My Fitness Journey — Part One
From self loathing, hopelessness and helplessness to RESULTS!
Are you one of those people who can’t put on weight whatever you do? Are you “skinny”? You can eat all the ice cream and pizza in the world and stay stick thin? Young me would hate you. The injustice of it all.
Adult me however is grateful. When you’re prone to chubbiness, the external world makes it their job to keep you on your toes. It makes for a cynical teenage hood but through it all, you are proactively trying to be healthy. A thin person can go hard with a bad lifestyle when there are no visible consequences and in the long run, it can result in health problems.
I was unhappy with the way I looked from teenage to young adulthood. It wasn’t a case of picking myself apart — like I wish I were taller or my thighs were smaller (well, that was there) — more so a general sense of disappointment and this feeling that I was insignificant because I wasn’t turning heads because of the way I looked. There was this idea — and we can point fingers at family, society, media — that if I didn’t look thin, I wasn’t pretty and if I weren’t pretty, nothing matters. I believed that happiness and success in life were directly related to a slim figure, RIDICULOUS as it sounds. In the next few years I learnt how style, posture, a fashion sense, just leaving your hair loose could all up your glam quotient but there was still this incessant nagging that I was fat. I could go on and on about specific incidents and how this sense of defeat and hopelessness enveloped me with regard to my figure. It would make me slip into a very negative headspace for hours together, sometimes days.
When I look back, I can see how my first few attempts at weight loss were driven by fear.
Exercise was a panicked affair that had so much riding on it. If I went on the treadmill everyday for a week and saw no results, all hell would break loose. Kudos to my mom for getting me out of this slump everytime but some days even she couldn’t do much. The topic of “my figure” was a black hole. I can see now how the problem was entirely my mentality but back then I thought I fell short on ability. Bad genes. Bad metabolism. Bad luck. Eventually, I got tired of this rigmarole. Hopelessness gave way to impatience and when the desire for weight loss was driven by that kind of urgency, there was prospect for change. Took about 4 years to get here.
My first year of actively doing something about my body involved just showing up to the gym regularly.
A beginner’s mindset where I was far more focused on showing up and just doing the damn thing. I wasn’t researching online about diet or exercises or studying people’s body types closely. I was just getting used to moving and sweating. Forming a habit. My friend introduced me to some basic exercises — planks, crunches, core workouts — so it was no longer just treadmill walks.
About 9 months later, I also started running outdoors — something I picked up solely on account of living in Boston, a city big on marathons. I would do a combination of jogging, walking and sprints. This along with a concerted effort to include salads in my diet which back then meant croutons, store bought dressings and an assortment of veggies.
When you’re trying to lose weight for the first time, nothing works as effectively as running.
I pretty much shrank and my waist started getting more defined after just two months of keeping at it. My Old Navy stretch pants were making way to better fitted gym capris. I bought my first pair of gym shoes from Asics. A sports bra. I started making fruit smoothies.
Once I was convinced that I was somewhat fit and that my body could actually change, my outlook became much more goal oriented. I was emboldened to seek specific results. I didn’t want shortcuts, I wanted something that would work 100%. This deep desire was on my mind, in my dreams, in conversations with friends. It generated a situation where I ended up asking someone in my gym to train me. Sidenote: nobody encouraged me to get a personal trainer. I’ve no idea why the general notion tends to be that working out is not something that needs guidance. Most people do the same thing, not seeing big results maybe because they don’t have a burning desire to have a different type of body. That’s not where I was at. I wanted a formula that would work.
I started working out 5 days a week, with a trainer.
And for the first time, I was making changes to my diet. I had always thought that being vegetarian meant I should automatically be at an advantage with this weight loss thing. But here I was eating cereal with full cream milk, toast with butter and jam AND a glass of orange juice every morning. That changed to oatmeal. Another friend told me about the Chipotle diet and Tim Ferris and soon I was eating only veggies, avoiding rice as much as possible and gave up bread. I pretty much went no carb for almost two months. Yes, there was dizziness, headaches but yogurt helped. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and if you asked me to give it a go today, I’d fail in a day. Note: it is not a good idea to go completely carb free. It gave me fast results but was not the healthiest way. This does not work long term!
