This episode of The Athletes Compass Podcast explores two key listener questions: how to train effectively during Ramadan while fasting and how to navigate the ongoing debate around endurance nutrition. Dr. Paul Laursen, Marjaana Rakai, and Paul Warloski provide insights on scheduling workouts around fasting, maintaining energy levels, and managing hydration and recovery. They also discuss the latest research on low-carb versus high-carb diets, debunk the myth of the post-workout anabolic window, and break down which supplements actually improve endurance performance. Whether you're an Ironman athlete or just looking for smarter ways to fuel and train, this episode offers practical takeaways for long-term success.

Key Takeaways

• Training During Ramadan: Low-intensity sessions in the morning, higher intensity workouts closer to Iftar to optimize fueling and recovery.
• Metabolic Adaptation: Fasting encourages fat oxidation and ketone utilization, which can benefit endurance athletes.
• Balancing Sleep and Social Commitments: Late-night training may impact sleep, requiring adjustments to training plans.
• Low-Carb vs. High-Carb Nutrition: A major study found no significant difference in performance between the two approaches.
• The Best Supplements for Endurance Athletes: Creatine, caffeine, and protein powders are among the most effective, while beta-alanine and glutamine offer little benefit unless dietary intake is insufficient.
• The Anabolic Window Myth: Post-workout protein timing is less important than total daily intake

• Paul Warloski - Endurance, Strength Training, Yoga
• Marjaana Rakai - Tired Mom Runs - Where fitness meets motherhood.

When you fast, like in Ramadan, you start to use more ketones as a fuel in your brain.

you don't fast regularly and then all of a sudden Ramadan hits, it's probably a struggle for the first little bit, I can only imagine. Because this is like,

ultimately going through the so-called keto flu, you're adapting, you're adapting to...

more time, more windows without fueling yourself.

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast, where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Balancing Ironman training during Ramadan, navigating the endless debate on endurance nutrition. This week we tackle two big listener questions, how to train smart while fasting and how to cut through the noise on supplements, macros and meal timing for endurance athletes. So here's our first question.

Hello, team Athletes Compass. Thank you for the incredible content you share. Your insights bring so much value. Well, thank you. We appreciate that.

I'm training for Ironman Texas on April 27th and looking for advice on structuring peak training during Ramadan, which is February 28th through March 29th, while fasting from dawn until sunset, no food or water during that window.

How would you recommend positioning key sessions, especially long rides and runs to maintain performance while keeping energy levels in check? Looking for ways to train smarter and more creatively while balancing hydration, fueling and recovery. Another challenge is keeping up with training alongside with the social aspect of Ramadan as I want to make time for family while staying consistent. Wow, a lot of questions. Well, a huge shout out to Coach MJ and Athletica AI for

Curating my training plan. Thanks for all that you do sincerely, Arwa. That's awesome

ultimately we're talking about a window of fasting. I'm very interested in fasting, practicing faster. Of course, when you fast, you lower your blood insulin level and you up your...

all the fat burning aspects of your metabolism, right? Including, you know, your ketones, your blood ketones. And you have to do that because remember that your brain relies generally on blood glucose for its fuel. And the cool thing, as we've said before, is that the body has figured out this way to break down fat and get an alternate fuel source. And of course that's blood ketones. Okay. So that's

That's what happens when you fast. When you fast, like in Ramadan, you start to use more ketones as a fuel in your brain. And I'm only imagining that if you don't fast regularly and then all of a sudden Ramadan hits, it's probably a struggle for the first little bit, I can only imagine. Because this is like, you're almost ultimately going through the so-called keto flu, you're adapting, you're adapting to...

more time, more windows without fueling yourself. that's part of the custom with Ramadan. So, okay, so back to the key question. What are we gonna do here now that we're in this predicament where we're not eating from dawn to sunset? So, you know, and that's usually the time when we are...

