The Journey of Health
A year and a half ago, I would have never thought I will write this story today. Not because something drastic happened in my life, but because my conscious decision to change the story of health was sowed the moment life challenged me psychologically and I understood that our body and mind are the only two components that is going to drive me to a better life.
I am 35. At 25, my life was inevitably different. I was having a gala time in Europe and roaming around as if the entire world was at my feet. I struggled with PCOS since I was 18, procured myself batches of contraceptive pills and understood that it was good. Back then, the internet didn’t give much information about the condition, the doctors ran their business at the mercy of the pharmaceutical industry and absolutely nobody talked about strength training for a woman.
I never paid much heed about this condition, knowing that if I get my cycles within 90 days it was good to go. I enjoyed my pizza, croissants and tonnes of bakeries I got handy in Germany. My career moved on, my relationships with people evolved, but never did I sat with myself in silence and tried to understand what my mind and body underneath everything wanted to tell me.
The phase where it dawned on me
At 29, I moved to Würzburg, the small European town I fell in love with. And that’s when the Covid era hit. My already not so good romantic relationship ended abruptly, and my dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a kind of blood cancer. My mental health moved back and forth and I was spiraling about where my life was heading. When dad passed away within a year, a lot of realization hit me. And most of it was related to how we hold on to material things when none of it is what we can take with us. And how illiterate we are about our health and how important it is to take care of our health till the last breath. I knew I didn’t want diabetes like my mom and cancer like my dad. And the kind of person I am, I wanted to be fit till my last breath and see the entire world standing on my own two feet.
The move and the change
At 33, I moved back to India. Settling in felt like a struggle and I questioned every minute of my decision. India still didn’t have the infrastructure to accommodate evening walks, pollution is still very high, scorching sun in the summer and tremendous rain in the monsoon. None of it felt like home. And that’s exactly what pushed me indoors. I started with Zumba on Bollywood music. It was a good way to start. It gave me a good time to rewind and a break from work stress, a mode to settle in and most importantly physical movement which I didn’t want to give up.
The science behind movement was known to me. I could easily check on myself when my mood fluctuated. And as much as I could blame it on my hormones, I never knew there could be anyway out of it to have mental clarity. I believed that to get out of mental spiraling, I needed to move my body. Zumba gave me start. It gave me a community of like minded women, juggling through life and still finding time for themselves and for their rejuvenation. It definitely gave me the cardio. But I knew there was something more I was missing on to.
The mentor
It is said that what you seek is also seeking you. And hardly did I know I will meet a man I will call a colleague, a friend and a coach. I figured out Arun as a well built man in a bunch of men, tall,short, fat and thin. He looked different because I could figure out that he went to gym. The kind of introvert I am, I would never go on ask him what he did differently.
It’s only when we randomly stroke a conversation about health and he explained me about strength training. Not that I was very much impressed by the idea of lifting weights, but he volunteered to coach, and I was freaking. I didn’t know a thing about gym, nor did I enjoy that place. Back in 2018, I subscribed for a gym membership but ended up doing only Zumba, HIIT and yoga. And that’s all. No one told me about the machines, the exercises, the diet, the weights and the protein.
The general knowledge about strength training came to me through the common knowledge of the society, that it is meant for men, that it will make a woman bulky like men, that whey protein is chemical. I was definitely scared of the pain of lifting heavy, and what will I do if my entire body pains and I am not able to recover and that I will become less functional.
In spite of all the doubts and fears in my head, I said yes to Arun. Not because I wanted to do it, but because I promised someone that I will do it and I usually kept my promises. Never did I know that a promise made 1.5 years ago will change my life in more than one dimension.
The Journey
I started blunt, dead scared to go to gym as I thought I will be judged. My gym is a small one inside our residential society. I saw the men in the gym, they were masters in what they were doing. I felt utterly uncomfortable, felt like nobody in that room. Two small dumbbells felt like dead heavy to me. And I was put on a diet which I thought was bare minimum. But a promise was a promise. 2 months and my routine adjusted.
The initial two months taught me two things: Discipline for a non glamorous, regular workout and the importance of a coach by your side. The latter part is way too important than most people think. A coach is not just your accountability partner, he or she is the one who directs you with a holistic approach, corrects your form, adds to your diet, answers all your doubts, stays when nothing works out, and gives you the space to build up the curiosity. In my case, I knew I found a gem.
The hardest part pulled in after 6 months when it becomes utterly monotonous, when you don’t know why you’re doing it. And most people give up. On weekends I would measure myself and check my body fat percentage and adjust my diet as per the plan given to me. I would have lesser choices of food, or at least I believed it was so. The girl who loved wine and chocolate would look at them as some unavoidable ex. I almost gave up drinking after six months. The urge came naturally, without much of a thought.
I found a solace in the fact that I am going on a date with myself. And gym became a therapy. The men whom I found uncomfortable in the beginning, became the common faces. I still don’t talk a lot there, but I observe those faces and how we have built a rapport in using the machines, helping each other with the weights and giving space for others to take up.
The awakening
After a year, I felt drastically different not just physically but mentally too. It was not that the problems in my life suddenly disappeared. But I could deal with them better. A lot of my anxious thoughts found a regulation through strength training. Everytime I spiraled around an event, I lifted heavier. I realized that my anxiety found a sink. It taught me something very meaningful about life. The weights never changed depending on my day, how good or bad it was. They remained the same. My mind learnt to adapt to it. And mostly this is what happens with our lives too. The outer circumstances hardly change, the power lies within on how we looked at it.
The confidence came in when I checked on the fine calfs I had built, the toned arms and the silhouette of curves. My body felt like a temple. And with that a lot of new habits pitched in. More protein in diet, saying no to smoking and drinking, showing up in gym even on bad days, deeper sleep, better way to deal with challenges, lesser mental chaos, better boundaries and absolutely more clarity.
And Arun has been there, building me silently, in ways I never knew I needed it more than anything else. The other day me and a comrade of mine from school met in Cafe Mondegar in Mumbai. We
found two women in their 70s from Mexico who were on a world trip at this age. And I made a promise to her that we will also do the same. And for that we need to build.
I still am on this journey. What changed is that it now not a promise to someone else anymore. It is a promise I have made to my mind and body. And that makes all the difference. And I can summarize all of it in just two lines:
“The day you accept fitness as a lifelong commitment is the day you stop chasing quick results and start enjoying the process.”