Hey guys, what's up?
It's Ramadan season once again.
And, to all my Muslim friends, you'll be fasting
around from 11 hours up to 20 hours.
No food, no water.
This is crazy.
Okay, so here comes a big question.
Is it still possible to stay fit
or even to lose weight and build muscles
during this fasting season.
Now, I personally think that this is a good
opportunity for you to appreciate this season.
Because most people will be doing things
more consistent, as in eating at the same timing,
going to bed earlier, wake up and eat and fast.
So just a little bit of manipulation,
doing the right thing can definitely help you
to stay fit or even help you
to get your fitness goal one step closer.
So fitness is all about two things, training and nutrition.
Let's talk about training first.
How many times you should continue training
during this fasting season.
I would strongly recommend you,
if you are a person who goes to the gym all this while
In order to maintain your muscle mass,
or to build muscle mass during this fasting season,
is to train at least three times a week.
Well you can train up to five times
but I don't really recommend it because
it can be very taxing to your body.
And you don't want to start too hard at first.
You will probably burn out in the second week.
So starting three times a week is a good start.
And each training session,
I would say try to cut down the duration
of your training session.
So let's say you've been training for 90 minutes,
or two hours, try to reduce it to anything below one hour.
Why?
Because the more longer you train in the gym,
more possibility you put your body in a catabolic state.
Catabolic means, that you will use your muscles
as fuel because you are in the stress situation,
such as not enough nutrients and water.
So you wanna cut short by reducing the working set
and ultimately reducing the resting time.
Now, reducing resting time can be interesting
is because you may be wondering how can you
rest 60 seconds by doing a heavy squat.
Let's say you're doing 100 kg squat,
one thing is you may need to reduce the intensity (load)
of your training as well.
So reduce, reduce, reduce.
Reduce intensity, volume and your resting time.
Remember, this is not the right time to hit PR (Personal Record).
This is not the right time for you to challenge yourself.
This principle of reducing your training intensity,
volume and resting time is to help you sustain
during your fasting season.
Now what type of training, you should do?
Should you change your training routine,
or should you do something else?
I would recommend you not to do different trainings.
So if you've been used to doing straight set,
or used to doing superset, stick to it.
I would say doing straight set is a more smarter
way to keep you going.
And one training type that I wouldn't recommend
you to do is a circuit training.
Circuit training requires you to go station from station,
doing different exercises with no rest.
What happens here is you will be sweating a lot.
Think about it.
You are dehydrated and you sweat a lot
and you still can't drink water.
This is not something cool.
And also, this leads to dry mouth.
Is because anything involving in cardio, endurance.
Because circuit training is a form of cardio also.
it will makes you breathe a lot, all right.
Makes your mouth dry out really, very fast.
So if you are a person who wants to do cardio,
you want to do circuit training, please be aware.
And one thing I would advise is,
pay attention with your breathing.
You may want to breathe in form your nose
and breathe out from your mouth.
Don't breathe in breathe out, rely on your mouth only.
Because this is what leads to dry mouth.
And last of all about training is, the timing.
When you should you train during this fasting season.
Basically, I find that training right before
you break fast is probably a better idea.
It's because right after you train,
you are thirsty, you can immediate get your drink,
get your shakes and enjoy your meal.
And another timing to train is basically,
train right after you have your first break fast meal.
And the only thing I concern about that is,
the food portion.
So if you're a person, you want to train right after your
meal, try to keep the portion as small as possible.
The meal that you consume before you train,
is supposed to help you, to fuel you,
to do better in your workout.
So you may want to limit anything like big meals,
solid meals because, what happens if you have a big meal
before you workout, you will feel sluggish.
And at the end of the day, if you feel sluggish,
you don't even want to workout.
You just want to chill at home.
And even if you made it to the gym,
you won't feel comfortable because most of the food
is in your intestine and there's a lot of blood there,
where you have lack of blood in other parts.
This is where you need to blood flow
to keep your going in your training session.
So, keep it light.
I would say, protein shake and oatmeal before you train
or egg whites or even a small
chicken sandwich is good enough.
So here comes the second part, that is your nutrition.
That takes up about 60 to 80% of the fitness equation.
So the food that you should consume more is protein.
Okay, I'm not talking about protein shake,
I'm talking about real food like,
chicken, beef, fish, mutton,
eggs, milk, cheese, lentils, broccoli, tofu and so on.
Getting as much protein as you can.
It's because protein is one of the macro nutrient
that is the most friendly of all
that won't spike your blood sugar.
And protein is very sustainable
because your body will take time to slowly
break it down into amino acids.
That feeds your muscle, and keeps your body recovered
from your training and the stress.
This is what leads to a healthier wellbeing also.
And the second nutrition you should pay attention to,
is your carbohydrates.
Now carbohydrate is not necessarily evil.
Carbohydrates is our body's most preferred fuel.
So what happens if you cut down all your carbohydrates,
you won't have energy to sustain
and your brain can't really function well.
So don't cut down all the carbohydrates.
And the carbohydrates you should be eating most is,
slow digesting carbohydrates.
That means, complex carbs.
So complex carbs is anything brown in color.
Like brown rice, brown pasta, brown bread, oatmeal,
yams, sweet potatoes.
Those are the ones you should be focusing.
It's because those carbohydrates won't bring
up your blood sugar immediately,
won't give you crash effect, what makes you craving.
They will release nice and steady compared to white
and simple carbohydrates.
They fill you throughout the day to keep you going.
The next food you should eat is, vegetables.
Anything green, whether you are fasting or not fasting.
You should also get in as much vegetables as well.
Vegetables have high quality of minerals
and other micro nutrition.
And vegetables is what helps you to feel fuller also
throughout the day.
So getting as much vegetable as you can.
Now here is the most important part,
that is your hydration.
Drink a lot, a lot of water,
especially when you break fast.
Drink a lot, a lot of water until you go to bed.
And one thing is before you start fasting
I would not recommend you
to drink too much water as well
Is because if you drink too much water
before you start fasting
You will probably pee (more)
or sweat it out
so you want to go for moderation
before you fast
but right after you break fast
you can drink as much water as you can
and speaking about beverage
you may want to becareful with coffee
and other caffeinated stuff
like sodas
is because caffeine will leads to dehydration
so if you are a coffee person
probably you want to cut down your coffee
or if you are not a coffee person
it is definitely not a good idea
to start drinking coffee
and other carbonated drinks
that contained caffeine
so that's pretty much I wanted to share
the message here is
keep doing it
you don't need to be great (hardcore)
because it is fasting season
what is more important
in this Ramadan
is your spiritual health
and you should be enjoying it
I wish you all the best
*Selamat Berpuasa*
Take care! Peace!
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