We're moving around, we're doing our exercise, we are fueling usually. So now all of a sudden fueling is off the table. So how do you now challenge yourself for exercises? Of course the aerobic sessions are gonna be pretty relatively simple to do. I think that's, those could be done.

probably right off the bat. Like we even know in the cold concept of training high, training low, when you're training low, then of course they say you should let, you can either train in a fasted condition, right off the bat when you wake up in the morning, can go for your exercise, keep things aerobic, recovery, L1, L2.

and no problems. Of course, the challenge might be a little bit more when we start cranking out some power and some high intensity sessions. That is usually thought to involve, you you want to be a little bit more well-fed, higher blood glucose levels, so you've got a central nervous system stimulator. How do you position all these sorts of things? Well, there's, as we always say, there's lots of ways to sort of skin the cat.

But you've got to recognize the consequences of whatever choice that you sort of go and make here in this condition. If it were me, I think it's probably coach's preference or athlete preference at the end of the day. What do you think, MJ? First.

Well, yeah, would probably in the beginning, the first week, it's going to be a little bit challenging. So just keep everything nice and low, no heat sessions at all, because it takes some time before energy levels stabilize. But then you could introduce

bigger sessions, not necessarily heat sessions, but longer sessions after iftar. So after you break the fast in the evening, I recognize...

Look

at you all savvy with the terms and stuff, right? Showing your tenure in Dubai, right? Five years in Dubai, so you're totally familiar with all of this.

Five years into five, but yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Ramadan Kareem to all my Middle Eastern friends and everybody who is celebrating Ramadan. Yeah. So you could start, and I understand that there's a social aspect of it and a community aspect of celebrating Ramadan. sometimes those...

later evening sessions after Iftar will be challenging, unless you go with somebody else who is training for something. So after Iftar, after your celebration meal, you could do a little bit longer session. Now then it becomes also challenged how much sleep are you going to get, right? So be ready to, you know, pivot and

adjust your training. Because if you then do high intensity interval training after iftar, being in a fed state, you might find that it's harder to fall asleep and then you have shorter sleep or overnight sleep.

Yeah,

so if I could chime back in with my physiology hat on, again, this is my preference. There's no right or wrong answer to this whole thing. This puzzle is yours, the listener that's involved with Ramadan, and it's up to you to probably tinker with these different options and go with what feels right. If it were me, I'm kind of in this situation where I'm a pretty...

Mm-hmm.

long-term low carb high fat athlete, pretty experienced, good levels of fat burning. I would do my, and if I'm doing two sessions in my day, I'm doing probably my, aerobic session off the bat. Cause that just kind of feels, that sort of feels right for me. And then yeah, in the morning, yeah, for me, yeah, I would just kind of get up and do my aerobic and just kind of keep things low and even like sort of

in the morning. Yeah.

push that fat burning out a little bit. I love riding in the morning anyways. I did my swim this morning and I had my black coffee and then I'm swimming. I was doing some fly, so no problems with high intensity work and those sorts of things. Even after I'm sort of finished that work, I still feel high in energy levels because I know my ketone levels are...

Mm-hmm.

are elevated further from that exercise. So I really, I don't personally have too much problem with this sort of window. So I'm gonna do that first session there and then I'm gonna move through my day and do my work as most of us here are probably gonna be doing. And then when we're getting towards the, here we go.

Iftar?

I would probably, like before I hit that, would probably do like, I'm, if I need to do a second session in the day, say it's a key session on the bike and velocity or whatever it is, I would, I would probably see how I go with cranking out a, a high intensity session there, whether it's running or cycling, but I know that there's a reward kind of coming after, right? And I would almost use that as, as that reward. I would not personally do it the other way when, where I would, you know,

Mm-hmm.

feast and have a full stomach, I wouldn't feel very good doing a high intensity session after that because there's all the, know all my blood flow is directed to my gut to do the work of digestion. And I don't want to jeopardize that and pull that blood away from the digestive organs and move it into the skeletal muscle. So I would...

For my preference, and again, there's no right or wrong answer to any of this, that's what I would do. That's what would feel right. And then I would have my feast, and then I would sleep. And then that would feel really, really good for me. So that would be a good way for me to go. But that's in a sort of a more fat adapted sort of state. But you can use, you can certainly use this Ramadan, I believe, to your advantage to develop your base. We've talked about base training before.

