Sehri and iftar — the food, not the times

Sehri and iftar times depend on your exact location and date, they are religiously significant, and an inaccurate timetable would cause real harm — someone eating when they should have stopped, or going without when they need not have. This site does not compute or publish them. Your local mosque, your community's announced timetable, or an established timetable service for your city are the correct sources, and they are readily available.

What makes a sehri hold

• Protein first. Eggs, dairy, paneer, meat or pulses at sehri slow the whole meal down and make the middle of the day noticeably easier than a sehri of bread and tea.
• Slow carbohydrate rather than fast. Oats, whole wheat roti, brown rice or dalia last longer than white bread, sugary cereal or paratha with jam.
• Fat in moderation. Some fat slows gastric emptying usefully; a heavily fried sehri causes reflux when you go back to sleep.
• Fibre. Vegetables, fruit and whole grains at sehri also prevent the constipation that a month of two meals commonly produces.
• Fluid with the meal, and not only tea. Caffeine at sehri is a diuretic and starts the day short.

What makes an iftar you can sleep after

• Break gently. Dates and water, then the maghrib prayer, then the meal — the traditional order happens to be exactly what a stomach empty for fourteen hours needs.
• Sit down between the two. The ten or fifteen minutes between the dates and the meal is what prevents the heavy, uncomfortable evening.
• Fried items in a portion rather than a pile. Samosas and pakoras are traditional and enjoyable; the volume is what disturbs sleep, not the existence.
• Sugary drinks are where an enormous number of unnoticed calories arrive during Ramzan. Water, and the sweet drink as one glass rather than four.
• Protein at iftar as well as at sehri. Two meals is not many, and protein spread across both is what preserves muscle across a month.

Between iftar and sehri

The whole day's fluid has to fit in this window. Spread it: a glass every half hour through the evening is absorbed far better than a litre at iftar, most of which simply passes through.

The evening is also where the month's weight change is decided. A month of Ramzan can end with weight loss or weight gain depending almost entirely on what happens between iftar and sleep.

Across the month

• The first three or four days are the hardest — caffeine withdrawal, a shifted sleep pattern and a body adjusting all at once. It settles.
• By the third week, accumulated sleep debt is usually the dominant feeling rather than hunger. A short afternoon nap is the most effective single intervention available.
• Weight change over the month runs in both directions and depends on the evening. Neither outcome is the point of the month, but people ask, and the honest answer is that it is decided at iftar.

स्रोत·प्रकाशित व्रत परंपराएँ + IFCT 2017·practice as commonly observed·समीक्षित जुलाई 2026

Sources, with dates →