A few weeks ago, I got a text from a friend, “Just finished LISS!” She sounded excited, but the real question for me was, “What is LISS?”
Turns out, LISS stands for Low-Intensity Steady State and refers to a "moderate or long duration cardiovascular exercise that maintains the same duration throughout.” It is one of Kayla Itsines' BBG workouts.
Thus, I was introduced to Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide (BBG). Kayla Itsines' popularity cannot be understated; she recently “toured” several places and at her fitness class in New York City had a phenomenal 4,000 women in one room, circuit training with her.
BBG is a program written to "help as many women as possible achieve their ideal body, their confidence, and their happiness!” It offers two components: One is the workout program, and other is the “Healthy Eating and Lifestyle Plan” (H.E.L.P Nutrition Guide). The book guides you through five to seven short workouts a week (one of which is a stretch session), and a nutritious eating plan with about five meals and snacks a day.
After several friends swore by this program, I decided to give it a try. BBG workouts are for people with a “basic level of cardio fitness," and those who don’t have that (AKA me) should do four weeks of pre-training. So, I start pre-training and go for a week. I do circuit training, cardio sessions, and stretching. I even eat healthier but am not fully invested in that part yet. Then, Ramzaan comes along.
Ramzaan is the month of fasting for Muslims; we fast from dawn till dusk, which means abstaining from food, drink, smoking, sex and other behaviours like fighting or gossiping. In the ideal world, we try to abstain from those other behaviours anyway, but in Ramzaan, we tend to be super mindful of them.
Anyway, you can see how Kayla’s five meals a day were not going to work for me. Atop that, doing exhausting, sweaty workouts without hydration was probably going to suck.
I love Ramzaan. I love the self-restraint and empathy it teaches and the mindfulness it inculcates. I believe strongly Ramzaan is not as much about making things difficult to see how difficult they are, as it is about demonstrating that flexibility is key and that with a few adjustments, everything works out.
BBG was no exception. With a few adjustments, I was able to continue pre-training and am ready to start training this week!
With regard to the workouts, on weekends I worked out by turning day into night. I would break my fast at sunset (around 7:30 p.m.), and at about midnight, I would workout. I would then eat again at dawn and sleep in until late the next day. This means the workout was placed in between two meals, which gave me enough time to digest my first meal, enough fuel to keep me going during the workout and enough food after to recuperate.
On weekdays when I had to go to the office at 8 a.m., this was not an option. I tried to save LISS as well as arm and abs resistance workouts for weekdays because I found that I perspire less during those. I timed these workouts to end about two minutes before sunset, so I could break my fast and drink water just as soon as they were over. This was hard, but the BBG isn’t supposed to be easy.
Dealing with the food component was a little more complex. I didn’t eat the snacks BBG recommends because I didn’t have enough time between meals to properly digest. Again, on weekends, spacing out meals was easier because I was awake for more eating hours.
On weekdays, I would do breakfast food at dawn, with lunch at sunset and dinner food two or so hours later if I was still hungry. I was consuming fewer calories than prescribed on some days, but I figured since that wasn’t long term (or even every day) it was OK.
There’s a misconception that Ramzaan is a period of weight loss, but for me, it had always been a time in the year where I put on a few extra pounds because of essentially stuffing my face twice a day. That process made me bloated and sometimes made digestion difficult, but following a healthy eating program as I would on any other day actually made this Ramzaan a much better one.
As such, I think Ramzaan and this lifestyle change complemented each other in the sense that I felt healthier than I have in a long time. Because of BBG, I was mindful of what I ate during Ramzaan. Because of Ramzaan, I was more mindful of a lifestyle change I intend to make in the long term. Ramzaan turned out to be the opposite of a hindrance for BBG.
On a less Ramzaan related note, as a sub-continental person, I also made some minor adjustments to Kayla’s food suggestions, primarily in the spice department. Instead of putting “salt reduced soy sauce, lime juice and chopped ginger” on my chicken, I was putting Karahi flavoured Shan Masala, which was delicious.
In terms of progress, although I haven’t seen drastic physical changes yet, I see a lot of changes in mindset. Initially, the 12 weeks of BBG training seemed impossible. I now feel ready to take that on and have a lot more self-confidence in my ability to exercise. That’s a big step for me, so if nothing this is a testament indicating that pre-training really does prepare you for training, and BBG’s prescribed gradual increase is pretty manageable.
Lastly, I’m writing this partially because I think if I tell people I’m doing BBG, I’m more likely to stick with it. In either case, Ramzaan doesn’t have to be a roadblock to whatever fitness program you may be pursuing next year. In fact, it can even be conducive to your fitness like it was to mine!
