04 The Ummah is growing sideways

Bobby Lee Show episode for the omas growing sideways. This podcast has been brought to you by half our Dean calm and Muslim marriage website designed for those who want to find that other half privately because the only people that should know you're looking to get married are people who are looking to get married. Try half our Deen today. While we're often reminded as soon as like growing the beard I wonder why we have conveniently forgotten the sooner one third food one third liquid and one third empty instead our stomachs are more like one third curry one third homeless and what their desert and there's no room for air Yes My dear respective brothers and sisters in Islam this oma is

growing but it's growing the wrong way is growing sideways

you didn't just go there Alli Did you oh yes I did. I'll tell you what didn't go there that chicken kebab because no room for it. I'm gonna ruffle some feathers with this one. Let's get this thing started.

For cultural Muslims have confused the masses and speakers are forced to be politically correct.

voice changed everything.

Hey, man, why y'all serious? This is just a podcast

Welcome to The Daily Show. I'm your host Bubba alley I want to start today's podcast off with a question is the whole one their food once they're liquid and once they're empty the hardest sinner I mean when it comes to other as soon as like the beer praying title we throw a lot of Muslims doing it but when it comes to keeping our stomachs one third empty, it seems like it's Mission Impossible. And you know it's hard because even the biggest moms no pun intended seem to be struggling with this sooner. I mean, when I look around at the majority of them are not just overweight, but actually obese. ignoring this aspect of Islam has come at a price. I mean, we can't be surprised why we have

so many Muslims with so many health problems. Oftentimes these health issues are because of our poor diet and our lack of exercise. So let me bring in our special guest sister Nadine Abu Jabara, a personal trainer, who helps people get back in shape. Her work has been covered by countless media outlets, including telegraph examiner, Daily Mail, and even the Huffington Post. Welcome to the bob Ali's show. Assalamu aleikum wa Alaykum wa rahmatullah. I want to ask you a question. And that question is What inspired you to start this whole weight loss thing? So that's a very good question. And I get asked that a lot, because some panelo and when I work with people, they just automatically

assume I've been, you know, quote, unquote, fit and healthy my entire life. And what a lot of people don't know is actually I've been overweight, the majority of my life, I was overweight as a child overweight as a teen overweight in college. And you know, it was it was literally a lifestyle transformation that I made, I lost 65 pounds, and I just had to completely flip the way that I viewed food and exercise and soprano law, like all the time, I get people that look at me, and their jaw just drops and they're like, I can't believe that you were there. You know, and I and I think that it's cool that I can understand the struggle that I get it like, I know exactly what you're

going through, like I was there, I'm still struggling, I was overweight my entire life. This is a new lifestyle that I've been in the past few years. Like it's still a struggle for me like I get it. So even though you teach it, you're still struggling with it. Because it's not an easy process. Just because you've lost a weight doesn't mean that Okay, that's just easy going from here. Right? Exactly, exactly. It's a constant battle that you're always trying to fight, but it's rewarding at the end correct? Very well. It's a rewarding process during it after it from the beginning to the end. That's why I really love doing what I do. And I think that's why a lot of woman can connect

because I was there, you know, so hard enough. So what inspired you to lose the weight and start a healthy lifestyle? Yes. So I was actually working as a civil engineer at the time. That's what I went, got my bachelor's in. And literally my epiphany moment, I was sitting at my desk, and I looked down and I see this new pouch sticking out from my stomach. And I remember grabbing it and going oh my god, you know, that was like my wake up call, like, what is this? Where did it come from? kind of a thing. And and soprano I think, you know, everybody kind of has that epiphany or that drive in their own time. I was also at the time I had a co worker and a colleague who were on the South Beach

and Jenny Craig diet. So those are the kind of the first things I dabbled in. And you know, I quickly realized that those were marketing initiatives that really weren't inspiring and total body realistic, healthy lifestyle change. So my goal very quickly shifted from just weight loss to healthy weight loss and healthy living. And that was kind of the beginnings of it. doona again, I was working as a civil engineer hating my life, clicking on the computer all day, and I was like, You know what, nobody's talking about this in the Muslim community. There's no one inspiring anyone.

motivating or teaching anyone about this. So it was a side project that I just decided to start as Pinilla. within the first few months we were featured in the world's best running magazine Runner's World Magazine and just the doors kept flying open ever since from them. I remember when I was first learning about Islam and hearing the stories about how the Sahaba is used to wrestle in the masjid. Can you imagine two uncle's wrestling in the monster today? Yeah.

