Just thought I'd post this here on the subject of Momo:
A challenging time for Muslim athlete
BY CHRIS ROSENBLOOM
Cox News Service
College athletes often find it hard to eat healthfully while juggling all the demands on their time. Classes, homework, team meetings, practice and games can leave little time for cooking and eating. However, athletes know that proper fueling can improve performance.
So what's an athlete to do when religious beliefs call for fasting from sunrise to sunset for a full month during the competitive sports season? Muslim athletes are facing that challenge now, during Ramadan, the month of fasting. Athletes who adhere to the tenets of Islam avoid all food and drink at daybreak until sunset.
Weiss Tahmass, a Georgia State University soccer player, met with me last year to develop a plan to get adequate nutrition for the two meals a day he consumed during Ramadan.
Tahmass is a midfielder who typically runs five to six miles during practice that occurs in the middle of the afternoon, when heat and humidity are at their highest.
We devised the following strategy to keep him running strong and performing at his best.
• We determined his calorie needs or energy expenditure, based on his height, weight, age and workout schedule. Tahmass needed slightly more than 3,500 calories a day.
• We devised meal options based on his usual eating habits for the pre-fast meal (called suhoor) and the post-fast meal (called iftar).
• He was encouraged to eat about one-third of his calories and drink one-half of his fluids before sunrise and two-thirds of his calories with the rest of the fluids after sunset.
• We determined the official times of sunrise and sunset using data from the U.S. Naval Observatory found at www.usno.navy.mil (click on sunrise/set). Athletes travel, so identifying the precise times of sunrise and sunset in various cities helps identify when it is time to eat.
• I encouraged him to alert his athletic trainer if he got dizzy or lightheaded in practice or in a competition. It is permissible to break the fast for illness, and heat exhaustion is an illness that must be monitored to ensure the athlete's safety.
Tahmass had competed during Ramadan in high school, but this was the first time a specific plan was developed. This year, Ramadan is later than last year and falls right in the heart of the competitive season for soccer.
''Ramadan is always tough for the first couple of days because you forget that you can't drink water during practice,'' reports Tahmass. Following a specific eating plan ''helped me have the energy when I needed it and allowed me to compete at a high level.'' He says that his teammates are amazed that he can get through a two-hour workout in the heat of the day without water, ``but with discipline and dedication, it gets easier after the first three to five days
BY CHRIS ROSENBLOOM
Cox News Service
College athletes often find it hard to eat healthfully while juggling all the demands on their time. Classes, homework, team meetings, practice and games can leave little time for cooking and eating. However, athletes know that proper fueling can improve performance.
So what's an athlete to do when religious beliefs call for fasting from sunrise to sunset for a full month during the competitive sports season? Muslim athletes are facing that challenge now, during Ramadan, the month of fasting. Athletes who adhere to the tenets of Islam avoid all food and drink at daybreak until sunset.
Weiss Tahmass, a Georgia State University soccer player, met with me last year to develop a plan to get adequate nutrition for the two meals a day he consumed during Ramadan.
Tahmass is a midfielder who typically runs five to six miles during practice that occurs in the middle of the afternoon, when heat and humidity are at their highest.
We devised the following strategy to keep him running strong and performing at his best.
• We determined his calorie needs or energy expenditure, based on his height, weight, age and workout schedule. Tahmass needed slightly more than 3,500 calories a day.
• We devised meal options based on his usual eating habits for the pre-fast meal (called suhoor) and the post-fast meal (called iftar).
• He was encouraged to eat about one-third of his calories and drink one-half of his fluids before sunrise and two-thirds of his calories with the rest of the fluids after sunset.
• We determined the official times of sunrise and sunset using data from the U.S. Naval Observatory found at www.usno.navy.mil (click on sunrise/set). Athletes travel, so identifying the precise times of sunrise and sunset in various cities helps identify when it is time to eat.
• I encouraged him to alert his athletic trainer if he got dizzy or lightheaded in practice or in a competition. It is permissible to break the fast for illness, and heat exhaustion is an illness that must be monitored to ensure the athlete's safety.
Tahmass had competed during Ramadan in high school, but this was the first time a specific plan was developed. This year, Ramadan is later than last year and falls right in the heart of the competitive season for soccer.
''Ramadan is always tough for the first couple of days because you forget that you can't drink water during practice,'' reports Tahmass. Following a specific eating plan ''helped me have the energy when I needed it and allowed me to compete at a high level.'' He says that his teammates are amazed that he can get through a two-hour workout in the heat of the day without water, ``but with discipline and dedication, it gets easier after the first three to five days
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