Yeah.

So if I were to like summarize, are, you could do before sunrise, you could do a short session either before sunrise and then have a small meal before sunrise.

So you could do your session and then a small meal before sunrise. And then the later session could be before your iftar or after your iftar, depending on your energy levels and how you're feeling. But yeah, those are the two, you know...

time points where you need to be flexible, at least in the beginning. But like you said, I think this is going to be a challenge, but I think it's going to be very good for your fat adaptation process for Ironman Texas coming up in April.

And it also seems like the, if you do that evening higher intensity session to be aware that it might not work because you might be, your blood glucose might be low and you might not be ready for it. takes some time to be getting to that stage where the ketones will kick in. So be aware of that as well.

It's a perfect timing to do a bass season. One month of bass.

It

is right before Iron Man though.

Yeah, but I mean, we know that base is just so pivotal to your, what are gonna be doing during Ironman, right? You're gonna be out there burning the fat. So you're preparing, ultimately. You're doing a really good job to prepare your body to be a real good fat burner. So I think it's awesome. I view it as a positive.

Yeah.

That's true.

Yeah, me too.

Great opportunity.

Okay, this is a talk about forum. This is from one bat on forum. We put so much effort into our training and hopefully recovery, but the information around nutrition is frustratingly complex and contradictory.

My diet priorities are planning my nutrition, having a family meal at dinner, usually around 200 grams of meat, veggies, salad, little bit carbs, little carbs, low carb. Although kids sports make it challenging. Yeah, I can relate. I then try to hit the rest of my goals at breakfast and lunch. Okay. Let's...

No, little carbs, little carbs, low carb.

Yeah. Yeah.

You

Let's start with the first question from Wombat. Supplements for endurance training, particular creatine, beta-alanine and glutamine, recommended as critical for recovery.

Yeah. I would, Wombat, I would recommend that you have a listen on the training science podcast to the podcast I did with Dr. Jose Antonio. He's the editor of the international journal, Sports Nutrition, and he's like the guru ultimately in this area. So, and he was basically saying he really rates creatine as a...

as an ideal supplement. The other two, beta-alanine and glutamine, not so much. But basically, like the three, basically he had like came down to three key supplements only that he sort of recommends at the, you know, overall all the gamut. Creatine was one of them. And then the other one was caffeine, you know, if you're going to be racing and then protein, protein powders, which I think kind of comes to your questions down the road there.

And he gives reasons as to why that is. However, we did discuss this in the podcast and I'm reading more into your question. You're eating 200 grams of meat, that's solid. we kind of both, like when you're taking a creatine supplement, creatine is ultimately what's in the muscle, right? So creatine is like your short-term sprinting energy system, right? So it would...

it stands to reason that if you're taking in meat from animals, you're ingesting a lot of creatine, whether you know it or not. So if you're a very high, know, carnivore, heavy, low carb athlete as you're expressing, you're probably not going to see sort of too much benefit. I would imagine that's kind of what Antonio and I, Dr. Antonio and I reasoned kind of towards the end of it. So

You know, you're certainly welcome to, it's probably not going to hurt, but you're probably doing everything well already with the diet that you're on is sort of my guess. He really didn't mention too much, like glutamine is an amino acid anyways, beta-alanine, another one I think that you get a lot from meat. So you're probably not going to see sort of too much with that. I think it's also a short-term energy one.

So like sprint performance. So yeah, I don't think again that you're doing everything right from what I can see. Marjaana, you want to say something?

So for people who are not on carnivore diet or don't eat lots of red meat, what would you recommend then?

Yeah,

well then, I mean, that totally changes the game, doesn't it? So good point. Changes the context, as we're always sort of saying. Like if your context changes and you're a vegetarian now all of a sudden, well now you're probably going to see a bump in your energy levels and your performance as a result of that, right? Because again, if we go back to an ancestral health viewpoint that, you know, there's this, we probably...

