<– Ramadan Fasting #1: How I Lost 6 lbs (3kg) in Less Than a Week
So, with these Ramadan fasts, the fasting part is super simple – you just don't eat OR drink for around 20 hours (the length of the fast DID vary, I can tell you about this in a future post/email, but let's stick to 20 hours for now).
The ~20 hour fasting period is one of those things that are SIMPLE, but not EASY for most people.
You can MAKE it easy however, by doing things right during your 4 hour eating window.
One of my Muslim clients, Shahid, told me how I had literally changed his life by showing him how to eat right during that 4 hour eating window.
For the first 3 weeks of this Ramadan (from 12 April to 12 May 2021), Shahid and I made the same mistake Shahid had made his whole life in Ramadan (Ramadan repeats every lunar year).
Then in the final 6 days of Ramadan, I discovered, and helped Shahid discover, something that completely revolutionized our experience of Ramadan fasting.
What we discovered, did the following for us:
- Made the 20 hour fasting period super easy in comparison to what it was before. Before, we were hungry, tired, and lethargic with brain fog almost all day during the fast. I spent most of my day, crying, “Why oh why can't I eat! Life SUCKS without food!”. In the final 6 days, we BARELY got hungry, and we had full energy levels and full alertness throughout the entire fast. Things were so good, we didn't feel like we had to break our fast at sunset (though we always did, in Islam you MUST break your fast when the time is over, and this makes a lot of sense psychologically, so I highly recommend you don't extend your fast further, even if you feel like you can).
- Made the rest of the day (during the 4 hour eating period) feel much better too. In the first 3 weeks of Ramadan, we stuffed our faces at iftar (the name given to the time at sunset when you break your fast), and this left us feeling over-full, heavy, and bloated all the way to bed time and even in the morning when we woke up. And since it takes several hours for you to digest food and for that energy to be available to your brain, we were basically feeling tired and run down 24 hours a day. Yes, we all have the impression that if you feel shit during a long fast, everything will be OK as soon as you get to break your fast, but this isn't true. You actually often feel WORSE after you break your fast. Since it takes several hours before the energy from the food becomes available to your body, after you break your fast, you not only still feel like crap, on top of that, you feel overfull and gunky from all the crappy food you over-ate.
- Improved our health. In the first 3 weeks, old inflammatory diseases that I had previously gotten rid of – my asthma and osteoarthritis from an injured knee – came back. Shahid seriously felt like shit, and told me this is how he has always felt during Ramadan his entire life. He kept telling me, “Garry, intermittent fasting may be good for you, but Ramadan fasting seriously efs you up”. Shahid has HATED Ramadan his entire life. But I tell you, those last 6 days have completely transformed his view of Ramadan – now he LOVES Ramadan fasting, even though he loves food as much as I do. He's actually looking forward to doing more Ramadan-style fasting this coming week. In the final 6 days, our illnesses had disappeared, and we freakin' felt great!
- Helped us lose weight! Damn, despite fasting for around 20 hours a day, we both GAINED a little bit of weight in the first 3 weeks! This goes to show that unlike what a lot of these intermittent fasting gurus tell you, you can't do/eat whatever the hell you like during your eating window, and expect to benefit from your fasting. In the last 6 days however, by getting everything right during that eating window, we both LOST weight. Shahid and I both lost around 6 lbs (3 kg)! Sure, some of it was water weight and even muscle, but a good percentage of that was fat, and I felt great, I felt so much lighter!
- Shahid explained to me how after every Ramadan in his entire adult life, he would be so damaged by it that he would need another full month AFTER Ramadan, just to START to recover back to his pre-ramadan status in terms of health, leanness, fitness, energy levels, dietary patterns, sleep, strength, muscle, and more. It would take around 3 months before he was 100% back to his pre-ramadan state. He would spend an additional 3 months BEFORE every Ramadan, DREADING Ramadan, so he told me Ramadan would RUIN 6 months of the year for him, EVERY year of his adult life! But THIS time round, he told me, for the first time in his life, there was nothing to recover from. In fact, the exact OPPOSITE happened – those last 6 days of Ramadan had ENHANCED him! I felt the same way, the only thing I lost was some muscle mass and strength, which is a walk in the park to recover (if you like, I can cover the topic of EXERCISE during Ramadan fasting in a future post/email). Oh, and rather than DREAD the next Ramadan, Shahid is not only looking forward to it, but him and I are planning on doing optional EXTRA Ramadan fasts throughout the year!
There were more benefits too, but those were the important ones.
What we did in those last 6 days of Ramadan stemmed from a mindset shift.
The mindset Shahid and I had for the first 3 weeks of Ramadan, was that we had to eat as much as we possibly could during that 4 hour eating window, to help reduce how hungry we got during the 20 hour fast.
