Ramadan – a month-long holy time for Muslims – is starting soon. This article will help those of you who practice Ramadan fasting (or actually, just about any intermittent fasting) understand how your eating, lifting, and cardio should be adjusted.
Important Note #1: I am not Muslim, so am not qualified to discuss the spiritual aspects of Ramadan. If I get something wrong, please forgive my ignorance.
Important Note #2: I’m commenting here about body composition goals: muscle building and/or fat loss. I am not commenting on athletic performance or competition. (A short summary of Ramadan fasting and sports performance is here and here but there are many studies on soccer/football performance impacts of Ramadan fasting if you search PubMed.)
What Is Ramadan Fasting?
From Wikipedia, on Ramadan:
The most prominent event of this month is fasting. Every day during the month of Ramadan, Muslims around the world get up before dawn to eat Sahur or Sehri or Sahari (meaning “something we eat at Sahar”), then they perform the fajr (or Sobh) prayer. They have to stop eating and drinking before the call for prayer starts until the fourth prayer of the day, Maghrib. Muslims break their fast at Maghrib (at sunset) prayer time with a meal called Iftar. Muslims may continue to eat and drink after the sun has set until the next morning’s fajr prayer call. Then the process starts all over.
For those of you non-Muslims, this sounds an awful lot like intermittent fasting, or semi-fasting. Except for one important thing: the timing is reversed.
When I’ve written about semi-fasted cardio and lifting, I’ve assumed (more…)
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