First person to lose is not the first person who taps out but rather the first person to lose their breath. How do we get so big? Oh, that's a heavy loaded question. I think some panelists honestly the society as a whole you know, back in the day, you know, we used to have to go out into the fields to get our food and hundreds and you know, walk for water. And today literally, you could lead your whole life in your car, you know, you can drive through a drive thru to pick up food drive through the drive thru at the bank, you know, you never have to get out of your car. So we don't have that physical activity anymore. People can get married even through the drive thru as well.

It's not just getting a burger and fries. Yeah, for dean.com you just sit on your computer and it happens.

I like how she tries to plug in the website there. Okay.

You don't have to edit that one out.

You're paying your Uh huh. Yeah.

You know, it's funny, because it seems like every Muslim family has someone who's battling with diabetes with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, it's no wonder so many parents are pushing their kids to be doctors, the parents are going to be their number one patience. Why are diets so poor? Again, a very heavy loaded question. I think society as a whole, no, whether it be in the States or abroad has really shifted to a fast food culture. Nobody has time to cook anymore. You know, everybody just kind of wants a quick fix or a quick meal technology obviously has us in a place where we can genetically modify foods and you know, have all these preservatives to create,

you know, all these morphed foods. And you know, we've lost somewhere along the line, you know, the Sunnah of eating a third food or third water and leaving a third for air and actually that had these that you mentioned at the beginning of a third, a third, a third, do you actually know the beginning of it like the whole headache? Because that's actually the end of it? Can you please let our audience know? Sure. So to paraphrase the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he actually spoke about that, he actually said that there's no vessel worse for filling than the stomach. Wow. So that's the beginning. So there's no vessel worse than filling than your stomach. It

is sufficient for the son of Adam to just eat a few morsels of food. So that's like the first tier, it's like, all you need is a few bites, but then the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam continues, and he says, but if he must fill it, then he fills it with a third food, a third air, a third water, so that's kind of like that if you need to, but soprano alone, the majority of us fall under another Hadith that says that the believer eats in one stomach and the disbeliever eats in seven stomachs. And seriously, if you look at our portion sizes today, literally, it's like sometimes it is time seven, you know, and we're eating that in one sitting. If you look at even the animal kingdom,

there's different types of birds. There are small birds that eat just enough to fly. And there's big birds that eat all day like chickens and they don't fly. So makes you wonder it makes you think that even if you look at the advocate that like hey, what kind of bird Do you want to be like, you want to be the bird that eats all day? And guess what? You ain't gonna go nowhere. Are you gonna be the small bird that flies everywhere? And it's like, wow, we're the big birds. interesting analogy. As a personal trainer, What challenges do you face when it comes to like teaching Muslims to stay in shape and eat right? Of course, not every party I go to your any social function, there's always

someone that has to walk up to me to ask for some sort of diet or fitness advice. And it's usually you know, an auntie who will come up to me like, Nadine, you know, I really want to lose weight. What can I do? And then they'll be like, but don't tell me to, you know, eat healthy and exercise. I want something else. And I'm like, sorry to break it to you. There's no like magic pill. Like everybody wants this, like, oh, and it just like falls off and like you're magically you know, fit and healthy people don't want to work for it. And that's the biggest struggle that I deal with. They don't want to wait for it. They want it to instantly happen. soprano Allah. So do you think this

whole poor diet or food thing is like a cultural issue? Maybe in the past, being fat was a sign that you are rich, if you had the means then you eat as much as possible. But like today, lower income people are the ones who eat like the fatty foods, because it's cheap, while the rich people buy expensive foods just to stay slim. Do you think that plays a factor in it? You know, it totally could. There is a lot of cultures where you know, bigger is better. But you know, I don't think it's constricted mainly to the Middle Eastern or the quote unquote Muslim culture is I think it's a worldwide problem that we're facing that just has to do with their lifestyles today. A big thing

that that is really a struggle with the

You know, Pakistani Indian Middle Eastern community is our obsession with rice and bread. Lotta carbs. Exactly. I don't like to use the word carbs because fruits and vegetables fall under carbs, but less optimal carbs. say exactly your bread, your pasta, your rice. And what I was trying to explain to my clients is like, hey, like, you know, if they're from an Arab region, for example, I'm like, you know, these people lives in the desert, they didn't have refrigeration, they had like 20 kids, you know, they needed something cheap, they needed something that didn't need refrigeration, and they needed something that would fill you up. So that's why rice and bread is such a big part of

our culture. But today, we have access to everything from the left refrigeration, and you know, the ability to prepare different types of foods. So they were eating that because that was all they could eat. But now we have access to much more nutritious foods. Why are we still stuffing ourselves with rice and bread? So when I kind of given them that perspective, it kind of puts it into light. But definitely there's a lot of cultural foods that we have that are contributing to the dilemma. You see people back then at least exercised, we in America are pretty lazy. I'll tell you myself, sometimes I'm going to a gym, I'm looking for a closer parking spot.

