Preserve muscles while fasting

Question

Within 10 days, the fasting month of muslims will start ( Ramadan Month). In this month muslims fast all the day( not eating or drinking from morning till the sun set). So in such a case what is the best way to preserve muscles ?

I did some search in previous questions, where the discussion was how to preserve muscles while loosing weight. The idea was to eat enough protien ( 1.5 x body weight in Kg), keep working out, and have calorie in < calorie out.

Should some thing similar be for the case of fasting ? Especially that the principal meal will be the dinner taken after sunset.

Note: Living in a country where the sun rise at 6:30 am and the sunset at 10:00pm, this will count about 16 hours of fasting.

Thank you for any suggestion, article, reference, or answer about the subject.

Answer 1

The idea was to eat enough protein ( 1.5 x body weight in Kg), keep working out, and have calorie in < calorie out.

With the above understanding, you're on the right track.

Since you're allowed to eat and exercise during the night, it seems that you've basically inverted the day-night cycle as far as nutrition is concerned because quite a few people sleep for 8-10 (your 16 hour fast is still longer) hours a night without eating or drinking in between.

If there's absolutely nothing you're allowed to eat/drink during the day then the only thing that you can really do is to ensure that your body gets sufficient nutrition and exercise during the night and that you take long lasting / slow digesting Casein like protein in the morning.

If I were you, I would exercise in the evening (after taking a decent protein, BCAAs and other nutrient rich pre-workout shake or a light meal), then take a solid high quality protein meal post-workout and potentially a few protein shakes/bars if I wake up during the night (unless you can just have another solid meal 4-5 hours into the night) followed by another high quality long lasting protein (Casein, for example), BCAAs and nutrient rich solid meal in the morning to last me the day. Casein or equivalent would last for 7-10 hours depending on what else you've eaten giving you a steady trickle of protein for most of the day.

All that slow digesting protein might make you more thirsty than usual (my personal experience, everyone is different), but I guess there's just no way around it other than drinking a lot of water during the night and morning if you can't drink water during the day.