In the middle of these festivities, when all married women are concerned about their karva chauth look, there is one more thing that they should be concerned about is how healthy it is to keep a karva chauth fast?
Well, we do respect everyone’s emotions and beliefs, but keeping yourself starving throughout the day without even a sip of water can lead to many consequences.
However, skipping meals may not cause a big problem but the lack of water can lead to health issues. Apart from that eating, fried and sugary food, which are usually taken for the post-fasting meal, isn’t a great idea either.
“Karwa Chauth is the festival in which women do fasting from sunrise to moonrise. On this day women eat sargi before sunrise and then they are not supposed to eat anything and can’t even consume water till moonrise. This can be injurious to your health because not having water throughout a day makes your body dehydrated and weak”, says Dr. Sukeshini Ramteke, Diet Consultant, Sports Physiotherapist & Fitness Influencer at AXIS Hospital.
“Also, remaining on empty stomach for a full day can cause acidity, stomach gas and also lowers your blood pressure. It can also make you faint. However, there are some health benefits of fasting as well. It is helpful in body detoxification, as it eliminates stored waste like excessive fat. So, for obese persons, it would be helpful to drop some extra pounds quickly,” she said.
“Though, care should be taken with diet before and after fasting and with activity and physical work during fasting,” she further added.
Fasting means not eating anything and even if you are eating something then it should be very light as your gut gets a little slow when you fast. But women traditionally start the day in karva chauth, by eating fried foods like mathi and sugary fenni, that too, at four in the morning, when usually our gut is not awake to process all this, so it can be harmful to your gut.
Diabetic and pregnant women should avoid this fast. Pregnant women can have major acid reflux which can be intolerable for the baby.
If you are pregnant, then keep a fruit-based fast and eat after every two hours and do not forget to take fluids frequently.
There are healthy ways to keep a Karva Chauth fast:
- Eat light for your sargi meal and along with that, you can have cold pomegranate with some dates, yogurt, and raw coconut.
- In the evening, when you are done with the prayers, you can have coconut water.
- When you are about to break your fast, first you must have a glass of lemon water. And that is because your body will be stressed from not eating for a long time and lemon water helps you to kick start your gut.
- Have one more date and some more along with it water to replenish the fluid lost by your body. If you want, you can eat a chapati as well.
- The next morning start your day with a glass of lemon water.
Therefore by following these steps you can get the benefits of detox and treat this day as a day of your diet and you will feel great.