We've been doing that for a long time. Our DNA is accustomed to the needs of those substances that you get within animals. again, we won't debate this. We know we're omnivores. We can adapt to either diet from meat to plant. But certainly, there was a period of time when we would...

you had to hunt down your prey to survive, right? So, and we went through that period, our DNA adapted accordingly. so you better, know, and again, this is why, you know, I've got lots of friends who are vegetarians. So they're on supplements, you know, quite a few because they're lacking that. And the key ones would be like, you know, B12 that you only get from meat, iron that you only get from meat, and these other ones as well. So yeah, if you are in the vegetarian kind of camp,

you may get some benefits from these and it's be worth experimenting.

And I think for perimenoposal and manyposal women, creating is recommended. I think we...

Any

personal experience there, MJ?

You

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I take, creating every day, but I think, was it on Mickey's podcast when Mickey Willidon was, I think she mentioned creatine. Yeah. Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's a big advocate.

Totally, totally, yeah.

The Australian

Institute of Sport also has a great source of information on supplements and products that work. So that's another place to go to.

Yeah.

Look, I'm speaking honestly though, like I totally am aware of all those sorts of things. I'm not a huge fan personally of the supplements, but again, I'm blessed to live in a, kind of, you call it a blue zone or, know, Mary Ann, you know where I live and you saw us going to the farm, right, to pick up our farm vegetables and farm meat. And that's sort of, you know, again, try to live off the land a little bit, but that's...

Mm-hmm.

Not everyone's in that same sort of situation. And you, you know, you returning back to Houston, Texas, Marianna, you know, right?

I know, unfortunately, like, I don't, well, I should be careful here what I say, but, but, yes.

You should. Politically correct.

A lot of us just randomly go to a random grocery store and get whatever random vegetables, wherever they are shipped from Argentina or like long traveled vegetables. And I have to say, it's from your local farmer, it tastes lots better and probably better quality nutrition too.

And that definitely is a good segue to Wombat's next question about protein powders and pre-workouts aimed more at weightlifters, but I found them useful. They get started in the morning and hit protein goals. Do they have a place? What's their value? What should I look for in them? And those are two separate things, pre-workouts and protein powders. Let's keep those separate. Let's start with pre-workouts. Is there a place for those?

Yeah, well, again, I go back to the ex I'm no expert. So I go back to Dr. Jose Antonio, the, the podcast, and he, again, he puts this one in his top three categories of supplements. And I'm pretty sure Mickey also recommended this one as well. But again, in the context of you wombat, you're, you're having the 200 grams of meat, right? So you're, you know, you're in that, your context is, you're probably getting a whole load of amino acids.

that you would also get from the protein powder. you honestly, like you might not need to sort of supplement. And again, going back to my situation, we've already talked about that, but I do not. But what I will do, because I know of the makeup, I'll use like hard boiled eggs, say for example, because I know that's hard boiled eggs is my protein powder, or I use leftover meat from the fridge. you

a grass-fed cow that's been cooked and it sort of had too much, so it's it's leftover in the meat. Again, I know the bioavailability, actually the amount of amino acids you actually take in and absorb are going to be better in the egg or meat product than they are for the protein powder. So again, this is my preference and my recommendation, but...

Again, in Marianna's context, these might be great. So recognize your own context and then respond accordingly. Wombat for you, I would think you probably don't need it and you could probably supplement with your hard boiled egg strategy that I use as well. And everyone could do that too, right? So it's think about the bioavailability of that protein, right? Are you gonna get it?

Is it going to be better from a powder or a whole food source? And usually it's a whole food source.

