Maintaining a Healthy Body

I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything about health on this blog (that doesn’t mean I’m unhealthy…OK I’m a little bit unhealthy).

Our bodies are an amanah (a trust). In this lecture, Shaykh Husain talks about how to best uphold this amanah and use it as a means to make the most spiritual gains.

Listen Here: “Maintaining a Healthy Body“  by Shaykh Husain Abdul Sattar

Diet:

• How can a person develop themselves spiritually if they don’t take care of what they eat and how they exercise? Maintaining a healthy diet is actually easier than spiritual development, “If you can’t trust a person to be careful about their food and withhold themselves in the battle in food, then how are you going to be able to trust a person to develop spiritually?”

• The Prophet صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم said to fill your stomach at the most with 1/3 air, 1/3 food, and 1/3 water. The sunnah is actually to eat as little as possible and the maximum is a 1/3 filled stomach.

• We shouldn’t be slaves to our food. We shouldn’t drive 40 minutes to eat, come home, and then sleep (53rd and 6th gyro, anyone?).

Exercise:

• We have to be very particular about our exercise this day in age. Before modern luxuries, people would get their exercise by doing daily chores. Lack of exercise causes us to become lazy, “The body is a vehicle by which we do good deeds.”

• When you exercise, your goal shouldn’t be muscle mass, it should be cardio. You’re trying to develop the ability to do something over a long period of time, not to show off at the gym.

• Exercise needs to be continuous, a habit, a routine. Families should exercise together, and children should be taught to exercise at a young age. They should especially learn swimming and martial arts.

• Don’t say you don’t have time. Everyone finds time for what’s important to them or what they’re interested in. There was no texting, and now everyone has time for it.

• Don’t destroy your spirituality for the sake of exercise though by going to mixed gyms with blaring music. A simple way to exercise is to go for a walk or run and do your dhikr at the same time.

By maintaining our health, we’ll be able to be more productive and energetic throughout the day. Not only are we seeking longevity in the day, we’re also seeking longevity over the years; we don’t want to be dependent on others in our 60’s and 70’s (we should be able to serve Allah in the same way during those years). May Allah make our bodies healthy so we are able to produce as many good deeds as possible until we reach our graves.