How to Deal with Ramadhan
To tell you the truth, there is no way to deal with this month. The whole thing defies the point of fat loss and muscle preservation, or muscle building with minimal fat gain. There are ways to go around it though, but keep in mind that it would need precise planning and timing. But let’s be honest here for a second. Ramadhan is all about fasting for about 14 hours, then binging yourself senseless with food on the dining table (this article has nothing to do with prayers. So don’t try to criticize me and say: “what about salah and reading the quran and yada yada yada?” I’m not here to preach about religious matters). So, what can you do?
Personally, I would suggest you try to maintain what you worked hard for (hopefully) in the last couple of months or years. Whether you were bulking or cutting, just try to maintain your current state by eating what you have to eat and keeping exercises to a minimum (I’m talking sessions, not intensity). Here are some guidelines to get you through the month with minimal damage:
1- DO NOT BINGE ON BREAKFAST!!!!!!!! Only eat what you have to eat. Calculate calories needed on that meal and do not exceed them. If you need to eat those desserts that are only made once a year (Only god knows why), just eat a couple of bites to please your taste buds, not to stuff your face like a pig.
To tell you the truth, there is no way to deal with this month. The whole thing defies the point of fat loss and muscle preservation, or muscle building with minimal fat gain. There are ways to go around it though, but keep in mind that it would need precise planning and timing. But let’s be honest here for a second. Ramadhan is all about fasting for about 14 hours, then binging yourself senseless with food on the dining table (this article has nothing to do with prayers. So don’t try to criticize me and say: “what about salah and reading the quran and yada yada yada?” I’m not here to preach about religious matters). So, what can you do?
Personally, I would suggest you try to maintain what you worked hard for (hopefully) in the last couple of months or years. Whether you were bulking or cutting, just try to maintain your current state by eating what you have to eat and keeping exercises to a minimum (I’m talking sessions, not intensity). Here are some guidelines to get you through the month with minimal damage:
1- DO NOT BINGE ON BREAKFAST!!!!!!!! Only eat what you have to eat. Calculate calories needed on that meal and do not exceed them. If you need to eat those desserts that are only made once a year (Only god knows why), just eat a couple of bites to please your taste buds, not to stuff your face like a pig.
2- YOU HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO EAT 5 MEALS A DAY!! Let’s say you break your fast at around 5 pm. You can eat your second meal at 6:30. Train with weights at 8 pm, then jog. 10 pm you drink a protein shake. 11 pm you eat another meal. Finally, you wake up before fajr prayer and eat your last meal. Let me explain. You’ll be fasting for a long ass time, and you’ll probably be awake more than half the time. So, the first meal would be digested and absorbed in record time. That’s why you can eat your second meal 90 minutes later. You’ll then have enough sugar to go through your weight training work out to deplete yourself. Then you jog to burn some fat (unless you’re bulking, but it’s still good to include 2 cardio sessions/week just to keep the fat from building up). The protein shake is absorbed in 30 minutes or so (I would suggest a meal replacement powder instead of pure whey. You do not want to go into ketosis in ramadhan). So you can eat your 4th meal about an hour (or less) later. Go to bed. Wake up before morning prayer, and eat your 5th meal. Simple.
3- DO NOT TRY TO DEPLETE YOUR BODY’S SUGAR BY CUTTING OUT CARBS!!! Ofcourse, most of the carbs (I’m talking 80-90%) should be from complex sources. Simple carbs can only be eaten (you should know this by now) when breaking your fast and right after your workout. Still, don’t go crazy on them.
4- TAKE WEEKLY MEASUREMENTS!! I’m not only talking about your weight. You should monitor your waist (and wherever you mostly store your fat) measurements and, most importantly, your body fat percentage. You’ll have to adjust your diet accordingly.
Remember, these words aren’t carved on stone. I know some retards will say “Come on man. It’s Ramadhan. We want to enjoy our food and eat all the goodies that are on the table. You can’t tell us to go on a diet and eat tuna and oatmeal for breakfast!” I don’t know, do you expect me to pull out a magic wand from up my ass and wave it around your face and say “you can eat whatever you want and you won’t gain fat… SHABAM!!” I don’t decide if you’ll lose fat or gain it or whatever. You do. If you’re gonna eat and train right, You’ll get good results. If you’re gonna overtrain and eat crap all day, don’t blame me for your ignorance.
By the way, just to remind you guys, the worst food that you could ever eat is all cooked in ramadhan. Yes, if you ask your mom, dad, grandma, whoever, they’ll say it’s extremely healthy. But what the hell do arabs know about health. Do you know why ‘Harees’ tastes so good? Because it’s nothing more than crushed grains drenched in animal fat with pieces of “tender”, AKA full of fat, meat. And to top it off, they dig a hole in the ‘Harees’ at the middle of the plate and just fill it with animal fat. So, everyone in the family can enjoy a couple of table spoons full of fat. Now, that’s what I call healthy.
You talk about people that are already following a fitness program. What about those that want to start right now? Should they just do maintenance and get into the program after Ramadan? Or is there something more that they can do?
