains in intellectual development when their fathers are involved with them as infants.

• Involved fathers enrich their daughter’s and son’s self image.

• Children who have involved fathers show more sense of humor, longer attention spans, and more eagerness for learning.

• Father involvement helps teens to develop a strong sense of who they are and increases their ability to resist peer pressure.

Dads are role models who teach their children to be strong, flexible adults.

• Fathers teach gender roles: they are generally more physically active with their sons and more protective of their daughters.

• Fathers often think “out of the box” and offer alternative strategies for problem solving.

• Dads tend to offer more physical play than mothers, which increases the physical competency of their young children.

• When fathers model behaviors that are respectful to women, their sons are more likely to model their father’s respectful behavior as well.

Islam encourages the need to show continuous kindness, respect, care, and concern towards fathers as it can often be difficult to keep a steady balance between working, taking care of a household, and fulfilling the many roles of a parent.

Abu Hurairah always encouraged other people to be kind and good to their parents.

One day he saw two men walking together and enquired of the younger one, “Who is this man to you?” to which the young man replied, “He is my father.”  Abu Hurairah advised him by saying, “Do not call him by his name, do not walk in front of him, and do not seat yourself before he does.”