I stuffed myself when breaking my fast at sunset (around 8pm where I'm at), to the point where I was still stuffed 4 hours later at midnight, at the end of my eating window. Despite that, just before midnight, I'd FORCE myself to eat some more to help get some more calories in so I would get less hungry the next day. Then I'd top it up with water to hydrate myself, which filled me up to the point of feeling like I needed to PUKE. I'd go to bed with that feeling, and my sleep quality totally sucked, and I felt like shit in the morning, and for the rest of the day. Here’s a visual representation of what I was doing:
Now, before you judge me for being weak and stuffing my face in those eating windows, please keep in mind that 30 consecutive days of 20 hour a day Ramadan fasting is far more difficult than standard 24 hour intermittent fasts, not just because you can't have water/coffee/small snacks during a Ramadan fast, but also because each consecutive fast has a cumulative effect. Your body's glycogen stores get depleted more and more with each fast. The first few days of fasting are relatively easy, and after that it gets seriously difficult.
At first we both got up for “sehri”, which is the time at dawn (around 4am where I'm at) when you MUST start your fast, and we stuffed our faces. But this was seriously affecting my sleep, and lack of sleep was making my fast twice as difficult. I decided my sleep was more important, so I decided to start my fast at midnight and then go to sleep and not wake up for sehri. Despite prolonging my fast, I noticed that this had no effect on how hungry I got during the day. Things actually got a little better, because I was sleeping more. I noticed Shahid had bags under his eyes, so I advised him to do the same. Here’s a visual representation of waking up for sehri vs not waking up:
This was a big discovery, that started me down the path of making that big mindset shift: that no matter what we ate or how late we ate, we'd still get hungry and feel like crap the next day during the fast.
During those first 3 weeks, I tried a whole bunch of different foods that supposedly keep you full for longer – the likes of porridge oats, nuts, huge slabs of meat, fatty salmon enough to make me feel sick. But it was all futile – nothing can keep you full for 20 hours. Some food can keep you feeling full for maybe a few hours longer than other foods, but that's it.
Despite learning that I didn't have to get up at sehri to eat, and learning that no matter how much or how little I ate, I'd still get hungry the next day, I still continued to stuff my face at midnight every day before I went to bed. I did this for maybe a full week.
Then it dawned on me one day that shit, oats don't stick to your ribs for 20 hours, there is no such thing as a slow-release food that can keep you full for 20 hours. Also, since waking up for sehri didn't make a difference, maybe I didn't have to stuff my face at midnight either.
And that's when I came across this keto podcast, and just hearing this woman talk about keto, reminded me that heck, why can't my body just live off of my fat during my fast? Why the heck was I trying to rely on FOOD (during my eating window) to keep me full during my fast, when clearly I know it's impossible for any food to keep me full for 20 hours?
That was a big part of the mental shift that changed EVERYTHING: the revelation that, you don’t have to rely on food during the eating window to keep you full during the fast. You don’t have to stuff your face when breaking your fast; you don’t have to stuff your face just before you start your fast; you don’t have to eat special foods that keep you full for longer. You don’t have to rely on food at all. What you SHOULD rely on instead, is the FAT STORES in your body to give you energy throughout the day. And know that NOT stuffing your face during your eating window, will actually make it easier for your body to switch to fat burning mode and living off of your body fat for energy.
A good analogy for this is swimming. When I was first learning how to swim, I tried like hell to keep my head above the water. I was so scared of the water, that my #1 priority was to keep my head above water. Then someone told me that if I stopped trying to keep my head above water, and just put my head INTO the water, I’d be able to swim much better and faster. I tried this out, and instantly realized it was true. Nowadays, I never bother to keep my head above water when I swim, swimming is 10x easier when I just stick my head right into the water.
How on earth does this relate to Ramadan fasting?
Like trying to keep my head above the water when swimming, I was desperately trying to get enough calories in during the eating window, so I wouldn't get hungry during the fast. But the more you try to stuff your face during the eating window, the less able your body will be to switch to fat burning mode during the fast, and the more difficult your fast will be. When you make the decision to stick your head under the water–i.e. to eat a SMALL amount of very high quality food during your eating window, and rely on living off of your fat reserves during the fast–you’ll suddenly realize how EASY fasting is.
And don’t worry, it’s not such a small amount that you feel hungry throughout the eating window, you still get to eat a good amount that fills you up and makes you feel satisfied, enough so you feel full for the entire 4 hour length of your eating window and beyond.
Also, the QUALITY of food you eat during the eating window is just as crucial as not overly stuffing yourself.
