Health and Fitness: A Personal Journey.
Hello everyone, I hope all of your are doing well. Today we will be talking about health and fitness, focusing on the working professionals and students. I have also released this article as a podcast episode for those who wish to listen and prefer that mode. Now, let’s begin.
As far back as I can remember, I was always an athletic kid, into multiple sports right from early childhood. I used to play outside till very late in the evening and I used to play in whatever small breaks we could get in school. The same was true for college as well, the maximum amount of time I spend was on the football field for sure. But, while I was very athletic I was also severely underweight for my height and age. In college third year, I weighed 54 Kgs, the right weight for me then was around 10 Kgs more than my weight. I was underweight, of course I was also suffering from lack of multiple vital nutrients like Vitamin D, C, Iron etc. It was then that I decided I needed to take care of the issue and I started my fitness journey. But back then, I was a college student, life was very chilled out, no pressure, no stress, with friends and it was relatively easier. I am not saying college life doesn’t have any stress, but it is still easier to manage while you are a student. For working professionals though, it is a completely different challenge, to ensure that you workout and also eat healthy is an uphill task and I know it as recently I restarted my fitness journey after a long break of 3 years. Back in college, after starting on this path, I did well, I gained weight and muscles, and by the time I passed out, I was 71 Kgs, perfect for my body, my height and age. I continued working out after passing out, all the while I was preparing for UPSC, I was working out daily, in fact my whole preparation and schedule of the same was built around my gym timings and it was the best decision I made during my preparation. Actually my fitness jounreny had a very important and crucial role to play in my UPSC preparation, let me tell you an instance which paved way for my preparation. So, it was after second year and I was home and it was the beginning when I was starting to think, only think of UPSC as a possibility, so I told my father. He was of course happy but he also knew how incredibly unpredictable and luck based exam it is so he was cautious and he knew that ever since I went to IIT I was perhaps not that much into studying daily for hours and it won’t be easy so he didn’t show much enthusiasm and I also dropped the idea since it looked he wasn’t on board as such. I went back to college and it was third year and I started working out, when I went back home, time, after a couch of months, results and changes have already started to show and I had gained a few Kgs and muscles as well. When my father saw me, as he came back from office, I was in the hall, he saw me from a distance, didn’t see my face but he didn’t, for a second recognise me, when he did, his eyes lit up. Many years later, after my selection, he told me, it was this moment when he thought that if I can workout and change my health and body with such dedication, I can surely do anything and of course UPSC, I was smart he knew that and now he knew I was dedicated again.
I used to go to the gym very early, around 5 in the morning and I used to workout for 1.5 hours and after everything I used to sit and study for a few hours and then used to take a break for a small nap. This kept me fresh and energised throughout the day and this also kept me fit. The result was while most aspirants gain weight during preparation, I was at my best fitness level when I got selected. I arrived in service at my ideal weight and muscle composition. This is when I stopped working out, once I reached the academy, I couldn’t continue and I don’t have any excuse, I should’ve. But the break which I thought would last a few days, in fact lasted 3 years. This is how human brain works and this is how life works, you feel you are in control and before you know it, you ave lost it all beyond a pint where you feel its salvageable. Now, this is around 4 months back. It’s not that I never tried to get back to working out, in fact I did a few times but each time I couldn’t continue for some or the other reason, the most important being of course the laziness of thinking I am already in good enough shape and I don’t need to workout so much. But it was not true, I wasn’t in fact in that great a shape and yes, I needed to hit the gym urgently and also to take control of my diet. It hit me hard around January last week of this year when suddenly I started noticing that I was edging closer to entering the severely overweight or obese category, I didn’t look that but I weighed that for sure, my weight was around 78-79 Kgs in that period, around 8-9 KGs overweight and I was also starting to feel bad and uncomfortable in my own skin. Thats when one fine day I decided okay, enough is enough, this time I will go and I will stick to it and everything else will have to work around my heath and well being, everything else, including my work. It only sounds a bug deal, in reality, it isn’t, I will show you how. The word “priority” is on of the most misused and overused word and people who claim to have their health and fitness as their priority rarely do, when you have it as your priority, what it means is that everything comes second. Your work around your daily fitness regime and you fit everything around it. That is the most basic thing to do and it is also not as tough as it sounds.
