I lived in Saudi Arabia for two years and did Ramadan, out of not wanting to offend my Saudi colleagues who were fasting.
As a practictioner of fasting, I don't think that "modern" Ramadan has much to do with fasting anymore - at least, in the way I see fasting working for me.
Reason being that at the end of each day of fasting, there is a very large amount of food being consumed, and I mean a lot.
Fasting is about calorie restriction for sustained amount of time - modern Ramadan (based on the experience I had in Saudi, which is a very conservative country) is not really about restricting calories, but just shifting the time of the day in which A LOT of calories are ingested.
As a practictioner of fasting, I don't think that "modern" Ramadan has much to do with fasting anymore - at least, in the way I see fasting working for me. Reason being that at the end of each day of fasting, there is a very large amount of food being consumed, and I mean a lot. Fasting is about calorie restriction for sustained amount of time - modern Ramadan (based on the experience I had in Saudi, which is a very conservative country) is not really about restricting calories, but just shifting the time of the day in which A LOT of calories are ingested.