See, Shahid had been eating complete and absolute JUNK every Ramadan his entire life. I’ve not known Muslims from ALL over the world, but I’ve known quite a few living here in the West, and I can tell you that every single Muslim from every single culture that I have met, due to cultural reasons, switches to living almost entirely off of JUNK FOOD during the whole of Ramadan. Those who prepare food at home eat deep fried oil-soaked foods coated in thick layers of flour, and lots and lots of RICE and sugary chemical infested sweets! Many are too tired from fasting to prepare food at home, so they eat out or bring food home from shitty cheap takeout joints.
But the trouble with junk food is that it is, by definition, devoid of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals – substances your body needs in trace amounts in order to grow, develop, and function normally).
Your body can get ENERGY from your fat stores, but it can’t get MICRONUTRIENTS from your fat stores. Shahid and I made the mistake of trying to stock up on CALORIES (i.e. energy) during our eating window, when we should have been stocking up on MICRONUTRIENTS.
There are 3 different types of cravings:
- psychological cravings (from the habit of eating too much too frequently),
- cravings for energy (calories),
- and cravings for micronutrients.
One reason you get fat when you eat junk and grain-based carbs, is because these foods are high in calories and low in micronutrients. Since we can’t differentiate between the 3 different types of cravings, our body continues to give us cravings (because our food lacks micronutrients), and we continue to give it more poor quality food, and as a result we continue to get hungry more frequently than we should. Ramadan fasting helps get rid of psychological cravings, it is better at doing this than anything else in the world that I know of (intermittent fasting works too, but Ramadan fasting works better). Cravings for energy are taken care of when we switch to burning fat for energy. Cravings for micronutrients can only be taken care of by eating highly micronutrient dense foods during your eating window.
Another benefit to eating micronutrient dense foods during your eating window, is that your body uses the micronutrients from your food as substrates to help it better turn on the fat burning chemical machinery in your body.
So, FINALLY, we get to the bottom line of the main message for today’s email.
To summarize, the two things that resulted in tremendous weight loss in those last 6 days of Ramadan for me and Shahid, consisted of 2 parts:
- The mindset shift that rather than rely on FOOD to keep me full for those 20 hour fasts, I should rely on stored body fat to provide for my energy needs. (This included me not stuffing myself during the eating window, only eating enough to be comfortably full, and not eating more on top of that while I’m still full, in fear of not being able to cope during the fast). Basically, it’s having a, “I’m going to live off my fat reserves while I’m fasting” mentality. When you adopt that mentality, you lose the fear that, “Hey, if I don’t eat enough during this super short eating window, I’m going to suffer during my 20 hour fast”. Adopting this mentality makes it easy for you to eat less during your eating window.
- The knowledge that eating micronutrient dense food during that short 4 hour eating window, is crucial to help keep cravings at bay, and also to help switch on the body’s fat burning mechanisms. If you eat a doner kebab for that one meal of the day, then you have every right to be TERRIFIED of the oncoming 20 hour fast. Not only will that doner kebab lack the micronutrients your body needs to function normally, it’s also full of chemicals, toxins, unnatural fats, and other nasties that your body needs extra micronutrients to help undo the damage from. The result is you will feel like absolute CRAP during the entire length of the fast. I’m talking feeling hungry, sluggish, slow, lacking energy, brain fog, feeling sleep deprived, thirsty, and more. The secret to feeling great during the entire 20 hour long fast, is not just to eat less and rely on fat burning for energy as in #1 above, but also to eat extremely high micronutrient dense foods during your eating window.
Just on the side: my girlfriend works with a number of Muslim colleagues, and they all feel like CRAP every single day of every Ramadan. She’s told me how they’re all addicted to eating junk and takeout (it’s not just the Muslims, this is becoming a common trend among people of all backgrounds nowadays). What happens during Ramadan, is exactly what happens to most people who take up intermittent fasting – they think that, “Heck, I did all that good for my body by doing that long fast, so it won’t hurt if I then treat myself to my favorite junk food when I break my fast”. But the truth is, when you fast, it becomes far MORE important for you to eat HEALTHY food during your eating window, because while you are fasting, you are depriving your body of micronutrients. The harm done by a lack of micronutrients far outweighs all of the benefits of fasting. So if you’re not stocking up on micronutrients during your eating window, then all of this fasting business is really doing you more harm than good.
Most people also have the mentality that, “After all that suffering during that long fast, I now deserve to treat myself with my favorite junk meal”. But the truth is, what you eat AFTER your fast, is just as important as the fast itself. If you eat junk after your fast, then all the hard work during the fast would have been for nothing.
So what I’m telling you to do may seem extreme.
Not only am I telling you to fast for 20 hours a day every day for up to 30 days (don’t worry, you can do as few as 6 days, or just 1 day for practice)…
I’m also telling you to not drink any water or coffee, or eat any light snacks the way you can with intermittent fasting. Btw, there’s also no smoking ANYTHING – no cigarettes, no weed, no e-cigs.
