I’ve been trying (and failing) for years to get into shape. Regardless of my progress (or lack thereof), I have been able to gain some knowledge about how to get there.

Based on common practice, the most balanced approach to getting in shape consists of three things: healthy diet, weightlifting, and cardiovascular exercise. All three must be done in their proper balance in order to achieve sustained gains.

If you only go to the gym to lift weights without any cardio, you may end up with more muscle, but you will retain most of your excess fat. Conversely, if you perform cardio on a regular basis, but skip the weights, you may end up losing some fat but at the cost of losing valuable muscle. And its obvious that doing both while maintaining a diet of pizza and ice cream will get you nowhere!

The beautiful thing about all this is that Allah (swt) has designed the inner body to effectively mirror the outer body. In pursuit of purifying the nafs, a similar balanced approach is equally necessary. And if the balance is not maintained, the results will be less than optimal.

Part 1 - Cardiovascular Exercise

Let’s begin with the cardio. As we do cardio to burn the fat on our body, we must likewise burn the fat off our inner hearts. Imagine if you ate junk food for years upon years shunning any type of cardio activity. How would that affect your physical body? Cholesterol level would be through the roof, arteries would become clogged, your body fat level would skyrocket - basically, your body would have deteriorated due to negligence.

The same has happened to our spiritual hearts. We have been indulging in all kinds of sins throughout our lives and this has resulted in layers upon layers of unwanted ‘fat’ surrounding our hearts. Our hearts have become rusted. Our hearts have become hardened. Our hearts have become veiled with darkness. We have neglected our hearts. We need to revive our spiritual hearts with its own type of cardio – Taubah (asking Allah for forgiveness).

Sincere taubah burns away the sins and their residual effects like cardio exercise burns away the fat. Taubah revives the heart. It begins to remove the accumulated rust from years and years of disobeying Allah and obeying our nafs. Asking Allah for forgiveness softens the heart that has become hardened over the years.

Also note that the one who jumps on the treadmill once a month and then expects to lose the unwanted fat is merely fooling him/herself. Similarly, occasional taubah and istighfaar will not suffice. It must be done on a regular basis. Remember, the Prophet (saw) used to make istighfaar over 70 times each and every day. How many times must we atone for our misdeeds? 1,000? 10,000? Maybe even more!

And just as a good cardio session can only come from a sustained effort resulting in a good sweat, sincere taubah can only come from constant istighfaar, resulting in its own form of ’sweat’ – namely, tears.

If you don’t do your cardio up to the point of sweating profusely, you may have burned a few calories but you didn’t maximize your efforts. Similarly, if your taubah is not done with intense sincerity causing you to cry profusely out of shame and guilt, it may be accepted, but it is nonetheless lacking.

Part 2 - Weightlifting

The essence of lifting weights is to strengthen the muscles. How is this accomplished? By lifting heavy weights that require an exertion of great force, the muscle fibers are actually broken down and made to rebuild themselves.

The key is to shock the muscles by exposing them to an effort that they are not normally attuned to. This effort (or struggle, if you prefer) in turn causes the muscles to breakdown. Then when they rebuild, the new muscles fibers are stronger, larger, and healthier.

Additionally, weightlifting progress is sustained by continually increasing the resistance (i.e. the weight). As you slowly increase the strength of your muscles, you must slowly increase the weight in order to maintain your desired rate of growth. If you choose to lift the same weight over and over, your muscles will cease to react and thus stop growing.

This process is similarly required for our spiritual development. Our inner self (nafs) is that part of us which continuously seeks to fulfill its wishes and desires, contrary to our heart (qalb) which, if healthy and revived, is trying to inspire us to put aside our personal lusts in pursuit of doing whatever pleases our Creator.

We need to lift weights with our nafs by exposing it to ‘heavy’ acts of worship. We must struggle with acts of mujahadah (inner struggle). This includes the obligatory acts (such as prayer, fasting, obeying parents, etc.) as well as the nawaafil (optional).

If the nafs is not used to this increase in effort, it will become sore and will try to convince you that you are doing too much. However, the nafs must be rejected and the struggle must be made to break it down. It must not be allowed to control you. Rather you must control it. By constantly resisting the nafs with more and more acts of obedience, the worship of the self will be replaced by the worship of the Lord.

