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Training through Great Lent: the protein problem
A large part of combat sport in Eastern Europe and the Balkans is competed by Orthodox athletes, and the Lenten fast runs for 7 weeks including Holy Week. It restricts what goes on the plate rather than when you may eat, which sounds easier and is a harder problem for a fighter.
The strict weekday rule removes meat, dairy, eggs and, on most days, fish. Olive oil and wine are also set aside on weekdays, and permitted on Saturdays and Sundays.
Timing is untouched. You can eat all day, which means training and fluid are unaffected. The problem is composition.
Protein is what you are defending. Shellfish is permitted and is the single most useful thing on the list for an athlete, because it is protein without the restriction.
What is described here is the strict rule as written. Most laypeople keep something softer, practice differs between traditions, and adaptations for health or heavy physical work are a matter for the athlete and his priest.
Whether to keep the fast, how strictly, and whether a blessing for an adaptation is appropriate is not a nutritionist's question and I do not answer it.
What follows is written for an athlete who is keeping it and wants to train properly inside it.
What the fast actually removes
| Removed on strict weekdays | What that costs a fighter |
|---|---|
| Meat and poultry | The main protein source |
| Dairy and eggs | The convenient protein, and calcium |
| Fish, on most days | Protein and omega-3 |
| Olive oil, on weekdays | An easy and dense source of energy |
Saturdays and Sundays relax the oil, and there are feast days on which fish is permitted, most notably the Annunciation and Palm Sunday. Those days are not a detail. In a training week they are where a meaningful part of the month's protein and energy can be placed deliberately rather than by accident.
One qualification before any of it is used as a plan. The table above is the strict rule as the Typikon sets it out, which is a monastic standard rather than a description of what most people keep. Practice also differs between traditions: Greek and Antiochian custom is often more relaxed about oil and about some seafood, while Slavic practice tends to be stricter, particularly in the first week and in Holy Week. Romanian custom has its own details again.
Work from what your own parish keeps, not from a general article.
Shellfish is the answer nobody uses
Shellfish is permitted through the fast in most traditions, being invertebrate rather than fish, and most athletes I have met keeping this fast simply do not think of it as food. Prawns, mussels, squid and octopus are protein of good quality, and they are the difference between a difficult 7 weeks and an impossible one.
Some Slavic practice treats them more cautiously, which is worth confirming rather than assuming.
Build the week around them where the budget and the region allow it. Where they do not, the load falls on legumes, and that is a larger volume of food than most fighters are used to eating.
Around 1.6 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass a day, the same target as any other week of the year. Coming mostly from plants, aim at the upper part of that range rather than the lower, and spread it across four occasions rather than two. Protein from plant sources is used slightly less efficiently, and the way to compensate is quantity and frequency rather than anything clever.
The energy problem hides behind the protein one
Removing oil on weekdays takes out one of the densest energy sources in the diet, and it does so at the same time as meat and dairy leave. A fighter training twice a day on vegetables, bread and legumes can arrive at a daily total well below what the work costs, without ever deciding to eat less.
That is low energy availability by accident, and it feels like a slow month rather than like hunger. Run your own figure on the energy availability calculator in the second week rather than in the seventh, and the thresholds behind it are in how many calories does a fighter need in camp.
What to watch across 7 weeks
- Iron. Removing red meat for 7 weeks matters, and it matters more for female athletes, for whom the topic has its own page.
- B12. Found almost entirely in animal foods. Seven weeks is not long enough to empty a healthy store, but it is long enough to be worth a conversation with a doctor if the fast is kept strictly every year.
- Calcium. Dairy leaving is the obvious gap, and bone is a slow variable that only shows up much later.
- Digestion. A large jump in legumes and fibre is a real training problem in week one. Increase it gradually rather than on Clean Monday.
If you are considering supplementing anything to cover these, check it first: the risks in that category do not pause for a fast, and they are set out in supplement contamination.
If a fight falls inside it
Seven weeks is long enough to contain an entire camp, and the arithmetic of a weight cut does not change: nutrition moves body mass at roughly 0.5 to 1 percent a week, as covered in how much you can actually lose in a week.
What does change is how easy it is to hit protein while in a deficit, which is the exact combination that costs lean tissue. If a cut and the fast overlap, that is the moment to plan both together rather than to discover the collision in week five.
7 weeks is a training block
The difference between this fast and the other one is worth stating plainly. Ramadan is short and reshapes the day. This one is long and reshapes the shopping.
Long means it can be planned properly, and there is no excuse for improvising it. A menu built once, in the week before it starts, covers the whole period.
That is an afternoon of work against 7 weeks of training, and almost nobody does it.
Two complete sample documents are free to read before you buy anything.
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Oleksandr Foka is a sports nutritionist with over a decade in professional sport. He wrestled freestyle from the age of 4 until he was 22, competing as a medallist and champion at Ukrainian and international level, and has worked with amateur boxers since 2017, including champions and medallists at world championships. He has worked in world title camps in boxing with Oleksandr Usyk, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Denys Berinchyk, Vladyslav Sirenko, Murodjon Ahmadaliev, Israil Madrimov, Sergiy Bogachuk, Sabirzhan Akkalykov and Abylaikhan Zhussupov, and with the Kazakhstan national boxing team and with Kazakhstan judo athletes, and currently works on the WTA tour.
Oleksandr Foka — sports nutritionist. Questions: fokaoleksandr@gmail.com
Educational content, not medical treatment. For adults 18+. Nothing on this page is religious guidance: how the fast is kept, and whether an adaptation is appropriate, is a matter for the athlete and their priest. Practice varies between traditions and parishes. Speak to a physician about supplementation or if you have a medical condition.