Here are 21 reasons you should get ripped this Ramadan, in no particular order…
- You’re doing 95% of the hard work of weight loss anyway, just by keeping the most basic Muslim fast. You may have heard of a dieting fad called “intermittent fasting”. It’s really taking off in a big way because – would you have guessed it – the Prophetic teachings work.
- It’s Sunnah. Whichever way you look at it, the fact is, the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, was simply not a FAT BLOKE. We know from his physical descriptions that he was thin and lean, and that has a lot to do with how much he fasted and what he ate when he opened his fasts
- At the time of breaking the fast, you will probably eat whatever is in sight and readily available to you, without thinking twice about it. The only tweak that’s required to get completely ripped in Ramadan is to make sure that the food in front of you when you finish your fast is highly nutritious and filled with greens and lean protein. You will never enjoy eating vegetables as much as you do at the end of the fast.
- There is a certain delight in experiencing a hunger pang during the middle of a fast in Ramadan, and knowing that, not only is there a spiritual benefit in the Afterlife, but there is also a tremendous physical benefit in this life. You might be hungry now, but by the end of the month, you’ll be in the best shape of your life. That takes the edge off the fast a little bit and puts a smile on your face
- It is extremely easy. During the Ramadan fast, there is basically one meal in the day that you need to think about. If you make that meal healthy and nutritious, you will get in the best shape of your life by the end of the month – and will get pretty close, even if you start halfway through the month
- You can afford the occasional cheat day. It’s obviously not optimal, but if you fall off whatever nutrition plan you create for yourself during Ramadan, then because of the limited eating window of a few hours a night, you’ll probably still be around or under the regular 2000-ish calories you normally get. So, unless you go too crazy, you can have a ‘normal’ or ‘non-diet’ evening meal one or two days a week, and it won’t set you back. You’ll still be in much better shape at the end of Ramadan, as long as your default is to eat ‘on plan’.
- It’s the most Islamic way to eat. Instead of thinking of Ramadan as pain during the day and then pleasure at night, you might think of it as a month-long spiritual training through the way you consume food. That way, it’s easy to make the switch into being in “Ramadan mode” for the entire month, instead of just during the daylight hours. Plus, it just feels right to eat healthy, sensible portions at meal times. Al Ghazali (ra) goes as far as to say that if one eats the same amount during a fasting day as they would have during an ordinary day, they’ve completely missed the point and benefit of the fast. I tend to agree with good old Al-G.
- It’s better for the nafs. The ‘nafs’ or ego, according to the Islamic spiritual tradition, is best subdued through hunger, fasting and limiting the quantity and pleasure of food intake. If you don’t believe this, try it out for a week and tell me you don’t notice the difference.
- An internal switch is flicked ‘on’, when you see the entire month, day and night as a time to control your food intake, not just the daytime. You gain a certain delight and pleasure and connection with Allah through controlling what you eat that simply cannot be gained by feasting on luxurious foods at nighttime.
- There is a time for fasting and a time for feasting. Most people see the daytime as a time for fasting and night time for feasting. Most people get it totally wrong. The entire month of Ramadan is for fasting and being very conservative over food intake, and Eid is the time for feasting. Do it this way around, and you will immediately notice tremendous physical and spiritual benefits
- Broccoli, lentils and grilled chicken will never taste as good as they do at the moment you end your fast. Eat them at any other time and it’s a chore. Eat them at Maghrib and you feel grateful and blessed to have them in front of you.
- The Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, said that the fasting person has two joys, the joy upon opening their fast, and the joy upon meeting their Lord. But there’s also a secret 3rd joy. The joy of knowing that through your conscious eating plan, you’re getting ripped and reaping physical as well as spiritual benefits.
- Intermittent fasting with conservative food intake at the time of opening the fast has tremendous physical benefits and has been shown to reverse, slow down, pre-diabetes, and even full-on type 2 diabetes… or so we’re told by reliable sources like Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Michael Mosely.
- There is absolutely no reason not to get lean and ripped during Ramadan, except for greed. Guess what? This is a disease of the heart, one that fasting is meant to eliminate. But that only happens if you do it right by eating consciously at the end of the day.
- Any resistance you have to eating sensibly and healthily during the opening of the fast is a pure ego reaction. You can fight me on this all you want, but it’s your stomach and food addiction doing the fighting, and resisting this truth – not your highest self, or logic. That alone is reason enough to take on this challenge.
- If you think eating healthily during Ramadan is hard, try speaking to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Muslims who have to take diabetes medication, which ironically stops them from fasting… when fasting itself, coupled with sensible eating during the opening of the fast, is actually a cure for type two diabetes. Go figure.
- Think of your body as your “human suit” that your soul wears all day long. Is it a lean, ripped, muscular, beautiful physique suit, or is it a common, everyday FAT-BLOKE suit? The choice is yours. It comes down to what you eat at the time of opening your fast. You wear what you eat.
- Have you heard of the ‘revenge body’? According to ‘the internet’, it’s when someone gets dumped, and then to take revenge on their ex partner, they get completely ripped in order to show them what they’re missing out on. But you know what’s cooler than a “Revenge Body”? A “Ramadan Body”. Wouldn’t it just be so cool if in the future, people talk about you having that “Ramadan Body”? In other words, a body that’s so lean and ripped that the only way you could have gotten that way is by fasting properly during Ramadan.
- It’s sometimes hard to see the spiritual benefits of Ramadan. We can feel it, but feelings are subjective and temporary. But what’s not subjective and not temporary is your waist size. If you lose several inches off your waist in a few weeks, that is a physical, tangible result and powerful reflection of what must have happened to your soul this month.
- The mind, body and soul are connected. When you transform one, it has an immediate automatic impact on the others. Controlling your food intake transforms your body, but it also requires an increase in awareness as you eat (ie. it increases your level of consciousness). Plus, by controlling your eating this way, you tend to have more energy during the day and more clarity of thinking. This in turn, creates the space for you to have more life transforming spiritual insight. It’s an upward spiral that makes your life better and better.
- Get 6 months of hard dieting done in ONE month… and do it with literally zero additional effort to what you’re doing already. The Ramadan plan I recommend isn’t about eating a little more ‘healthily’. It’s a complete, rapid, physical transformation that leverages the fact that you’re already going to be doing ‘Intermittent Fasting’ for the next few weeks anyway. Do Ramadan right, and you can get big results. FAST. (Pun intended).
There are probably a million more reasons.
But let this list suffice for now.
Don’t eat gulab jamman at iftar time.
If you do, then in terms of the physical benefits, you might as well have not fasted
if you want to know exactly what to do, what to eat, what to avoid, and how to do it, so that this Ramadan naturally, effortlessly leads to you being ripped and lean at the end of the month, then check out the program I created on this very topic:
The Ramadan Body Transformation.
It’s part of a suite of programs I’ve put together for you to facilitate the rest of this month and give you the maximum possible benefit from it. Inshallah.
Check it all out here:
