Dedicated to everyone I know , but a Special mention to my partners at easyhuman- Shivali, Ritesh, Pankaj and Rohit, who relentlessly are working every day and every moment to instill the values of Fitness in everyone’s lifestyle.
Travelling back in time can surely bring back great memories and some of them can bring back a tsunami of them. Was just having a casual chat with my mentor, now business partner, Shivali, that how being in Isolation is the easiest thing to do and I can’t seem to understand as to why people are getting so worried about it.
While you all are in Isolation, let me take you back into time when I was on the Biggest Loser Show in Aamby Valley 13 years ago, stuck with 15 strangers, you got along with some, you ignored some, Isolated from the daily day to day Rat race and actually put into a 7 star facility.
Just to give a little back story on what the Biggest Loser Show was all about. We were 16 happy obese Individuals who were cut off for a period of 5 months from the entire world. No Television, No Newspapers, No World Cup (well India was out of the World cup a day or two before we went on the show around 18th March, so the boys didn’t feel that bad about it), No Cell phones ( the era of Nokia and Blackberry ), had access to talk only with our trainers- Yusuf and Deepika, our Medical Director- Andrew Lipius, our Nutritionist- Varun Shivdasani and Psychiatrist- Kajal. The 5 of them were our prime contact points for anything that we needed to know or discuss about the show. What was allowed- Walkman, I-Pod, Books, Diaries, Photographs of Family and Friends.
At times, We used to get time to chat with our Director- Arun, Our Producer- Rahul and everyone from the Production time and again, but they never ever gave an iota of Information of the Outside world, their Devilish smiles of these angels were quite the thing back then. In Short, we were completely isolated and were left to create a New world for ourselves over the next 4 months.
Our daily schedule would be to train for 4.5 hours daily ( 7:30am to 9:00am, 12:30pm to 2:00pm and 5:30pm to 7:00pm), and eat 6 meals daily ( 9:10am Breakfast, 2:10 pm Lunch and 8:30pm Dinner, with small mid meals at 12:15pm, 5:15pm and 7:05pm). You would be surprised that many a time as soon as our workout finished, we all would quickly go wash our hands and attack our meals, specially Lunch and rarely Breakfast. Every week, one team or group that came under elimination, would eliminate 1 person from the group via internal vote outs. By the end of it, the one who lost the maximum weight, would win the show, hence my claim to the Title, “ The Biggest Loser” where I lost 50.7kg’s in a period of 4 months. For me, we all were true winners on the show, where everyone lost weight, the minimum being 20 kg’s.
Now that you have got the backstory, Let’s start this point by point and I really hope that my experience can somehow, somewhere make you realize that being in Isolation is one of the best experiences that you can have on that path of self-discovery and discipline. Enjoy it till it lasts.
Learning Never Stops
Let me tell you one thing that you all have read many a times, Learning never stops and it’s never too late to learn. This was one of the biggest lessons for us on the show. Atleast, for me losing weight and seeing a Jawline was always in my lists to do but laziness and the passion for Unhealthy food, thinking that my beers and butter chickens would be taken away added to the thought of never really wanting to workout. We all came on the show to learn and that’s exactly what we did.
I have already spoken about our regime on the show, in short the science is of Energy IN- via food and Energy Out- via Exercising. And when I got to know the Biggest learning of my Fitness Journey and the 3 Letter word BMR- Basal Metabolic Rate, it just changed my life and till date I would help anyone and everyone understand fitness thru the most basic understanding of BMR, How one applies that to consumption of Food and How we relate it to exercising- It’s all goal oriented. My Basal Metabolic Rate was 1800 on 18th March 2007, and those are the Number of Calories that I could consume daily.
Little did I know that 1800 calories in the right combination of Carbs, Proteins and Fat meant a lot of food when divided across 6 meals. It broke one of my biggest Myths- that one needs to stop eating to lose weight. I was so fascinated by this concept, that over the next 4 months, I literally made a sincere effort to understand Nutrition as a Subject, because I very clearly wanted to share this Mantra with the world.
How can this thought help you today?- Just like I wanted to lose weight for a long time, and never got a chance to do so, as my excuses always came in the way, I never made a sincere effort till losing weight and being in a Bubble made that happen. While you are Isolated, whether alone or with your loved ones, dig deep and just choose a subject of your interest and start your journey on Learning. You are in for a big surprise by the end of it, is what I can surely Guarantee. Every piece of Information is available on the Internet.
Time Management
As a kid, I have always been a fan of operating things on time, still don’t remember how and why, but it has always been about respecting timelines, whether it came to receive them or give them. Am sure you saw the timings for our workouts given on the Biggest Loser. The Workouts, 99% of the time would start on the dot and even finish on the dot, not a minute less, not a minute extra. This meant that the laziest person on time management also had to make his/her best effort to get to the gym on time as every minute was crucial when you look at the long term fundamental of the show.
We had participants lose out because of a couple of grams, and every gram lost on the show meant surviving another week. If someone came late to the gym, they would not be allowed to stay on for an extra 5 minutes nor could they compensate that time in the coming workout of the day.
