The best way to lose weight, according to Prophet Muhammad's advice

If you are Muslim and you are able, it is worth it to give the Quranic diet a try


If you want to lose weight, go on a Quranic diet. Which means get most of your calories from meat, dairy, and fruit. Use olive oil and honey. Avoid sugar, white flour, and other processed foods. Don't eat grains or nuts if you can avoid them, because these are mentioned very little in the Quran. Meat is mentioned 100 times, while grains are mentioned only 7 times.

The Quranic diet is very similar to the recently popular paleolithic diet. It focuses on natural hunter-gatherer foods, the foods that our earliest ancestors enjoyed, which is mostly meat and fruit.

According to Why We Get Fat, the most scientific nutrition book written in recent history, the most important reason why people get fat is because of eating foods containing sugar and flour. The reason is that while humans cannot eat too much meat (because eating too much meat triggers human disgust responses), they can eat a lot more than they need of simple carbohydrates like sugar and flour because they do not trigger disgust responses.

Additionally, when we eat too much fat and protein, our bodies have mechanisms for throwing the unnecessary amounts we eat out. But our bodies have no such mechanism for getting rid of extra carbohydrates. When we eat too much carbohydrates, they get stored in our bodies as fat. They do not get thrown out. And this is the simple reason behind why we get fat.

Therefore a meat & fruit focused diet is a great way of keeping your weight in check. Note that fruit juice is fattening as well, you should eat the whole fruit, because fruit juice is a lot more concentrated in sugars than whole fruit. A glass of orange juice contains the concentrated sugars found in 10 oranges. You don't normally sit down and eat ten oranges (I hope).

Another important concept is not eating too much. This was the original focus of this article. Prophet Muhammad SAW says: "Let people fill one third of their stomach with food, one third with drink and one third with nothing."*
People who are used to a non-Quranic diet can't imagine not eating until they feel full. The reason is what I mentioned above; bread and sugar do not trigger our satiation responses. Our bodies want to get infinite amounts of bread and sugar. But if you are on the Quranic diet, you will feel satiated earlier thanks to all the protein and fat found in meat, olives, and olive oil. 

If you have read things opposite to what I recommend, please be aware that nutritional science is one of the least scientific branches of the sciences. The most important thing at the end of the day is the effect of your diet on you. If you are Muslim and you are able, it is worth it to give the Quranic diet a try. 

*Narrated by al-Tirmidhi (1381), Ibn Maajah (3349); classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in al-Silsilah al-Saheehah (2265).

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