Is it okay to go on a cut during Ramadan?

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi Doc, thanks a lot for taking the time to help

I have a decent amount of bodyfat I want to lose and right now I am fasting during this Ramadan month, consuming maintenance calories. (139lbs, 31inch waist, 5ft6, about 2000kcals for maintenance right now)

Q1: is it advisable to go into a 200-400kcal deficit over this month (and maybe continue a couple weeks after ramadan)? I ask because I’m thinking that due to gyms being closed and the unideal fasting, I am more prone to losing more muscle, and should just stay at maintenance calories for now until Ramadan is over?

Some context:

  1. Before Ramadan and gyms closing, I was into the first or second week of the Powerbuilding template while consuming maintenance kcals
  2. When gyms closed, I continued with Powerbuilding at home, but only for upperbody, and continued making good gains. But I skipped lowerbody completely (didn’t have enough heavy weight at home, felt lazy and put off the idea of doing a million reps to reach failure). This was all over the past 4-5 weeks.
  3. Right now, I am just starting week 6 of Powerbuilding (for upper body only), and I will now simultaneously do your at-home template but for lowerbody only. (I wonder if having detrained my lowerbody and lost size, will I perhaps get a recomp effect and/or offset losing muscle if I stay at maintenance or cut during Ramadan, as I now start training my lowerbody again?
  4. Maybe should I switch to the hypertrophy template right now, as I have heard training with high rep/volume is best for retaining muscle?

Q2: As I am fasting, I am keeping cardio to a minimum and only following the GPP cardio of Powerbuilding after breaking fast (or should I do the GPP cardio from the at-home template, as I am at home lol?).
Therefore, should I adjust my macros to higher fat and lower carbs? I ask because I am using a diet app and it’s telling me to consume 100g of fat (for maintenance kcals) and I am currently on 40g fat! Would switching from low fat high carb to the opposite, just like that, be okay?? I am very use to high carbs and prefer it, but will do high fat if it is better in this period of inactivity.

Q3: Does restricting food & water intake for 16 hours (for me it only feels like 8 hours because I am asleep the other 8) have any bad effect on building or retaining any muscle if maintaining or cutting? I ask so I know what do in the following years.

Many thanks

2
  1. If you want to lose weight and are motivated to do so, that’d be cool with me.

That said, I’m not sure that the fasting is really less than ideal- but not being able to train certainly is. If you can train and want to lose body fat, now is as good as any other time to do so.

  1. No, there’s no difference in weight loss outcomes between low fat/high carb and high carb/low fat.

  2. It doesn’t matter.

In any case, I’m not sure if you really need to lose weight either.