This blog is Sushant’s personal account of his fitness transformation journey.
“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.” -Paul Dudley White
I have been a passionate trekker & have successfully completed more than 15 treks across India & Europe. However, after having a narrow escape during my last trek to “Hampta Pass” , I had regrets of neglecting my health & eating junk. I had serious doubts if I would ever be able to re-pursue my passion & climb the snow covered mountains given my unhealthy lifestyle.
With such thoughts in mind I headed towards Nehru Park for a pleasant walk . After I parked my car & looked outside, I was welcomed by pleasant & fresh air with soothing smell. Considering the weather & aroma of the park and the presence of joggers & sportsmen in the park, I kept wondering if I would ever be able to gather such energy & endurance level to engage in such fitness activities. I wanted to run like other joggers; however my bulky weight & obese structure played a spoilsport.
During past 4 years, I had put on lot of unwanted weight & had started to look older than my age. Considering the fact, I did not have the fitness level in place to jog & run, I used to have a small 10 minutes walk around the park & moved back, hoping to regain/build stamina before re-plunging into running spree.
The same night, I learnt that one of close acquaintance & my mentor left all of us from this world. Although he appeared to be hail & hearty when I met him during last year, he was suffering from Diabetes due to his unhealthy eating habits & avoided physical exercise & labor.
All the above instances gave me thoughts to ponder upon! What I really wanted from my life? Does the current lifestyle will help me lead a sustainable & happy life? Why I am missing my life objective? The answer to all these questions was — “ I want to take control of my life”. Now I really wanted to revisit my health objectives.
With this objective in mind & discussion with couple of friends, I decided to break-free & take a plunge towards bringing positive changes in my health & ultimately my happiness. I visited couple of gyms as a first step towards my fitness transformation journey
The next morning, I received a call from Mr. Rishabh, Manager at “ Anytime Fitness”.
Rishabh, Hello Mr. Sushant, how are doing today?
Me: I am doing pretty good! Thank you so much for asking.
Rishabh: I wanted to speak with you as a follow up to your visit to our gym yesterday. How did you find our gym & the services we offered?
Me: I found your gym has decent infra & trainers. Can I have trial sessions & speak with handful of current members to have real time perspective.
Rishabh: Sure thing. You may visit our centre tomorrow @ 6am.
After this, I hung up the phone. The very next day I was at “ Anytime Fitness” at the appointed time & spoke with trainers & some of current members focused on reducing weight. I was enlightened by the passion & to-do attitude of the trainers for helping their clients reach their fitness objectives.
I settled upon “Anytime Fitness” as my fitness partner for my weight reduction journey. My target was to reduce 27 Kgs in span of 15 to 18 months.
The very next Monday, I reached gym @ 5:30 am. With the thought of working out on sophisticated machines with motivated trainers, I was already pumped up. It sounded like a eventful start with trainer, Shadab, was already waiting for me in the gym.
The first day was more focused on goal setting. I underwent my body & weight check-up & when we defined our target to reduce my weight from 105 kgs to 75 kgs, my heart took a pause! I questioned myself with a cunning smile are you kidding me? 30 Kgs in next 15 months? This was a mammoth task. I realized next 1.5 years are going to be excitingly challenging for me. I decided to not to take Shadab services initially for 3 months since I wanted to taste waters whether I have that patience, perseverance & control to attain my objective.
Next week was really challenging for me since I have to come to terms with my stamina level. Initially I did treadmill, cross fit & cycling 20 minutes each at a speed of 5 km to an hour. This continued for a period of 2 months. Although these cardio exercises helped me build my stamina & endurance to some extent & increased my speed from 5 km to an hour to 7 km to an hour, I neglected to focus on strength building.
As a result, I reduced by weight by 5 kgs, but suffered on skin toning side & my muscles had become weak. At this instance, Shadab phoned me up on one fine Sunday
Sushant: Shahdab ji, Although I reduced 5 kgs, my body is not coming in shape & love handles are clearly evident.
Shahdab: Sushant sir, you need to focus on core strength & weight training besides cardio. Now it appears be a mammoth task to tone your body.
I was in state of shock. I thought my 2 months workout has been futile. However, “ giving up” did not appeared in my life dictionary. The very next day, I decided to set up an aggressive fitness target for myself & decided to restructure my entire workout schedule. I transitioned from a full cardio regime to mix of weight & functional training. Working out with Shadab was itself an challenging experience.
We started off with functional & military training that tested my real stamina & endurance levels.. Every workout right from planks, mountain climb, jumping jack,catelbell, berpeice, mix of abs exercises along with weight training, drained me to the core but my intensity of strength & mental toughness kept on increasing. Besides, I started following rigorous diet to support my ever increasing strength level.
I followed a strict diet pattern consisting of optimum combination of protein carb & fats.
That’s a really inspiring story for someone trying to adopt a fitness focused lifestyle. Thank you for posting it, I’ll look forward to more posts of yours.