And education is key here too. You kind of need to look at your plate and understand how many grams of protein you have in your plate and try to increase the protein from, like you said, from whole food-based sources. And then, you

follow it for a while and then calculate how many grams of protein you kind of get throughout the day. And if you're not anywhere near like, let's say, I think the recommendations are 1.6 to 2.2 grams per body weight in kilograms. If you're nowhere near, then I would say start supplementing with protein powder. If you just can't, you know, add any more hot boiled eggs or, you know.

and

Yeah.

anecdote. So Svein Tuft, Paul will know who Svein Tuft is. And if you don't, he's like a three time tour winner, pink jersey wearer. And when he was here, we did a six hour long gravel ride. It's like, what do you want for breakfast? And he was just like, no, eggs. So you're just like, four eggs and then down the hatch.

and we were off for six hours of hard gravel riding. there's an example, I guess, of what a world-class athlete of consumes. And it was pretty minimal supplementation sort of during, but we're kind of in that same camp where we're very sort of fat adapted. But he recognized the importance of those amino acids, but he realized that he doesn't need to have a protein powder yet. He gets that from just his

No.

is farm fresh eggs.

Mm-hmm.

And wombat I'd be really careful with the pre-workout supplement powders because of the sugar and all the other chemicals that are in there. You know, my pre-workout is, is a cup of coffee. and getting that caffeine in is, is a great pre-workout, but the powders that come in with, know, there's just a lot of extra stuff there that we don't need.

Low carb versus high carb for everyday athletes. I'm training seven to 10 hours a week, not really looking to lose weight, although wouldn't mind either, and won't be running any 230 marathons anytime soon. The most recent study seems to indicate low carb is sustainable with endurance training, but a lot of other information online. I can hear the coach's sigh now, recommends.

Recommend high carb diets.

yeah, big time. yeah, it's a huge issue, but man, kudos to Philip Prinze, Andrew Kutnick, Tim Noakes, and all the authors that did that study. It's massive. If you go and read it, they adapted them for something like six weeks, each diet.

debate.

And then they looked at the, not just the adaptation time course, but then the performance at the end. And there was no difference in either one. Tim, Tim made a really cool tweet that he tagged me on. And he said that, you know, really at the end of the day, what this study showed, it really does not matter what you're consuming. You know, you kind of, we're all getting,

our nose at a joint a little bit on the whatever religion camp we want to come into with this diet here. And what really matters, and I love this because this is what we focus on in Athletica, it's the training that you do. It's your power profile. the reason we're saying this is because it did not matter what diet you were adapted to. The performance was ultimately, it didn't matter in either cohort.

And this was repeated measure. So this was in the same subjects after six weeks, right? They're adapting to both diets. They're good with both. And their performance really doesn't change too, too much. It was a little bit better in the low carb condition, but I don't think it was statistical, statistically different. And then the other key thing that it showed, it pinned it on, was it really just came down to a low level of glucose supplementation enough

so that it released or relieved the hypoglycemia, the low level of blood sugar. And that's all you need to do at the end of the day. They showed it. And I was talking to Phillip, he just, it took him forever to pilot this in the lab with a bunch of students and whatnot to figure out how low they could go because they really wanted to go low in this condition because they really wanted to kind of take it away from any issue on muscle glycogen sparing or anything like that.

and they got it, so they piloted it down, they were pretty confident, and they went with just this very small 10 grams in an

Now, MJ, what would 10 grams look like from a gel standpoint? So try to put this in the head of the listener.

I think standard is 25 grams or 30 grams of carbs in one gel. So one third or half, yeah. Yeah.

you

So yeah, one third of gel in an hour

was all that was needed. Just a trickle of carbohydrate was just enough to elevate the performance by 22%, right? Compared to not having this and being in sort of a placebo condition they used, right? So that's all you gotta do.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So this kind of leads into Wombat's next question. Wombat had six different questions all based on this. So we're tackling them. We're going to see if we can get them all. what's the best or a good ratio of macros, protein, carbs, and fat to target without being obsessive about weighing every bite?

He was really thinking about this.

Yeah, well, I think for me, it's the 80-20 rule, right? Like, again, you put your... Once you get adapted... I think there's a lot to be said about going cold turkey for a couple of weeks and really nailing it and just knowing that you're adapted and those sorts of things. But after you're adapted and you get the... What is it called? Like you're metabolically flexible, they sort of say. You can kind of... You'll go back and you can have cheat days, no problem.

and you get back, right? Like MJ just went and did the burki and she's traveling. she's, she's, got to eat, you still got to eat, right? And sometimes there's just nothing else to eat and you're hungry. So you got to eat carbs, right? Or, maybe some, maybe some sort of processed things. You can only fast for so long. That's what I find when I'm traveling. So yeah, I don't, I'm not obsessed about it too much. Where I obsess is in the supermarket when I shop.

