Al-Matalib al-'Aliyah 1018 — What is to be avoided while fasting

Imam Musaddad narrates, through Hammad bin Zayd, from the eminent Successor Ata bin al-Sa'ib (may Allah have mercy on him), that he said: Our elder companions (Companions and Successors) used to say: "The lightest and lowest level of fasting is merely giving up food and drink."
Explanation: The point of this insightful saying is that the true spirit and perfection of fasting is that a person, along with abstaining from food and drink, completely avoids idle talk, backbiting and all sins, for merely enduring hunger and thirst is the initial and weakest level of fasting.