I would now talk about how to go about your journey, now, many of you might already be intermediate or a few months into their journeys so you might have already done a bit of it but still, most of the listeners, I would assume know little to nothing. But before I start, let me knock out the biggest lie ever told, “I don’t have time”. Now, I don’t know how anyone who watches every single movie that is released on any platform and every single trending or other wise TV series, one who watches all IPL matches, one who watches and scrolls reels for hours on end and can’t even eat food without first deciding what to watch on Netflix say these words, which is true for most people I know. It is never the lack of time but what you feel your time is best suited for. You can’t have this excuse if you are sitting in front of Netflix for hours everyday or sleeping at 2-3 in the night acting time online on some social media or watching random videos somewhere. You have time, you need to make a choice, that whether your health actually comes first or you only like to say that it does.
1- Let us begin, first thing that you need to do is to know what your body is like, know your body and its condition, trust me it is all worth it, it will be the solid foundation on which everything would be built. So, first thing you need to do is to prepare a chart with the following information:
7- Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR and Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE*
8- Photos of your body, front and sides.
*Relation of TDEE with BMR: Based on your daily activity status
1- Sedentary (BMR x 1.2): You regularly have to tell Netflix you are still watching. You don’t intentionally exercise at all.
2- Lightly Active (BMR x 1.375): You casually stroll through your neighbourhood a few times a week. On average, you walk for exercise about 30 minutes a day.
3- Moderately Active (BMR x 1.55): One hour and 45 minutes of walking (for exercise, not going around your house) a day, or 50 minutes of vigorous exercise a day.
4- Very Active (BMR x 1.725)
Now, most of the things as mentioned above are straight forward, let me tell you in brief bout rest, BMI is Body Mass Index and it represents if you are under-weight/over-weight or in the right range for your height and age and sex. Basal Metabolic Rate is the basic amount of calories your body needs to burn to function normally, while TDEE is the total amount of calories your body burns throughout the day including the BMR. The reason why this information is important is that it helps us in planning our diet and workout routine. Every body and individual is different so one needs to understand their bodies and what it needs to proceed. After you have this data, which can be easily calculated at home, though of course fat percentage is more clinical and can only be calculated approximately, it is good enough. Formulas for the same are easily available on the net. Once you’ve done this exercise, which won’t take more than 30 minutes of your time, you can move on to the next step.
2- Next step is to determine what is your goal, this sounds very simple and it is, but most of the people who go to the gym just go and do the regular exercises hoping to achieve their goals Chenin fact different goals require different exercise and diet regimens. For the purpose of this piece, I would assume one goal, which was my goal the second time when I restarted my fitness journey, my goal was to reduce weight and maintain muscles, that is weight loss through fat loss while maintaining muscles as much as possible.
Your goal can be to gain size or weight, which I did in college or your goal can also be to shed kilos and not caring as much about muscle loss or it ca be anything else. Once you are clear on your goal, it is time to move on to the next step.
3- This step is again, very very crucial. We have determined the condition or our body and we have determined our goal. By the way, I am hoping that you are writing all the down. I strongly suggest to maintain a small logbook or notebook or whatever, digital entries but do maintain all records. Now, coming to the main point, in this step we would make a schedule. Its not a whole lot but we would need to find out and know which time would we be going to the gym and what all are we going to eat. Now, as I said earlier, I am going to assume that the goal here is to reduce weight and try to maintain as much muscle as possible. For this Goa, there are two components which we need to see, the first is weight reduction, for this, the key is in having a calorie deficit diet, which means burning more calorie than what we are consuming. For the second part of the goal, that is marinating muscles, the key is strength training o weight training. One thing which will be common to both these parts is our diet, which will help us in reducing weight and also in adding muscles and preventing muscle loss.
