A tale of the fight against odds, odds of being obese, worsening back and age getting better!
This is my personal experience and while some things are good to learn but remember every human body is different, what worked for me won’t necessarily work for you! There is a reason we have a different DNA. If my journey can inspire you to challenge the Status Quo, To get Mind and Body in the shape they deserve to be in, my task here is done.
This is the picture that changed everything for me, I still believe Manas gets pictures clicked with me because he looks thin with me anyways, when I saw this picture I decided to get on the weighing scale and it was 107.3. I remember I just sat there blank! I was already suffering from a bad back pain which was largely due to ignoring stretching before and after workouts or sports. I knew it was the red zone and had to come out of it. I also knew I can do it because in past I had similar ( or more in fact) weight which I took down to 91 kgs and had sustained but this was pure ignorance and not respecting my body.
It all started on May 21, 2017, 2017 had been an exciting year to start with, we got Hrigank in our lives and I was doing well on the fitness front as well. On this day, I got a slight issue with my back in the morning game of Squash with manas, ignoring, I continued the game and went for a cricket game in the evening where it just went out of hand, dragging myself back home.
Next 6–12 months were terrible, multiple MRI’s, Vitamins, steroids (which led to increase in the weight ) but no relief, another big issue with us, Indians is that we tend to look at surgery something bad, While it is bad but not if the pain has not gone for 1 year, tried everything, Physiotherapy, Yoga, Walking, massage but if I look back and think, I should have taken the surgery call much earlier. I continued being in the pain, taking the medicine, eating food without control, and occasional work out till this above picture was clicked…….
Fight Against the odds
Way back in 2016, Ritesh had recommended me Medha who works as a fitness coach and Nutritionist, I had seen her plans working for both Ritesh and Vibha, So (like a true Indian middle-class guy), I asked him to share his diet plans so that I could copy, I realized soon that it’s not going work like this. Unique bit about Medha’s plans are — they are for YOU, she will work with you for the initial 2 weeks to figure out the body type and how the body is reacting to certain food recommendation, she will also share the work out routine which is very important, Workout and diet have to work together for results to be shown. The important thing here is you need to carefully observe what she is recommending because eventually, it will become the base of your maintenance plan. (Lesson *)
So worked with her in past for good 2 months, had lost some 17 kgs and was maintaining it well before the back gave up on me, and from 21st May 2017 till 14th Aug 2018, thanks to medication and steroids and the pain that back gave me, weight was 107.3 kgs and this is where I decided to refer back to the plans Medha had shared, I decided I l try those plans for a week and if they don’t work, I l go back and work with her again ( ya Indian middle class again). I spoke to Deepika and she recommended that I should speak to Medha however, in the end, we decided to see it for a week, the week turned into a month and I was almost 101.5, loosing good 6 kgs in a month.
On the workout front, I was doing some physio activity and walk, my step count on a day was very low (8714 average ) considering the kind of sports activity I used to participate in however this coupled with diet was helping me to lose weight at a good speed. Importantly I had also started doing some yoga postures which were primarily for back strengthening.
I was walking 6 km per day(terrible again) and only relief here was that walking was helping ease the pain, my target was to at 90 kgs by end of the year and looked poised to get to the target until one day, I pushed a bit harder during the walk and speed led to increasing the distress in the back and pain was unbearable. this was 13th Sept 2018 (lesson *). I was in terrible pain and what happened changed everything for me…
Lesson* — Every Body is unique and each food type will react differently
Lesson * — Never push your body when it is under stress. give it the rest it deserves.
Few Tips
1. When you get on with a diet plan, complete that journey, you will have bad days or weeks where the scale on the machine won’t move, don’t be disappointed, just keep going.
2. It’s ok to check weight every day, it will help you evaluate the food you had and the impact of the same.
3. Keep yourself hydrated, drink as much water as you can.
4. Never workout when any of your body parts is not keeping well.
5. Don’t go for internet-based or friend based diet plans, consult a nutritionist, trust me, it’s totally worth it.
“Always Remember every human body is different, what worked for me won’t necessarily work for you”
Written by Abhishek Punia,Co- Founder and COO at ARM Worldwide with 15 years of Work experience in the digital marketing industry.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author’s own.