Training While Fasting

This is for adults keeping a religious fast, such as Ramadan, who want to keep training through it. It is not about fasting to change your weight, which is not something this guide recommends, and nothing in it is a reason to eat less. If you are under 18, talk to a parent or carer and your GP before you fast and train at the same time; this article is not written for you.

Some people should talk to a GP before they fast at all, never mind train. NHS guidance on fasting safely names people with diabetes, anyone taking prescribed medicines, people with long-term conditions that are not well controlled, people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and anyone with a physical or mental illness. If you take a medicine, keep taking it: the same guidance says to ask your GP or pharmacist whether the dose or the timing should change, not to change it yourself. And if you have, or have had, an eating disorder, please talk to your GP before fasting.

Where to put the session. Training is easier in the hours when you can eat and drink. Two times tend to work: shortly before the meal that ends the fast, so you can eat and drink straight afterwards, or an hour or two after that meal, once it has settled. Training in the middle of a long fasting day, with no food or water for hours either side, is the hardest version, and the last sets are where it shows.

What to change. Keep your main lifts and do fewer sets of them. A fast is not the month to chase new bests: hold your numbers, take a set or two off each lift, and drop the extra work at the end of the session first. Rest a little longer between sets. Most people find their strength comes back quickly once they are eating and drinking normally again.

Eating and drinking. Spread your drinks across the hours you can drink rather than trying to catch up in one go; the NHS guidance is to drink plenty of water before and after the fast and to go easy on caffeinated drinks. Include protein at both meals rather than leaving it all to one. This article deliberately gives no amounts, because they depend on you.

Stop if you feel unwell. If you feel dizzy, faint, confused or unwell while training fasted, stop the session. The NHS guidance says that breaking a fast when you become unwell is permitted, to avoid harm, and a missed session costs nothing next to that.

And the line from Start Here belongs here too. If food is becoming something to control rather than something to eat, Beat runs free helplines and online support at beateatingdisorders.org.uk, and a GP is a reasonable first conversation.