Two questions:
1. Can I have a small latte or does the milk violate the fast?
2. Why don't Muslims benefit from the fasting of Ramadan? I worked with a young Muslim guy who spent Ramadan being miserable with exhaustion and headaches. He didn't seem to lose weight or body fat.
1. No lattes, no milk. Nothing but water while you are fasting, no exceptions. Anything with caloric value and you aren't fasting.
2. I believe that during the fasting for Ramadan there is no eating during the day, but you basically have a feast at night. If you are feasting after getting as hungry as you will be for the first few days then you can easily eat as many or more calories as you would during a normal day. Ultimately, weight loss requires calorie reduction and nothing more, fasting is really just a way to help boost the effects. I also think that if you feast at night, then you're basically making every day like the first day of fasting. You don't get over the exhaustion and headaches until you let your body acclimate to the fasting.
When I was describing this in my earlier post, I may not have been too specific about it, probably because I don't really count calories. In order for this to work you still have to reduce calories, that is the only way to lose weight. For the average person it is nearly impossible to exercise enough to counteract the calories you consume in a day.
At the end of a day of fasting, I eat a regular dinner, maybe slightly larger than normal. However, it is still a net decrease in calories consumed during the day. If you consume as many calories after fasting as you would on a non-fasting day then you will be undoing any progress you might have made, will probably get a stomach and, and will make the next day of fasting even more difficult.