Yeah. Yeah.

because that's when I can make the difference. So I try to shop whole food. Again, if it's coming from Mother Earth, I'm happy. And I got my own different sources. Fill up the fridge and the cupboards, and then don't worry about it after that. And same for social stuff. I don't worry about it in social stuff, right? Social stuff is super important. We underestimate the importance of that, especially in today's age, where it's...

It's very screen-based or phone-based and you've got to get out and be with the people and there's a lot of benefits for that.

For sure. Hey, I haven't talked too much about my low carb journey, but I wanted to mention it here because he says he's not looking to lose weight. And when I cleaned my house over a year ago, my weight actually dropped pretty fast within like two months. But then like it stabilized pretty much in the same level, but my body composition just kept on changing.

from a little bit, I would say around to a lot more looking like an athlete. And it's been continuing to change. So it's not like a fast process, but it just like keeps on evolving.

But I noticed when I travel and being social, had some cheesecake and what else did I have? I had some bread and I just feel almost started to feel like I'm coming down with the flu or cold, like start swelling up and feeling bloated and a little bit of nasal congestion. that, like I can't.

I can pinpoint it to other than, you know, what I put in my mouth. So that's super interesting. But when I started cleaning my house, was pretty strict with, like, I wanted to learn. I measured everything for about a month to educate myself.

If I eat this, what am I getting? So I was looking at the ratios and making sure that my protein is high and carbs low. But then I just let it go. Now I know what I eat.

Okay, couple of more questions from Wombat. Does the timing of meals matter? Do I need to have protein within 40 minutes of training?

No, and that's been debunked and that was the whole window thing that was around there in the sports nutrition. And they've done enough studies now. know that eventually once you get those amino acids in your system, they go back towards building the muscle mass that you want. Remember that whenever you're doing an exercise, you're creating a signal in the muscle cells themselves.

and that signal is what causes for the adaptation. So they're hungry, but the signal kind of sticks around for a while. And then all of a sudden, once the amino acids are available, those will grab and form and rebuild you, right? Remember that we're always turning over in terms of our cell makeup and stuff, right? So you literally are what you eat.

you are a product of the food that you ate over the last six months, ultimately, and that will continue to change. So this is why it's important to try your best in that 80-20 manner to build a, provide the building blocks of your person that you know are gonna be sort of optimal. This is why, well, the 80-20 is like, again, kind of back to the

Can you explain 8020?

you know, the obsessive question that that wombat had. So 80 % my 80 20 is like 80 % I'm going to be whole food, very quality nutrition. 20 % is for my social elements. And you know, if I step outside a little bit of it's just like, yeah, there's this 80 20 balance rule that's kind of fundamental within, you know,

or a society or optimization, right? You don't have to go totally obsessive is what I believe.

So it's the daily protein intake rather than the critical window opportunity that matters.

Correct, Yeah,

but it's always, again, we got a shallow pool, as we mentioned earlier, always good to have some amino acids around. Again, looking at practices like Svein Svein Tuft, keeping those amino acid levels up from an experienced world-class athlete, he knows it's important. guys like him with longevity, and longevity as athletes.

He's in his mid to late 40s and he's training with, he's like the trainer, he's out there on the road with world class Tour de France riders. So he's pretty awesome.

That's pretty

Well, Wombat, thank you for your questions. We appreciate your time and Arwa, thank you for yours. Let's thank you for exploring the path to peak performance with us today on the Athletes Compass podcast. When you subscribe, you'll ensure you're always tuned in for our next journey into endurance, mindset, and performance. And when you share this podcast,

With a friend, teammate or coach, you'll be helping them discover new ways to level up their training and life. Take a moment right now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. For more information or to schedule a consultation with Paul, Marjaana or myself, check the links in the show notes. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.