Not only that, but I’m also telling you that you can't stuff your face throughout the entire eating window, and during that one meal you DO have, you can neither stuff yourself, nor eat your favorite JUNK food or your favorite carb infested food you’ve likely grown up on. If you are Muslim, you cannot eat any of that cultural non-Islamic junk most Muslims misguidedly eat during Ramadan.
But I’m telling you, when you do this right, it’s EASY. It’s the EASIEST fast fat loss method I have ever known.
So here’s what you have to do:
- Aim to fast for 20 hours a day for at least 5 days. Start your fast at midnight, break your fast at 8pm. You can change these times depending on when you go to bed. It’s better if you stick to how the Muslims do it, by breaking your fast at Sunset, though this depends on how long the days are where you live, but I can discuss this more in a future email if you want me to. No food, no water, no smoking, consume NOTHING during the fast.
- At 8pm, break your fast with a HEALTHY, micronutrient rich meal. Fill your belly, heck, even overfill yourself a bit, but don’t stuff yourself to the point where you feel sick/disgusting//disabled. It’s important that you find this meal tasty and you look forward to it, otherwise the entire ordeal becomes torture. Raw vegetables are the most micronutrient dense foods around, so a bowl of raw salad is a MUST. In those last 6 days, I broke my fast firstly with a date (which is a Muslim tradition, with dates shown scientifically to have countless health benefits), followed by a glass of water with a teaspoon of chlorella powder mixed in (chlorella being a super micronutrient dense food that’s also high in protein). I would then finish a cereal bowl full of raw salad (find a tasty way to make this, I can tell you about exact recipes etc. in a future post/email if you want). I would then finish my meal off with, for example, a homemade burger, with every ingredient homemade, including the bun (again, I can give recipes etc. in a future post/email). Then I would have some tea or coffee, and that would be it for breaking my fast.
- Drink as much water as you can get in without making yourself overly full. Shahid told me that the prophet Muhammad was known to have said that you should fill your belly with 1 third food, 1 third water, and leave the remaining 1 third for air. That’s some seriously powerful wisdom.
- During the rest of the 4 hour eating window, you can snack on HEALTHY foods here and there, but the intention should be to stock up on micronutrients, not to stock up on energy/calories. You should have eaten enough from that first meal to keep you full for the remaining 4 hours of your eating window, so you won’t have any cravings during this time.
Let me just reiterate a very important point here. The mindset I had at first, and a lot of Muslims have during Ramadan, is I felt like I had to be as full as possible just before I started my fast, else I will really struggle during the fast. This mindset comes from previous experiences, where I ate some traditional Ramadan-style junk food (given to me from Shahid’s generous family), didn’t stuff myself enough, and felt some severe cravings, headache, brain fog, and lethargy during my fast. Rather than realize that my cravings were due to a severe lack in MICRONUTRIENTS, and a resulting inability of my body to to switch to fat burning mode, I thought it was because I didn’t eat ENOUGH food, which lead to a cycle of stuffing myself during subsequent eating windows – out of fear of suffering from those cravings etc. again. The key is to eat a good amount of something extremely micronutrient dense (chlorella + bowl of salad containing a good range of raw veggies), including a homemade healthy meal, to meet your daily micronutrient needs, and then to let go of the need to fulfill your body’s ENERGY needs from the food you eat during your eating window, and be at peace knowing that your body can get all the energy it needs from your fat stores.
- Have a high fat, high protein, low carb snack before going to bed and starting your fast at midnight. This must be a high quality snack, it can’t be any sort of pre-packaged food, even if it’s marketed as being “healthy”. 2 or 3 boiled eggs from pastured hens would be a good example. You could also have a steak, or a piece of grilled salmon. I personally had a mug of raw milk mixed with a high quality organic cream. The milk and cream were my favorite option because it’s delicious and so easy and convenient, with no preparation necessary, you just pour and drink. I’ve told you in previous articles about why raw milk is the healthiest form of milk, since it’s high in micronutrients, contains healthy bacteria, and has undenatured proteins.
That’s it for today! I’ve spent too much time on this. I haven’t really edited much of the above, sorry if it’s all a bit long. Any questions, please feel free to ask.
Again, please let me know if you’d like me to continue writing about this.
This is a huge revelation in my life, it has transformed me as much as it has transformed Shahid. I think at some point, when I get the time, I’m going to compile all of this info into a paid book. Meanwhile, I could really use your feedback, so I don’t mind at all answering your questions and writing more about this if you tell me you want more.
Oh, and if you haven't got it already, you can get my book, Untold Secrets of Intermittent Fasting, for more details on how you can use fasting to help you lose weight and lose man boobs.