Almost Ultimate Guide To Train During Ramadhan

Ramadhan is the month of fasting for muslim. But how to train during Ramadhan, the fasting month? The guide is a compilation of strategy to help those who’s planning to train during Ramadhan.

I’d shared with you the write up on the benefit of fasting here: “THE BENEFITS OF OCCASIONAL FASTING“. But, when the Ramadhan come, we are completely ignore the training. And the worst is, we change our lifestyle to the bad lifestyle. In Ramadhan, we are thought to control the food intake. We wanted to get reminded how people less fortunate and poor. But most of us, the Ramadhan month is the time to taste so many sweet food and the fatty dishes. Yummy!

And the result is, we end up with either gain fat or we loss our muscle where all the effort previously gone to the drain. Ramadan is a time to focus inwards. You should not be training 5x per week and stuffing yourself at night, nor should your mind be too occupied with things concerning diet/training. Ideally, these should take a back seat while doing the bare minimum to maintain your strength. Equally, you don’t want to lose all your hard work by losing too much strength/size.

The Ramadhan Strategy

Again, it’s about 80% nutrition, 20% exercise. That’s the key.

Food Intake Strategy

1. Adjust Evening Food Choices To Match Your Strategy

There are two types of people in this world. Those who gain weight during Ramadan, and those who lose weight. This mainly depends on appetite, although the more common outcome of a short eating window and stomach-shrinking is that people tend to underrate and get run-down as a result.

Therefore: aim for more calorie-dense foods and avoid foods that might normally bloat you up, e.g. overdoing the fatty or sweet.

However, if you’re the type that can tend to overeat: begin your Sahur with Herbalife Tea-mix and Aloe Drink. Following after that is Herbalife Formula 1 Shake. Then you can start your fasting. This first method is for those who wanted to lose weight.

For those who’s easily loss muscle and wanted to gain weight, I recommend you to add the above method with any lean protein and fibrous vegetables to curb appetite before moving on to the direct carbohydrate sources.

For Iftar, start with dates, it provide you with instance energy and healthy fiber to get your empty stomach ready with other food. Next you should get hydrate with Herbalife Aloe and tea-mix. Perform your Maghrib pray and then you can get your meal. If it’s your training/workout day, don’t take so much carbo base food, less fat and and avoid spicy. Remember your water intake, spread it in between your pray.

2. Getting sufficient protein

To maintain the training during Ramadhan. Always eat your protein first, aiming for 2g/kg bodyweight daily, followed by carbs, then fat, to satiety.

Protein goal, calorie goal

Don’t aim for specific macros during the month – hit a protein goal (2g/kg) and calorie goal (maintenance) made up from any combination of carbs and fats.

3. Multivitamin

Prepare the Herbalife Formula 2 multivitamin during the Sahur with a ready­ made protein shake to cover your bases. Don’t forget to add in the shake mix, two scoop of Herbalife Protein to hit protein targets.

Calorie Strategy

Don’t deliberately aim for a calorie deficit. If calories are too low, you’ll be worn down and under-recovered from the training program below. The only fitness goal you should realistically aim to pursue is maintenance during this month. You will find that you lose fat naturally from the fast, provided that your calories are sensible, but this is not the time to try to force it. Remember, portions can be misleading when eating a day’s worth of food over a short period.

Hydrate Strategy

Stay hydrated at night. Aim for at least 3 – 5 litres. Try to spread this out throughout the evening, so you don’t flush it all and end up thirsty the next day.

Moreh Strategy

Normally during Ramadhan, after Terawih pray, people are carving for more food. In Masjid normally they’ll serve food, this locally called Moreh food. And most of the time, it’s sweet, fatty and high carbo food. Avoid it! It will lead your stomach to be bloated and you’ll have either difficulties to sleep early or you then to oversleep. My advice is take a healthy and protein base shake. Herbalife Formula 1 Shake is only 89 calories and it’s 150 calories if you mix with low fat milk.

Catabolic Strategy

The potentially catabolic part is too large of a WEEKLY CALORIE DEFICIT and INSUFFICIENT PROTEIN. This won’t be a problem if you follow the above guidelines. While fasting is technically a catabolic process, you’ll offset any muscle loss by eating sufficient calories and signalling your body to retain muscle with the training program.

Training Strategy

Train at night, 2-3x/week with the low volume strategy given below.

Ideally you can find a 24 hour gym nearby, which are surprisingly busy 11pm-2am in Ramadan! You should avoid intensive training with Cardio base program: the dehydration increases risk of injury and will inhibit performance + recovery.

Even if you train after Iftar, train at a slightly lower percentage of your max: you will not be optimally hydrated. Avoid deadlifts during the month, as it is the movement that carries the highest risk when dehydrated.. I’m speaking from experience unfortunately.

Workout Nutrition Strategy

Before, during and post workout nutrition is important. You can’t do your workout if you take so much of carb base food during Iftar. Normally the training is after Teraweeh. So, get ready in half an hour to an hour before your workout with Herbalife Formula 1 Shake and mix with Herbalife Whey Protein and milk.

During the workout, I highly recommend Herbalife NW (Night Work). Based on study, it’s good for our hearth muscle.

For the post workout, repeat the protein intake, just prepare in less than 5 minutes the Herbalife Formula 1 Shake and mix with Herbalife Whey Protein and milk.

Workout Strategy

Goal of training during Ramadan is strength maintenance/gain,. We advise a low to moderate volume split that can be done 2x/week, using straight sets.

By treating Ramadan as an extended deload, you can increase your training volume and intensity in the weeks leading up to the month, using this time to recover and restore anabolic signalling.

————————————————-

Monday:

A) Seated press: 5×3 @80% 1RM
B) Bench: 5×3 @80% 1RM
C) Weighted chin ups: 4×6
D) Hanging leg raises: 2×12

————————————————-

Friday:

A) Squat: 5×3 @80%
B) Close grip bench: 5×5
C) Seated V-­bar row: 3 x 10
D) Rope face pulls: 3×12
E) Calves/Abs 3×12

Make sure to spend slightly longer warming up hips and lower back before squats.

Source: Yusef, Propane Fitness