ReplyDeleteYo Buselmo what's up ... great stuff, but I remember you once telling me about a post-Ramadhan carb loading frenzy to get back the lost muscle. Can you talk about that? Also, you once said to me that cardio was a big no-no in Ramadhan, but here you're saying you should do it twic a week. So what's the deal. You try to confuse??? Thanks.
ReplyDeletejawad,
ReplyDeletefor those who want to start, Ramadhan is the worst time and i do not advise it at all. Sadly, more than 50% of people who start a diet CANNOT stick to it for more than 2 weeks. How the hell would you expect someone to go on a strict 4-6 meal diet for the first time in his/her life in ramadhan? most people i know eat 1-2 meals a day, and i'm talking about regular days where they don't have to fast, and they don't feel hungry. and they should not do maintenance, cuz they have NOTHING TO MAINTAIN! what? you want to maintain a belly? I would advise you to start after ramadhan.
Hosam,
ReplyDeleteCarb loading frenzy isn't for anyone. it's for people who built a significant amount of muscle mass and are under 15% fat. and i know you're in that category. keep in mind, all carbs are clean (ya3ni... 90% ;)) and it's only for a couple of weeks (1-3, depending on when you start gaining fat again). So, i wouldn't want to talk about that, cuz i know someone with 35% fat that just started dieting will say: "oh, i must carb load after ramadhan" and they'll start eating pizza and mc d's for 3 months and they'll blame me for going up to 45% fat.
As for cardio, i think you made it clear to me that you still wanted to cut up in ramadhan but not severly. knowing your progress, i know you'll be strict and you won't do anything stupid. So, with your fast metabolism, cardio would be a no no for you. you'd lose too much muscle. I usually refer to endomorphs in my blog, because i only "supervised" 3 skinny people in bulking up. the rest wanted to cut up (endomorphs). So, for an endomorph, cardio twice a week is enough to keep fat off. rememeber, they're not like you, they gain fat pretty easily.
hamado waz up? . as u know i'm in low carb diet and the cutting up won't end before ramadan. so, should i maintain the carb intake to moderation(e.g. 120gm of complex carbs) for the whole month? where the last measurement of my body fat was around 14%.
ReplyDeleteHamad great stuff you have here I really liked it and many of my friends did too. I would really want to take an advice from you since you seem to know alot.
ReplyDeleteI work from 6 to 6, yes I know its insane, and I work out right after work, thats from about 6:30 to 7:30PM. Now my problem is with the food, I dont think that I eat enough and here is when and what I exactly eat:
5:30AM (Breakfast)
11:30AM (Lunch)
around 4PM (A can of Tuna)
around 8PM (Dinner)
Now for about three months or maybe less my weight has not changed from 80kg. It has been around that and I'm not happy :(. Two things to menthon here, I really see change in my body but not a big change though and I have increased the lbs I lift almost every week and I'm very pleased with that but not my size and weight. If you have any good advice for me please tell me.
sulaiman,
ReplyDelete120 grams of carbs is too low for a ramadhan maintenance. i assume you weigh 75 kg right now, right? so, if i were you, i'd go with 180-220 grams of carbs, the same for protein, and not more than 40 grams of fat spread out over 5 meals. DO NOT CONTINUE CUTTING!! just maintain. cardio 2-3 times a week, and weights 2-3 times a week
Bandar,
ReplyDeletei'll do the best i can to help, but i still need some more info. how tall are you? how long have you been training? what's your goal? (it wasn't clear if you wanted to lose fat or gain muscle?) how many times a week do you train? do you do cardio? how many hours of sleep do you get a day? explain your meals in more detail, please.
increasing weights INTELLIGENTLY is good. i'm not saying that you don't do that, but i've seen people doing curls on 50 lb dumbbells in horrible form where they use their whole body to lift the weight up, and not their biceps. i don't think they can even handle a 25 pounder with strict form. anyway, 4 meals is not enough for anything, so i'm assuming there's your problem. we'll talk about this more when i get more feed back from you.
oh, btw, i've learned that people really use work as an excuse to not diet, and say they don't have time to eat. i call bullshit!! I love my job not because of what i do, but because i can schedule my meals whenever i want. it's much much much much much easier than when i was in college. i usually eat 3-5 meals at work, depending on what day it is. and it really helps me be strict. So, the next time anyone says "dude, i can't eat that. i gotta work and i don't have time", you should expect to get flamed.
ReplyDeleteYes you are right I didn't give u enough details.
ReplyDeleteI'm about 5,11" and my weight as I said before is 80kg right now and I'm aiming for around 90kg or maybe a little more, muscle of course.
Training:
I started weight lifting about 5 years ago and of corce I had my times where I stopped and got back and so on.
I train 5 times a week and as follow is my schedule, I have started this schedule about a week ago:
Saturday: Chest
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Back
Tuesday: Shoulders
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Biceps + Triceps
Friday: Legs
For my abs I usually work on them twice to three times a week.