Now, for a calorie deficit diet, the initial calculations that we did, where we calculated our BMI, BMR and TDEE would be needed. BMI is needed as a larger guide to see where we stand and where we wish to go, like I was 78+ Kgs when I started and I wanted to go to 70 Kgs and my target was 4 months, that would mean a reduction of 2 Kgs every month, 500 gms every week. This is not a linear progression so don’t worry as results initially won’t be tis straightforward. This is just to illustrate. Now, since my goal was to reduce 8 Kgs and I also didn’t want muscle loss, I had to create a diet which helped me with this. This where the basic work and understand of macronutrients or macros comes into picture, that is Fats, Carbohydrates and Proteins, I would focus on just these three. There are many different things which are said about a healthy or normal composition of these macros where it is said, for example protein, that you should have it in around 1.5 times of your body weight or the ratio for your macros should be 50% carbs, 20% protein and 30% fat, but this ratio won’t work if you are trying to reduce weight. The good part about my goal was that both weight reduction and muscle retainment would require me to cut carbs and add more protein. The ratio which I suggest to people who have the same goal as I did would be 20% carbs, 50% Protein and 30% Fat, you can further decrease carbs and go upto 10% and add fat and protein. The basic is that carbs are to be kept to minimum and fat is to be used as energy source and to burn while working out, this is also the basic of what we know as the keto diet. Few more basics which one needs to avoid as much as possible and when I say, one needs to use this as conservatively as possible, not as much as possible once or twice every few days but once or twice every few weeks, that is, as much as possible, avoid maida, avoid noodles, avoid fried food, avoid fast food, avoid sugar in whatever form apart from natural sugar in fruits, that too eat fruits and avoid juices (you may take watermelon juice), avoid white rice. If you look at this list, it only looks big, it isn’t, most maida items are also most fried and fast food items so if you avoid one, you avoid others, the only real effort here would be in avoiding white rice, which is staple in Indian food across cultures. You have to make some sacrifices. Now, once we know what not to eat, let me come to what all you can eat. For a low carbs and a high protein diet, you need to first fix your protein sources, I will assume non-veg diet but I Willa slo include all veg sources so that veg people can just use the same foods minus the non-veg items. The basic foods to build a high protein and low carb Diet you need are eggs, paneer, soya chunks, chicken, mutton, lentils, chickpeas, nuts, fish and whey protein powder or blend. Now, whey protein is a very important part of your diet since it is not possible to intake the required amount of protein from just regular food sources and whey protein is an absolutely safe, tested and reliable supplement. How you eat them is upto you but you need to ensure that you eat at least 200-300 calories less than your TDEE.
So, a basic day would look like, having 8 boiled egg whites, 4 in the morning and 4 in the evening, which would mean approx 29 gas of protein, in breakfast, along with your 4 eggs, you can have any traditional Indian breakfast but quantity should not be more than one, that is if you have dosa, just one, if you have paratha, just one and the size too , must not be more than 50 gms as this is almost all carbs. Then, for lunch, you can have a big bowl of any daal with some vegetable salad consisting of carrots and cucumbers and other vegetables as per your liking, this would add another 10 gas of protein. You can also have a watermelon juice. This is your lunch, nothing fancy, nothing heavy. Then you have to carry one protein shake to the gym and consume it during workout, another 25 gas of protein, post workout, you will have 4 egg whites and some nuts, nuts will add another 3-4 gas of protein. After this you don’t need to indulge in any evening snack but if you crave a lot, have a protein bar, but be careful, don’t make it a habit as they too are heavy on carbs. For dinner, you can have either roasted chicken, or roasted or plain paneer or soya chunks, no roti or rice, if you really can’t control, have just one roti. Also have some salad. This will add another 75 gms to your protein depending on the source while chicken is almost all protein, paneer is high in fat and carbs and soya is high in carbs. But either way, you won’t be harmed, you can have it but yes be cautious with paneer. You will need to have another protein shake before going to bed, another 25 gms.
