How do I stay in shape? I don't.

Somebody asked in the comment section, how I stay in shape. I'm almost 52 years old. So they asked how I stay in shape and if I have any tips to offer for how you can stay in shape. Well, the answer of how I stay in shape is I don't. I get in shape and I fall out of it.

I cut weight and I gain weight. And usually, I'll be on an exercising sort of jag and then maybe I get an injury and I have to stop or I get really busy with work or stresses or whatever the case may be. Something comes up and I just kind of fall out of it, and then I inflate. And usually when that happens, I just sort of say, oh, okay. Well, I'm just gonna be a fat guy now.

But then, you know, at some point, you know, when when when my sides are, like, wider than the chair I'm sitting on, I say, this is getting out of hand. So I just get back into it, usually by walking, maybe walking and then a little bit of jogging and then gradually increase and, you know, some push ups here and there. I benefit from the fact that when I was young, was in very, very good shape. I bicycled everywhere. I boxed.

Before I was Muslim, I used to teach, kids, hip hop dance, and I would have to bicycle all around the city to different schools to do this. So I was in really, really good shape when I was younger. But then I I stopped exercising for years after I got married, and I got really heavy. When I finally did start to get back into it again, I could barely even do 10 push ups. So what I would say is if you're young, try to get in as good a shape as possible, like athletic condition when you're young.

Because then when inevitably life happens and you sort of fall out of it and you, you know, overeat and you don't count your calories, you don't care what you're eating, it will be easier for you to get back in shape if you have that foundation of fitness from a young age. But in terms of tips, I would just say move more. Try to move more. Don't be so sedentary. Don't sit at your desk, all day.

Don't sit on the couch. Don't sit very much. Sitting is really bad for you, to be honest. If you have to sit in and you have the option, sit on the floor. If there's an option to walk, to a place, walk to the place instead of taking a car.

If you can bicycle, bicycle. Just anything that will keep you moving. And be careful about what you eat because you'd be surprised how many calories, empty calories, useless calories are in just the smallest items that you might snack on. Even bread. Oh, I hate the fact that bread has so many calories.

I love bread. But you can't eat it. It's it's gonna balloon you up because there's so many calories. If you're not exercising, you know, if you know that you're not in a frame of mind or you don't have the time to work out very much, then just at least watch your eating. Watch your calorie intake because you're gonna get so big.

Then it's gonna be even harder to get back in shape. I mean, for me, one of the signs that I'm letting myself get way out of hand with my, lack of fitness or my weight is when my joints start hurting, when my knees start hurting. And I can't and I and I can't go up the stairs without hurting my knees, or I can't jump, or I'm, like, nervous to jump down off of something. If my knees can't bear my own weight, then this is a problem. Unless you're a professional athlete, in which case you don't need any advice from someone like me, if you're just a regular person, inevitably, you're gonna go through swings where you get into shape and then you sort of fall out of it, where you're careful with your calories and then you're not.

That's gonna happen. So just try to monitor yourself and don't let it get out of control. And like I said, whenever it happens to me that I gain weight I mean, I'm half a century old. So I just sort of tell myself, well, listen, that's it for me. I'm just gonna be fat now.

But then there's still inevitably a part of me that that remembers, you know, I used to be a fit guy. So let me not, just completely deteriorate. And I have young children, so I wanna be able to play with them, I wanna be able to do things with them, I wanna be able to run with them, and I wanna be able to do that for a long time to come, Insha'Allah. So, you know, I have a motivation that maybe younger people wouldn't have, but if you're young again, get in as good a shape as you possibly can. Have no mercy on yourself in your exercise.

Be as intense as you can possibly make it, and get yourself in athletic condition, and your older self will thank you for that. And another good thing is, like now, for for example, I don't really know what the full fitness capacity is of my body because I have more mental and psychological inhibitions that my mind is telling me, you're tired, just take a break. But I know that my body actually has the capacity to keep going, but my mind is getting bored or is getting distracted or whatever. So I don't push myself. When you're younger, I don't think you have as many mental inhibitions as I certainly didn't when I was younger, and it wouldn't even occur to me that I could stop.

And, you know, people differ about exercise. Some people really like it. I don't really like exercise. I find it incredibly boring, especially things like weightlifting and stuff like that. It's so boring to me.

Just the repetitive movements, and it's not interesting. I know myself enough to know that I have to make the exercise interesting and engaging and fun and energetic and dynamic in order for me to not get bored because the boredom is the thing that will make you tired more than the physical activity will make you tired. So if you have that problem, just try to switch things up, you know, and do different different things. A lot of body weight stuff, a lot of quadrupedal movement stuff, just being creative about what you can do. I mean, there's so many exercises you can do if you just have a floor and a wall or if you have stairs.

There's many, things that you can do if you're creative about it and you're just trying to find ways because almost anything that you do, like, example, you've seen maybe in the videos, I have to go upstairs to get to the gym. But instead of going up the stairs, I climb up the railings of the stairs. I just scale the railings to get to the gym. So it's just coming up with a different way of doing things, and that is more of an exercise than if I just walked up the stairs. See see what I mean?

Just be creative and come up with different things that you can do. But also don't be too hard on yourself. You will have swings, fitness swings and out of fitness swings. Just don't let it get out of hand. That's