That was an extreme step but it paid off. Those two months lead to an incredible transformation. I finally got a figure and with it came many changes, not all of which I was prepared for. But the takeway: two solid months of extreme dedication is what it took to overcome the second plateau.
It was at this point that fitness became a lifestyle.
New eating habits were in place. I turned vegan during the 2nd year of my fitness journey. When life couldn’t afford me a gym buddy, a trainer or even time, I explored new ways of staying fit. Being active was a part of my personality now and I was doing hot yoga, boxing, hiking and running for the next year.
- I’d say hot yoga is excellent for leaning out your physique, especially legs. The post workout glow is next level after a 90 min Bikram class. It doesn’t get boring though you’re doing the same 26 poses. Unlike spinning, which I personally found too repetitive. Good cardio but not my jam!
- Boxing is perfect if you find yourself lacking in motivation. It is an explosive workout which requires speed, agility and power. Hands down the most fun kind of cardio. Nope, it doesn’t spot reduce your stomach and give you abs. I just found it to be a great fat burner overall. And you feel so badass the whole time right — from the bands on your hands to the lower body drills!
Whenever I had no membership or money for classes, I got creative. For some time there, it was bodyweight exercises in the park and running. I still broke a sweat, found it challenging but I knew I needed some direction again. If the goal is to stay fit and active, pretty much anything goes — jogging, swimming, even dancing.
When it comes to sculpting your body, nothing can take the place of a good ol’ gym workout.
This brings us to Gym Life 2.0, The Second Edition. I still remember that first DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) episode when I thought my legs were forever gone. Getting back to the gym after 2 odd years was no joke. There was definitely a learning curve when it came to gym equipment and muscle groups. In the beginning, I hated the gym because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and if I was doing it right. So once again I got a trainer and sure enough, it elevated the experience. This time round, the focus was on big compound moves — like the deadlift, the hip thrust and leg press to name a few. Slow and steady, with a lot of reading, I found passion in exercise yet again by really paying attention to technique, form and… numbers. How heavy can you go, how many reps? Despite giving it my all and feeling accomplished with these new workouts, I wasn’t seeing any drastic changes in my body. I craved another visual transformation (akin to the ‘no carb’ phase) but nothing was getting me shredded.
The further ahead you are in your fitness journey, the harder it is to see a huge change.
This is essentially what a plateau is — a point of stagnation — and it can be extremely demotivating. It took me down a spiral of impatient helplessness, much like that first time when I thought I was doomed to fail. What am I doing wrong or what am I missing? At this point in the game, the only way ahead is to focus on performance — am I stronger? Do I have more stamina?
I turned it up a notch a few months ago with Intermittent Fasting.
And by now, I knew what food was protein rich, fat heavy, what’s a good carb. For 30 days, I worked out in a fasted state and ate in the window of 12pm — 8pm. I drank 3 litres of water everyday. It made me feel like an absolute beast and led to a wee bit of body fat loss. At the end of it, I was leaner than ever, had more definition but was not exactly shredded. I can see how it could significantly benefit someone in the start of their journey (who might ironically not have the stamina to do this in the first place).
There’s some things I’ve consciously stayed away from like calorie counting. When things get that numerical and specific, I get easily overwhelmed. Intuitive eating is what I’ve always done while keeping tab of the constituents of my food. Perhaps that’s the one thing left to try in order to see more fat loss and definition!
I’ve also never taken BCAAs and only ever included raw vegan protein in my shakes during Gym 2.0 phase (so since 2017). I don’t do pre workouts or coffee shots before a session. When your fitness journey becomes more performance centric, these are choices to be made and so far, I’ve tried to go with all natural, wholefood sources of protein.
Fitness doesn’t just bring a bodily transformation. Every day has taught me something about myself and along the way, there’s been huge life lessons. In Part Two of this post, I’m going to talk a little about the mental states I’ve experienced on my fitness journey — the positive, the negative, the parts I don’t completely understand. Thanks for reading!