You can vary this diet as per your need, goals, availability of foods etc but keys is to maximise protein and minimise carbs and use fat as energy source. This day that I just described above would give you anywhere between 160-180 of protein, between 80-100 gs of carbs and around 40-50 gms of fat. This would mean, proteins would provide you approx 700 calories, carbs would’ve you around 500 and fat would supply another 600, this would be a total of 1800 calories, perfect for a TDEE of 2000.
Now that you have an idea about diet, let’s move on to exercise. Since the goal is to reduce wight and maintain muscle, weight training is very crucial, as it helps retain and add muscle and muscle development. Just the diet would only see weight loss but it would come from both fat and muscle loss. We just need fat loss, so we would need to hit the gym. Also we would need to do both, weight training and also abs/cardio. We would need to workout 5-6 days in a week and for 60-75 minutes minimum, 45-60 minutes of weight training and 15 minutes of cardio/abs. This is to be done daily. What exercises are to be done can easily be found depending on your level as a gym goer, beginner or intermediate. The key of course is consistency. You need to monitor your workouts and your diet, you need to be extremely conscious of what you eat and how much did you actually workout, just going to the gym ,listening to some music and doing some random exercises and chatting isn’t going to help, similarly, following the diet but every other day partying, eating out or having snacks or drinking alcohol too frequently isn’t going to help either. You need one one hand a strict control on what you eat, you also need on the other a strict eye on what to avoid, similar just showing up at the gym is the first step, you need to workout with full focus and dedication, of course have fun but don’t let it ruin the main goal, don’t get distracted and say start taking very long breaks in between sets.
Now, these are three most important steps of your fitness journey. But there are several smaller but very important things you need to keep in mind.
1. Set Realistic Goals: Start by setting realistic health and fitness goals that align with your lifestyle. Understand your limitations and design a plan that suits your time constraints and preferences. Whether it's losing weight, building strength, or increasing energy levels, having clear goals will help you stay motivated and focused. You can have a target of shading 10 Kgs but it can’t be done in 1 month or 2, you need to give yourself a real chance otherwise you would just get disappointed and leave it in between.
2. Incorporate Short Workouts: If time is a constraint, break down your workout sessions into shorter, more manageable intervals throughout the day. A 15-20 minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout can be very affective. Look for opportunities to be active during your day, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going for a brisk walk during lunch breaks. But this is for days when you can’t workout normally, don’t make this a habit.
3. Stay Hydrated: Water plays a crucial role in maintaining optimal health and fitness. Stay hydrated throughout the day by drinking an adequate amount of water. Carry a reusable water bottle with you to ensure you have access to water wherever you go. Avoid excessive consumption of sugary beverages and caffeinated drinks, as they can lead to dehydration and affect your energy levels.
4. Practice Mindful Eating: Incorporate mindfulness into your eating habits. Slow down and savor each bite, paying attention to the flavors and textures of your food. This can help you recognize when you're full and prevent overeating. Avoid distractions like watching TV or using electronic devices while eating, as they can lead to mindless snacking and overeating.
5. Get Sufficient Rest: Adequate sleep is crucial for recovery and overall well-being. Aim for 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night. Establish a bedtime routine to promote better sleep, such as avoiding electronic devices before bed and creating a calm and comfortable sleeping environment. Prioritize rest days in your workout schedule to allow your body to recover and prevent burnout.
6. Track Progress and Document it: Ensure that you take pics as you did at the start every 15 days. Also weigh yourself once every week. I would strongly suggest to get one normal weighing scale at home. Maintain and fitness journal is a must.
So, we have come to the end of this piece on health and fitness. Thank you all for reading and take care.
