From FAT to FIT in four months.

The spiritual Gurus tell us more often than we care to hear that we are spiritual beings living physical lives in a physical form, the body. Whether you like it or not, you are a prisoner inside your body, you live there.

It is from an urge to improve my living quarters that I started devoting some time and attention to corporal fitness. For the benefit of those who are now suffering from what I experienced as side-effects of weight gain, I was inspired to share this, which, otherwise was quite a personal journey.

I was suffering from physical conditions such as fatigue, palpitation (after taking the stairs), persistent back pain, etc. Progressively I was showing a preference for indoor activities when it came to leisure, to the extent that I was unwilling to walk short distances even while shopping. These physical conditions were also accompanied by psychological symptoms such as feeling stressed most of the time, easy irritability, bouts of depression without any apparent cause, dependence on food for an instant feel-good, fear of any physical effort (as little as that of lifting a pair of shoes to place it on the rack!), procrastination & nervousness, and many other unrecognized ones.

Adding insult to injury was the experience of walking into stores and discovering to my dismay that all those clothes with beautiful silhouettes did not fit me…I could only get into XXL mis-shapen ones.

(At this point I would like to stop and clarify that this was a personal experience, no offense meant to anyone who is an XXL. If you are comfortable being at that place, then there is absolutely NO NEED to do anything to alter that. After all, self-image is all about being comfortable being who you are. The fact is I was not comfortable being there, and so I had to do something. This piece is meant for those and only those people who are now where I was once and do not like it)

This was by no means my first attempt at attaining fitness. Most of my earlier attempts had failed and this time I had the good sense to look back and realize the following:

•          Crash dieting doesn’t work. It is impractical and can be harmful

•          Any one type of exercise, like Yoga, Aerobics, Freehand or Gym is ineffective. A combination is required

•          Consistency is more important than sporadic outbursts of  enthusiasm

•          Gymming doesn’t help you lose weight. It’s only effective when you have already lost weight and  require further body toning/ sculpting.

I knew I needed to lose weight. But “let’s start”...   ...   ... was easier said than done. I spent a couple of months just discussing the issue. Fear of failure was uppermost on my mind. Earlier also, I had started and discontinued. Therefore, this time I needed a plan that was more realistic than idealistic.

As with the symptoms, so also for the remedy, there are two aspects: physical (involving eating right, and, exercising) & psychological (involving emotional & spiritual state).

I will not go into what to eat as you all know what to and what not to eat. Neither do I know anything about diets as I have never been on one ever. What I will say of course is this; among other things, eating is one of our primal pleasures so do not deny yourself the pleasure of eating anything, but do not go overboard. Balance it out. If not on the same day, then on the following day.

The more difficult aspect is exercising. Here too, work out realistically, a regime that you really can stick to. Start small like going for walks or taking the stairs instead of the lift, once a day. Then build up slowly. Make this your personal fetish, keep thinking about it, but do not discuss at this stage no matter what the temptation. Start with a lot of cardio exercises like jogging in place, walking, running, or combining walking and running, skipping ( if you do not have any osteoarthritis related issues). Gradually, add other free-hand or aerobic exercises. The objective is to sweat it out, no matter how you do it. Only after six weeks of doing so, can you bring in other kinds of exercises like yoga or weight training into your routine. Whatever is your combination, make sure to not extend it beyond 25 to 30 minutes per day, or 3 hours per week with one or two off days. The programme is less effective if done alone, company makes it pleasant.

The emotional-psychological reasons behind weight-gain are very individualistic and may require some professional help in certain cases. However, to start off on your journey, you may want to begin by attempting to understand the causes of overeating and/or inertia. Accept your frailties and life’s injustices; practice forgiveness, start by forgiving yourself. Chant mantras, if that helps, read and understand the scriptures. Above all, laugh more frequently. 

Enjoy the process. If it works for you (as it does for me), become obsessed with it. Paste cut-outs of your favorite film-star/ sports-star (strictly in terms of body, talent may or may not matter) inside your wardrobe. To gauge whether you are actually losing weight you may use your weight as an index. Personally, I prefer going by dress sizes.

Here are some FAQs and the answers that I suggest to them.

-Where will I find the extra time?

Only YOU know that best.

-How much time do I allocate to each type of exercise?

Initially, 50% of your exercise time should be for aerobic exercises (like jogging, skipping, etc).

-How often do I have to exercise in a week?

