On Exercise and Diet.

Alright. So it's obviously healthy eating and diet are a huge obsession in our society today. But don't you think it's sort of "animalistic" to live your life for the body? We need to survive, obviously, but we also have leisure as a result of living in society. This leisure allows us to satisfy the needs of the soul and be men. Men have souls which are able to know, love, and delight in the good. So we can see how it would be greatly lacking in only striving to take care of the body. I mean, soon enough each one of us will die and..bye-bye body! While taking care of our body is obviously not an end in itself it is necessary for taking care of the needs of the soul in the most efficient way possible.


1.) We are commanded by God to take care of our bodies "Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" We must take care of our bodies to survive and a healthy person will live longer than the unhealthy one. We may not decide when we die and that's what we're doing in a sense when we live with habit we know are destructive and are keeping us from living as God intended.


2.) We feel better. While feelings are not Truths and should not have that much effect... we are men. Why make to path to holiness harder? When I stuff my face and never exercise I feel awful and it consumes my mind. It's so hard for me to feel capable of anything when I feel my body dragging me down. When I don't take care of my body I'm just inviting the devil to use all my insecurities against me.


3.) What about fasting? While it is good to fast from time to time to detach ourselves, we cannot read of saints fasting for very long times and feel that we are failing if we don't do the same. Each person has a different calling with different duties. For example, the father with children could not go without food for very long because it would leave him incapable to take care of his family as he should.


4.) Some people don't take care of their bodies and say "Well, God doesn't care how I look!" well...duh. That's not the point. But many problems like binging and extreme dieting are effects of something wrong internally. It shows lacking a proper respect of ourselves as God's creations. Food often consumes and refusing to deny yourself from it's pleasure means it's controlling you. Obviously, that's bad.