Today, we’ve got guest contributor Yusof, who shares with us his experience on training/exercising and meeting his nutritional needs during the month of Ramadan (The Fasting Month for Muslims).
Before any work that needs to be done, ensure that the correct type of warm up is done to guarantee that the muscles are ready for a work out. Warming up helps to prepare the body for the strains of working out, be it lifting or running. Though you can workout without it, the work out quality is much better if you can get the blood flowing and prepare yourself mentally and physically for the task at hand.
A sample training program for Ramadan could be as follows:
At Sahoor. Eat whole wheat or oat cereal or whole wheat bread, 1-2 serving with a cup of milk. Add 2-3 teaspoons of olive oil or any other monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats in a salad or the cereal. Eat 1-2 servings of fruits, as a last item. Or if weight training for protein intake eggs can be consumed with a protein shake or milk.
Around 8 – Open Iftar eat the food that has been prepared for you – traditional Ramadan food is fatty food such as spring rolls, somosas and papardoms.
Read magrib
After magrib – eat properly a well balanced meal:
Consume foods from all the following food groups:
Meat/Bean Group: Chicken, beef, lamb, goat, fish, 1-2 servings (serving size = a slice =1 oz); green pea, chickpea (garbanzo, chana, humus), green gram, black gram, lentil, lima bean and other beans, 1 serving (half cup). Meat and beans are a good source of protein, minerals, and certain vitamins. Beans are a good source of dietary fiber, as well.
Bread/Cereal Group: Whole wheat bread, 2 servings (serving size = 1 oz) or cooked rice, one cup or combination. This group is a good source of complex carbohydrates, which are a good source of energy and provide some protein, minerals, and dietary fiber.
Milk Group: milk or butter-milk (lassi without sugar), yogurt or cottage cheese (one cup). Those who can not tolerate whole milk must try fermented products such as butter-milk and yogurt. Milk and dairy products are good sources of protein and calcium, which are essential for body tissue maintenance and several physiological functions.
Vegetable Group: Mixed vegetable salad, 1 serving (one cup), (lettuce, carrot, parsley, cucumber, broccoli, coriander leaves, cauliflower or other vegetables as desired.) Add 2 teaspoons of olive oil or any polyunsaturated oil and 2 spoons of vinegar. Polyunsaturated fat provides the body with essential fatty acids and keto acids. Cooked vegetables such as guar beans, French beans, okra (bhindi), eggplant (baigan), bottle gourd (loki), cabbage, spinach, 1 serving (4 oz). Vegetables are a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin A, carotene, lycopenes, and other phytochemicals, which are antioxidants. These are helpful in the prevention of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and many other health problems.
Fruits Group: 1-2 servings of citrus and/or other fruits. Eat fruits as the last item of the dinner or soon after dinner, to facilitate digestion and prevent many gastrointestinal problems. Citrus fruits provide vitamin C. Fruits are a good source of dietary fiber.
Taraweeh at 9:30. Normally finishing at 11 if you do all 20, earlier if doing 8 rakats. Eat another meal a very light one i.e. consisting of fruits water and yogurt if trying to loose weight or full of tuna jacket potatoes and beans if you are looking to bulk up.
Remember this is just a sample diet which has to be added to i.e. protein shakes or milk or more fruit can help to gain or loose the pounds and build muscle.
The actual training itself can either be done after Taraweeh i.e. jogging if trying to lose the pounds for minimum half and hour or weight training can be done around 7-8 an hour before iftar so when you do refuel after working out you have the iftar food to refuel you. As for those not going to the gym and pushing heavy weights you can do natural exercises like push ups, triceps squats etc that will give your body that soreness to develop muscle but not make you over tired.
The other most important thing about training during Ramadan is rest and recovery. Overtraining is terrible for the muscles because the way that muscles build according to most experts, muscles grow through micro tears which develop when they are placed under extreme stress. The body then heals these tears during the recovery period by overcompensating (similar to scar tissue), causing the muscle to come back a little stronger than before.
When we overstrain, we push the muscle to a point of damage where it is difficult for it to come back with added strength; or we keep training during the recovery period, never giving it the chance to recover.
As Ramadan is a holy month and one should make the most of its blessings you can stick to the timetable and ensure that this is met. Eating around 8:00pm and then jumping to Taraweeh and hour and bit later doesn’t give much time for rest. However this can be overcome by ensuring that one sleeps around 7-8 hours a day after Taraweeh and after Sahoor you get a couple of hours of sleep. Other wise one can over train and not see any results as when we are starting from nothing, this is extremely destructive, as we will not be able to sustain more than a few days before giving up completely.
Lastly, every person who works out can tell you that there is no progress without consistency. One must workout on a consistent schedule in order to gain results.
Thanks Yusuf! I’m sure many would benefit from what you’ve shared with us. I’d also like to add something that I feel most of Malaysians tend to fall prey to - the notorious Pasar Ramadan, or ‘Param’ as my colleague calls it. With our busy schedules, it’s tough to get back home to cook something for the family, so it’s much easier to just drop by the stalls and get something to eat. Now, the problem arises because in ANY situation where our bodies are experiencing hunger, or has been deprived from food - it will always be very tough to make smarter decisions on what to eat. It actually is mentally challenging to reach for something healthier/less oily when our bodies have been starved. So oddly enough, many people either end up maintaining their bodyweight, or actually putting on some excess bodyfat during the fasting month.
Fasting results in lower blood sugar levels because you’ve been deprived of food/carbohydrates. As a result, the body will send out a message saying it needs food, which in turn will trigger the cravings, often for processed carbohydrates and sweets for energy. The lower your blood sugar levels, the more severe your cravings could be. Skipping meals too causes bloodsugar levels to drop. Cakes, pastries, cookies, syrup, air bandung, all sorts of colourful kuih - this is what you will crave for, and you name it, you can find it at the Pasar Ramadan.
So do I have a solution to this? Not really.. but YOU do, and it’s called… WILLPOWER. Take some time to re-evaluate your fitness goals, visualise in your mind the physique you have always desired to have, and what it’s gonna take for you to achieve it. That can sometimes help. :)
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I wonder how the fasting season was for some of you guys? I have a few friends who actually lost up to 8lbs of bodyweight - and are using that as a ‘kickstart’ to their fatloss programs. Then of course… there are some who have got heavier.
I signed up for a marathon in early March that happens on October 18th, 2009. This is my first marathon ever! I started training back then but when Ramadan rolled around I was at a lost on how to train. My plan is to run 5km 3 days a week an hour before breaking fast. I really don’t want to lose my endurance and strength I’ve gained so far. This will give me some freedom of time to go to Taraweeh as well. Our fasts break around 8pm and by the time we finish praying its about 11ish and i find it too late to do any exercise because my hearts stays pumped for a couple hours. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
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