And like people when they're going to the gym, you're going there to run, but you don't want to walk because oh, that's kind of forget to walk like you're going to exercise, I think becomes down to the mentality because we're become lazy. I don't think it's constricted solely to America. But definitely in like more Middle Eastern countries, there's a lot more walking like I was in Istanbul, Turkey not too long ago, and we were walking a minimum of 345 miles a day, you know, there was a day we walked 10 miles and didn't even feel it. Wow. It's just part of the culture. Everyone there walks, you know, there's public transportation that you walk to and walk off of just it's set up and

there's hills, you know, you do get a workout just walking, I'll put you on hot chair for a second, do you think it's fair for the husbands to tell their wives to stay in shape, while they themselves don't owe the husbands. So usually, when I take on a new client, if she's married, I do end up having to talk to their husbands before we start for that reason, a lot of times a lot of guys come up to me asking me to train their wives. And you know, sometimes I won't say anything, obviously, I'll just say it inside of my head. But you know, a lot of times the guys themselves are, you know, carrying a nice big one pack themselves. But you know, if it ever comes up, or the wife kind of says

something, you know, when we have our consultation, the men will be like, Oh, well, I'm busy working, or we have this cultural view that the woman is supposed to be the attractive woman and the man could, you know, have a bit of Jani belly and it doesn't really matter. I think that links to culture a little bit, for sure. And what I always have to kind of emphasize to the ladies too, in terms of that aspect is when the woman's lifestyle is healthy, she inadvertently transformed her entire family's lifestyle to be healthier. So you know, the woman controls what comes out of the kitchen, and most Muslim families. So when the woman is health conscious and cooking healthy, then

the kids are now eating healthy, and husbands are eating healthy. But when we have the more cultural husband who's like, No, I want my video on a nightly and I want my men's stuff and I want my ooba you know, and they're very adamant on these very heavy dishes. That's when a real big conflict arises because now the wife has to prepare her own food. Yeah, I think that false mentality at the women don't care whatsoever if their husbands in shape is just isn't accurate. I mean, women care because they have to look at the guy. That's their husband. So nobody wants to be married to someone that doesn't care about their own health and doesn't care about their own appearance, their own

hygiene, you know, so at the very end, it does matter, it does affect the marriage, wouldn't you agree? Definitely. And I think for women, you know, obviously, you know, men are more visual, but women we care we care a lot more than just the physical like we want to see that our husbands are healthy and they're strong and they're you know, strong people that aren't getting sick that we don't have to be taken to the hospital or taking care of our older age like we want we want our husbands to be healthy overall and of course the visual part is a great plus but I think for women it's just overall wanting to be one of them to be healthy that makes a lot of sense you know during

the month of Ramadan Muslims fast and don't drink basically food and water from sunrise to sunset, which is can be like 16 hour days in most countries yet many people still gain weight during this month. How is that possible?

Well, Ramadan if you notice this, I don't know. I don't know if you see this, but in the Arab culture, all the fried food seems to come out on Ramadan. Like we won't have certain dishes all year but BAM when I'm on dawn comes and the sun boosters come out and these fried things and then desserts and everything's oily and everything's greasy because you know, you want this quote unquote treat for when you break your fast. In other words, we cook all day and eat all night. That's how we get factoring.

Ramadan so sometimes the biggest person in your mustard is the Imam of the masjid. And you start thinking to yourself that if he can follow it, how am I going to follow it? Right? So it sounds like this is like the hardest sooner it is the hardest challenge or is is that sometimes we just can't do it? Is it something in the food? Are we being like poisoned like me, he is hungry, what is causing us like can't stop eating, you know, most of us are in a flow. We're in a state of Unknowing. It's not even on our radar. You know, we're not even thinking about it. And I think a lot of times the leaders in our community are so bogged down with cases going on in the community, they're dealing