However, we must keep close tabs on our progress. If you have achieved a certain level of internal mujahadah and have sustained it for a period of time, then you must augment it with extra acts of worship. This can include tahajjud, eating less, talking less, extra dhikr, and so on. You must constantly monitor your progress or else you will stagnate and eventually begin to regress (this is where some would strongly recommend an experienced ‘weight-trainer’ who has already gone through the steps and can help you monitor your progress - in the spiritual world, this trainer would be a sheikh or pir).

In weightlifting, you must keep increasing the weight in order to continuously shock your muscles into growth. As we increase the weight, we are tearing the weaker muscle fiber in order to allow it to re-grow as a stronger muscle.

The same applies to the nafs. We must tear down the inner callings of our nafs, destroy the satanic whisperings within us, and overcome our carnal desires by exposing them to sincere acts of worship, such as waking up in the middle of the night, implementing every sunnah of our Beloved (saw), reading (and comprehending) the Quran everyday, fasting the weekly sunnah fasts, keeping our tongues *constantly* busy with the remembrance of Allah, and so on.

This will cause our nafs to crumble in front of Allah and enable our qalb to become our righteous guide on this journey back to Allah.

Part 3 - Healthy Diet

Finally, we must keep a healthy diet. Our food must be balanced in order to provide us the proper sources of energy. When constructing a balanced diet, we must ensure that the proper ratio of proteins, carbohydrates and fats are existent in every meal. This ratio actually differs depending on what the individual’s specific goals may be – for example, someone wanting to gain muscle will increase the carbohydrate and protein intake while someone trying to burn fat will carefully decrease the carbs and fat.

Similarly, the scholars say that we must maintain a regular diet of ‘Ilm. And as the physical diet must be balanced with the three components of protein, carbs, and fat, this diet of knowledge must also be balanced with three different types of knowledge – knowledge of purifying the nafs, knowledge of fulfilling the fiqhi requirements, and worldly knowledge.

The mainstay of the diet is the protein which equates to knowledge of the nafs. We must strengthen this knowledge so as to be able to understand our carnal desires, our weaknesses, and our attachments. Without protein in the diet, the person will fail to maintain and increase his muscle structure. Without the intimate knowledge of our own nafs, we become weak and susceptible to the ploys of shaytaan.

Then there is the knowledge of the halal and the haram. We must have a clear understanding of what Allah is asking from us. Like the first type, this knowledge is also compulsory. Every diet must have its healthy share of this knowledge. And like a diet without carbs (Atkins) may lead to high cholesterol and gastrointestinal problems, a diet without this knowledge will lead to complications (e.g. extreme Sufis who don’t pray, those who reject the Sunnah).

Conversely, you must not have a diet relying solely on this type of knowledge. The result is evident all around us – over 1 billion Muslims and we are as the foam on the ocean water. We have lost our protein, our strength, our core, our ability to transcend the physical and enter into the divine – our aspiration to worship Allah as if we see Him.

Finally, the fat component of the diet can not be completely discarded. The fact is: we all need fats. Fats helps nutrient absorption, nerve transmission, maintaining cell membrane integrity, etc. However, when consumed in excess amount, fats contribute to weight gain, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Similarly, worldly knowledge is essential for survival, but not to the extent that it overwhelms us and takes over our lives.

Additionally, there are good fats and bad fats. The good fats like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are like the worldly knowledge that one needs in order to sustain oneself. The bad fats such as saturated fats and hydrogenated fats (trans-fats) should be avoided. This is akin to the worldly knowledge that is of no benefit and thus should be avoided – I’m not referring to haram knowledge for that would be akin to consuming poison. This ‘bad’ knowledge would be any information that is not essential to your survival and it takes away from your pursuit of the first two types of knowledge.

One last point on the issue of the diet and knowledge. They both must be practiced regularly and consistently. We can not do it once a week or every once in a while. That’s not how diets work nor is that how gaining knowledge works. We cannot eat junk food all week long and then expect one day of dieting to undo all the harm of the week. Similarly, we cannot expose our minds to junk in the form of TV, movies, sports, vain talk, and so on and then expect one halaqa session in the masjid to undo all the harm of the week. Our diet of ‘Ilm must be regular.

My friends, in this day and age where we constantly ask each other, ‘How do I look?’ while many others are obsessing over their weight and body-fat percentage, let us have an even greater concern for the health of our inner selves.

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