I do cardio usually before my work out for about 5-10 minutes but not often these days.
Another thing u should know is that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are the only days that I can eat and sleep well since I don’t work.
Sleep:
On my working days I usually get from 6 to 7 hours of sleep which is totally not enough at all. I know that it’s a minimum of 8 hours if you work out and its maybe more for me cuz I tried the 8 hours and it is not enough for me but I can’t help it with the sleeping issue. It really pisses me off because I know that I could left more and I see it in the weekends when I workout.
Food:
For breakfast I eat a ball of oatmeal, one whole egg, 6 egg whites, one Arabic bread and a glass of low fat milk.
For lunch and dinner: The food they serve here is usually greasy so I always stick to the steamed white rice, small portion about one serving spoon, and I always dry up my chicken using tissues :S, I know its crazy but it’s the only way other wise I will get a lot of fat from that greasy stuff . Manly I eat chicken, meat and sometimes fish. So if we say that I will take chicken then I would take about 4 to 5 pieces of chicken in one meal. I eat about 3 packs of 180g low fat yogurt and 3 small bottles of Laban about 180g too if I’m not mistaking. I eat salad with lunch and dinner, about 2 serving spoon for each. Last but not least is the Tuna can that I eat here in the kitchen of the office building which is a normal sized tuna can I’m not sure how many grams it is but it has about 50g of protein.
Thank you my friend and by the way how is everything going on with you?? I haven't seen you in a while. I bet you got freakin huge "mashaallah 3aleek".
bandar, it's great hearing from you buddy. anyways, 5'11 and weighing only 178 lbs? you must have a very low fat percentage. if you have average genetics, you can reach 200 lbs @ less than 10% fat easy. Anyway, i see your problem, or should i say problems. First off, and most importantly, your diet. dude, not enough carbs, good fats, or protein to grow. from your diet, i can only see about 150-200 grams of protein, 150 grams of carbs, and i see no unsaturated fats whatsoever (except for the oatmeal, and i don't know how much you're talking about when you say 1 bowl). anyway, you should bring your food to work with you. it's really no big deal. and since your office building has a kitchen, i'll assume you have a microwave. for breakfast, let's just skip meal names and go by numbers, measure up 1.5 cups of uncooked oats, about 20 table spoons, and cook in water (just use boiled water from the kettle and mix, real easy) add some honey to it for taste and some simple sugars, cook 8 egg whites and 2 whole eggs any style you want (use olive oil if you need oil for cooking), a glass of skimmed milk is ok. for meal #2 (3-4 hours later) 8 ounces of chicken breasts (about 2) and an ass load of rice would do the trick here. for meal #3 (2-3 hours later) eat a can of tuna (200 grams) with 2 or 3 boiled potatoes. after your workout (meal #4) mix about a liter of water with 100 grams of glucose (get it from any pharmacy). 30 minutes later, drink a whey protein shake with 45-55 grams of protein. meal #5 (2 hours later) eat anything identical to meals 1-3. here you have about 250 grams of protein, 400 grams of carbs, and 60 grams of fat. that's hopefully enough to help you grow. as for your workout. GOD, MAN YOU'RE KILLING ME!!! 5 days a week????? If you were on the juice, that COULD be acceptable, but you aren't. train 3 days a week. train a small muscle with a large muscle each session (ie. chest+delt, back+biceps, legs+triceps... you get the idea). no cardio before or after the workout. warm up the muscle with 2 sets of 12-15 repetitions, then start with heavy sets of 6-10 reps, going to failure. use 12 sets for large muscle groups, and 9 sets for smaller muscle groups. take atleast a day off between workouts, and never stay in the gym for more than an hour. you can do cardio on one of the off days to keep fat gains minimal.
ReplyDeleteas for sleep, i'd advise you to get 7-8 hours per day. always sleep and wake up at the same times (including weekends) to balance your body's hormonal system better. it trully makes a difference. Also, a very important thing that almost all people neglect, KEEP YOUR SODIUM INTAKE HIGH AND DRINK ATLEAST 1.5 GALLONS OF WATER (6 LITERS) PER DAY.
well, if you need anything else, i'll be more than glad to help.
have fun ;)
BuSelmo,
ReplyDeleteBarak Allah feekum wa a7sana elaikum....so2al min mustami3 min jemhoriyyat ma9r al3arabiyyah:
Ma 7ukm al-cardio qabl al-ef6ar mubasharatan fee Ramadhan?
Jazakum Allahu 5airan...
da su'al kwayyis awwi. First off, if you aren't too tired to do cardio right before breakfast, your body would be in an extremely catabolic (muscle wasting) state. So, you'll be losing alot of muscle with some fat when you do cardio. second, if you still want to do it, you'd have to alternate between mass building diets and training and fat loss diets and training, which is EXTREMELY difficult to do, especially in ramadhan. I wouldn't advise cardio before breakfast. just do it after your weight training session or later in the day. just remember, don't try some serious fat loss programs in ramadhan. it's gonna be a total waste of time and muscle. just try to maintain buddy.
ReplyDelete