Anything less than four times a week is INEFFECTIVE

-Do I have a rest day / rest days!!!?

Yes of course you do. But more than TWO a week is TOO much

In your four-month journey from Fat to Fit, there will of course come some moments of crises. These are the times, when you need a friend to keep you from giving up. These crises moments will coincide with the following:

ü  When you are noticed by others/ When you are not noticed by others

ü  When your partner does not keep pace with you/ When you give in to temptation-to overeat/to not exercise

ü  Just before going to the weighing machine/ Just after you have seen your weight which has- decreased/ not decreased

ü  The lack of consciousness that you may slip anytime and go back to where you started.

I will leave you to chew on that and chalk out your own plan. If you ask me how much weight I have lost, I would answer “I don’t know”, but I do know that I have dropped two dress sizes, feel a lot better about myself and have gained a lot of extra energy.

Are four months enough?  Enough to get you started and keep you interested for more. My four months were over in May.

Happy journey and don’t forget to drop in a line about your fitness fundas that I might learn from!

"Sacrifice"...not sure I understand what people mean when they use this word.

Just the other day, a friend of mine was recounting details of 'sacrifices' made by her parents so that she could reach the station of life that she has. During the conversation, she was close to tears. This made me think as to whether what she was describing to me was actually what she was naively- I thought but did not dare articulate- calling  'sacrifice' or pure love.

Seriously, what does somebody mean when she/he uses this word?

Probably the indication is towards voluntarily abstaining from what otherwise would have been a more attractive path to tread for her/him.

Since we Indians absolutely love definitions, I'm going to take the liberty of exploring a couple of them.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word as "an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy". Now look closely, 'regarded as more important or worthy'...by whom? Evidently by the person making that choice of 'giving up'. So fundamentally there is a consideration of what the 'self' perceives as 'worthy' at a given moment. There are yet other dictionaries that go a step further to add that making a 'sacrifice' entails giving up something that is dear to you in order to help 'someone else'. Noble thought indeed. But a thought is what we experience in our consciousness. This is at the experiential level.

At a more existential level, we need to ask ourselves if it is at all possible to go through this entire act of sacrificing without feeling a certain warmth, or what in common parlance is the 'feel-good factor'. In my belief, the two are inextricably linked. Moreover, the one who makes a 'sacrifice' does so because at that moment that course of action appears more 'worthy' or plain sensible to her/him ( for example, the common Indian scenario of the wife sacrificing her career for the sake of her husband's, or parents sacrificing their comforts for the sake of their children's upbringing, etc, etc.). Probably at a deeper structure, it all boils down to mere questions of 'existence'-the wife knows that at the end of the day, there will be more money in the family kitty; or of 'essence'-the sacrificial parents may either be giving in to societal pressures of a certain tacit code of behaviour, or being guided by contemplations of a handsome future where they would be the neighbours' envy on account of an achiever ward! In this sense, I would go more with one of the alternatives suggested by the Wikipedia: "a short term loss in return for a greater gain"

In the Hindu ritualistic sense, a 'sacrifice' can be equated to a yagna, involving offerings to the gods in the form of 'ghee', grains, etc. with a view to appeasing them, with a hope of greater bounties. Animal sacrifices in ancient societies have been linked to absolving of 'guilt' of hunters, who offered to the heavens above a portion of what they were using for their sustenance in the first place. It is in this domain that the word 'sacrifice' really belongs and makes some, even if restricted, sense.

When used wrongly, this word has the potential to show up in a rather poor light what belongs rightly in quite another domain, that of love. When a person, be it a parent, a spouse, or a soldier, puts considerations of others before herself/himself, that is an act of pure, unadulterated love. Let us not malign this beautiful connection between human beings by calling it what it is not- a 'sacrifice'. I'm reasonably sure that my friend's parents might never have had considerarions of deferred gratification in doing what they did for their offspring. There are no considerations of eventual gains in many such acts. In fact there is no future. The present is all. Acting out of love is its own reward and does not require a medal to glorify it. Some of us are fortuante enough to have experienced it; others may not have been that lucky.

While ruminating on this incident, I also became aware that many a time I too use words loosely, without reflecting on what they really convey. In any case, words, by their very nature are inadequate to convey the exact content because life is too large and deep, and words are at best an attempt.

Even so, maybe we should think just a little before randomly using the word in question here, 'sacrifice'.