Make-Up Fasts & Fitness — A Muslim Woman's Guide

The Fasts You Still Need to Make Up — And How to Train Around Them

Every Muslim woman who menstruates carries a quiet list. Do you know what it is? It's the days she missed in Ramadan. The days she owes before the next Ramadan arrives. We count them in our heads during the year, squeeze them into short winter days when we can, and somehow this entire experience is shared by basically every Muslim woman on earth. Its so odd that it has never once been acknowledged by a fitness app.

Sisters, think about that. Apps track everything. Steps, sleep, water, moods. But the make-up fasts that shape our eating, our energy, and our training schedule for weeks of the year? Invisible. That silence told us something: those apps were never really built for us.

What Aishah Taught Us About This

Aishah (رضي الله عنها) said she used to have fasts to make up from Ramadan and could not fast them until Sha'ban. The Mother of the Believers herself carried the list, sometimes for most of the year. So if you're behind on yours, you are in blessed company. No shame, just a duty to plan for.

Fasting Days Are Different Days

A make-up fast changes your whole physical day. No food or water from dawn to sunset means your energy availability drops, your hydration window shrinks, and your body runs differently. Training like it's a normal day is how women end up dizzy on the prayer mat at Asr.

Here's what twenty years in wellness has taught me about training on fasting days. Keep movement light and place it late. A gentle session in the last hour before maghrib works beautifully for me, because you refuel right after. Or move after iftar entirely, once food and water are back in your system. What you don't do is schedule your hardest strength session at midday while fasting. That is not discipline. That is actually working against yourself.

Plan the Fasts Like You Plan Training

Since we're already planning workouts around our cycle, add the make-up fasts to the same calendar. A practical pattern I personally love is to fast Mondays and Thursdays, following the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ who regularly fasted both days, and make those your lighter training days. Two birds, one intention, and your qada list shrinks steadily all year instead of piling up before Sha'ban.

Its important to remember that hydration matters double on these days. Front-load your water between maghrib and fajr, keep suhoor wholesome, include protein, fats, slow carbs, not just tea, dates and bread, and inshallah your fasting day will feel completely different.

This Is Worship, All of It

Making up your fasts is an act worship. Protecting your body while you do it is worship too, because the body is an amanah. The two were never in competition. A wellness life that ignores your religious obligations is incomplete, and a religious life that ignores your body's needs is not what our deen asked of us either. You are allowed to honor both. You were always meant to.

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References & Sources

1.  Aishah (رضي الله عنها) said: "I used to have fasts to make up from Ramadan, and I could not make them up except in Sha'ban." Sahih al-Bukhari (1950) and Sahih Muslim (1146).

2.  Qur'an, Surah Al-Baqarah 2:184 — "...then an equal number of other days" — the obligation of making up missed fasts.

3.  On fasting Mondays and Thursdays: the Prophet ﷺ used to fast Mondays and Thursdays. Jami' at-Tirmidhi (745); graded sahih by al-Albani.

4.  The Prophet ﷺ said: "...your body has a right over you..." Sahih al-Bukhari (5199).

5.  On exercise timing and fasting: Trabelsi, K. et al. (2011), "Effect of fed- versus fasted-state resistance training during Ramadan on body composition and selected metabolic parameters," Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 8:23.

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