with people's problems day in and day out, they're thinking that there's much bigger problems in the world, they just eat to their content and keep it moving to get to their job not realizing that this is a foundation for them to do everything that they're doing. So what advice do you have for the people who are listening and want to lose weight and become healthier? Do you have any step by step tips to give us I do number one intention, you know, when we start our workout there is a cut there don't make a dough at the beginning Make sense? your.make.in your search does so I would literally make dot and every single such that like I was making a dot tell us pantalla to make this process

easy on me because it is not easy, right? So that's number one. Number two is set a realistic goal. The second biggest mistake people make is you know, making the intention great. You know, this comes like New Year's resolution or post Ramadan resolution like Okay, that's it, I'm gonna do it. And then you go from like, never working out eating, you know, 3000 calories a day. And all of a sudden, the next day you flip to working out six days a week and eating 1000 calories right? It's this dramatic shift that you're making literally overnight. And that's a problem. You know, when I always like to give the analogy when is when someone comes to Islam Do you expect them to go from non

Muslim next day to be Muslim pray five times a day with every single sun nowhere Egypt just above get married, you know, go to Hajj all in the same day, right? It's a process, it's a lifestyle change, it can't happen overnight. It's if you've been overweight your whole life, and then bam, in one day, you're going to completely change that. It's just not realistic. It's not possible. If you only have you know, time to work out two days a week, then set that as your goal. Don't make your goal I'm going to work out seven days a week when you know that there's no way you can possibly do that. You're just setting yourself up for failure realistic goals. And step by step. Everything that

is going to work from a health and fitness perspective is gradual and slow. It is not a quick fix, do not buy into the marketing that take this pill, or lose X amount in 30 days, or any of this quick fix stuff we don't we're a quick fix society. This is a process exactly like someone coming to Islam. It's gradual. It's a learning process, you have again, physiological changes that are happening in your body. I like to give the analogy of putting a frog in boiling water, put a frog in boiling water, what's the frog going to do? It's going to jump out, put the frog in neutral water and slowly turn up the heat over time. Frogs not gonna notice, right? I don't want to say what

happens to the frog. But it won't notice it won't jump out. So if you do that, if it's more of a gradual process, then you won't feel it. It'll just be something natural that occurs. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'm dilla. And then the third is get on a regimen get on a schedule, find something that works for you. If you're not, you know comfortable being in a gym, find something at home to do you know, we don't need big fancy bulky machines, expensive machines to get an A workout to do a good resistance workout. You just need your body and maybe a few dumbbells, you know free weight, which is why we designed actually the natuna DVD. I'm not sure if you've come

across that yes, very interesting DVD because the first one I've ever seen four sisters and in the beginning of the show actually mentioned how so many media outlets has covered it. So can you tell us a little about that please? Sure. So the goals behind that were exactly kind of what I'm talking about. Number one is we wanted to create a workout that would connect you back to a less pantalla all of fitness DVDs you know are featuring a half naked woman or a Xposed man talking about being bikini ready talking about things that are just superficial and so we wanted something that would start off with Bismillah you know when it gets hard say Bismillah start with a dot connect it back

keep you aware of that we also obviously wanted to create something that that woman or men could watch without you know being in sin you know, we get so many women that that messages that say thank you for creating this DVD like I always explain to my kids how not to look at people who's out of showing Who are you know, exposed yet, then I would come home and do a workout DVD with a woman half expose and my kids would be like, Wait a second, didn't you just tell us that we shouldn't be watching this. So you know, we always get one minute thank us for creating a video that their kids can watch that their husband can come home and you know not have to eat those images on TV. And then

you know, again, creating a workout where you don't need equipment. Literally you just need

Your body and like I said, some free pound weights and you can have a amazing workout that'll get you in shape and Shola with just those tools. Like you don't have to overcomplicate it It's as simple as that. So Nadine, how can someone contact you if they're if a sister is looking for you as their personal trainer? Sure, well, something actually great that I started doing that's been working phenomenally because I've been doing online training via Skype. And that's actually been working great. There's also recommendations for in person training. If you know I'm in your area or if I know someone in your area my email please feel free to email me his name Dean na d i n e at an

aduna.com and ad o n. And what about the DVD? Is there a way that people can purchase a DVD? Yeah, if you go to the website, www dot Duna and ad o n a.com. You can follow the links there to get your hands on your own copy inshallah. And with that, I'd like to thank my guests Nadeem from nudura calm for coming out and telling us about the importance of staying healthy. Please go to Baba Ali show.com and don't forget to leave a comment and if you enjoy this series, make sure to go to iTunes and click on the subscribe button. So every week when a new podcast comes out, you're the first one to get in Sharla Jazakallah khair for listening, this is

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