How can this thought help you today?- Wake up time to eating your meals to watching a show/movies to doing a workout to playing games to cooking something, create a schedule, stick to it and achieving these small goals daily, will make you feel like an achiever. And Who doesn’t like to be an achiever. With one week in lockdown now, sticking to a productive schedule for yourself wont only help you, but it will surely help everyone around you to also get into one. Break down everything, and just see how 3 weeks will fly by. Invest your time wisely.
Nutrition
This was the biggest surprise that worked and still works as the biggest blessing when it comes to the subject of Fitness. We may not be able to workout every day, but we eat every day, without fail. After Varun explained us the bare basic, that we need to eat what our BMR was and we were given a Nutrition Plan, where we were to eat 6 meals a day, irrespective of working out or not, the 16 of us were happy as 2 year old kids, because the best part of being on the plan was that we were never ever made to starve.
As mentioned earlier, my BMR was 1800 and I was fed 1800 calories a day, without fail. With time and the Fat percentage coming down, we were given marginal additions in the Nutrition plans too. We were given a 14 day schedule of Food that would come across all 6 meals. For the 1st month, I would surely be weighing every gram of food, if 68 grams of Whole wheat bread was written or 83 grams of Dal was written, that exactly what I would eat. Within a month, we all had an idea of quantity and would very rarely even weigh the food. It just took us a few days or practice, day in- day out, to understand the most effective tool of Fitness, which works wonders even till date for me.
On a lighter note, the Biggest fights that used to happen was around lunch time, when everyone attacked those 20 olives that were given in the salad or when we got Shahi Tukda in dessert for our Day 1 Lunch.
How can this thought help you today?-Eat only as much as your body needs, not as much as you would like to eat. You will remain fit and the biggest surprise is that you would lose weight.
Binging is not going to help you; it’s just going to make you lazier. As a simple tip, eat 5 meals a day. Breakfast 9:30am, 12pm- Small Mid meal, Lunch – 2pm, 5pm- Small Mid Meal, 8pm- Dinner. You could explore the possibility of a 6th meal too, around 7pm, just in case you are having your dinner after 9pm.
Small effective suggestions:
1)If you are overeating, break up that meal into 2 meals and have the other half later.
2) Drink a glass or two of water before your meals. It will help you adapt quickly to not overeating.
3)Mid Meal Suggestions- giving many option to choose from
a) 1 Fruit from the following- Pomegranate, Orange, Apple, Papaya, Pear
b) 2 Handfuls of Roasted Channa
c) 3 Egg whites with some veggies
d) Small Bowl of Makhaana
e) Dry Fruits- 5 Almonds+ 2 Walnuts+ 1 Date/1 Fig
f) Small bowl of Salad
Workout
Even though I was very active in Sports, right from Cricket ( my pet name was little Inzy) to Tennis to Football to Squash to Basketball, one thing that I never focused was on eating and just ate whatever I felt like eating, hence always remained on the obese side.
Cut to us coming on the Biggest Loser and working out for 4.5 hours a day was initially quite a challenge for everyone, including me who was quite active as a banker who had a role in sales. But again, it just took us a few days, to get used to this new regime, which we all were prepared for and mentally had prepared ourselves for the tough road ahead. With time, our workout intensity increased, we could do more reps, run a few extra kilometers, take minimal rest between sets as compared to when we started. We were creating tougher roads for ourselves, as the earlier ones were become easy.
When the 8 of us worked out together, the energy was completely different. If one got tired, everyone would push everyone by motivating each other. We had to earn drinking sips of water between our workouts (only applied this if Deepika or Yusuf felt one was taking unnecessary water breaks). Every workout, every day was taking us close to our goals and with the Perfect Nutrition, the results were just Fab.
How can this thought help you today?- The Good News is that you do not have to workout for 4.5 hours a day but investing 30 to 40 minutes a day would just do wonders for you. Now, you don’t have the number one excuse of al times also- “I don’t have the time”. Move, walk around the house, do the simplest of exercises, but do something. Get on a video call with a friend/friends who workout and do a workout on a call- Have personally been doing this everyday and it’s one of the best times of my day.
You can even follow our company instagram handle @easyhumanindia. Our team between Shivali, Pankaj, Rohit and Ritesh are posting a workout everyday to follow based on all the principles of Fitness.
Adapt
The Biggest challenge for us on the show was to see if one could adapt to these changes in such a short period of time. I think we all surprised ourselves right from the word go, because our Goal was clear, timelines were defined, we all depended on each other’s energy. If one was down, we lifted them up. If one got lazy, we pushed that individual even more. It was all about engaging our mind in the right direction. We knew we are going to be in Isolation and away from our loved ones for 120-150 days and the faster we could get used to that fact, the faster we could focus on the objective that we all were there for
How can this thought help you today?- The first few days, may include unhealthy eating, going and eating those Maggi’s, Biscuits, Chips, Cola’s etc. but eventually you would, or rather, should, adapt to a healthier lifestyle. We all know that this period of staying at home is going to be for a while, so there is no point cribbing about it. Make a daily plan, make a weekly plan, adhere to timelines, take it easy too, don’t be too hard on yourselves but surely have a plan. One thing that I have successfully managed to get myself out of, is to see all the forwards on the current situation. Am focusing on working on Yoga and Stretching based exercises.
Read Books
It was in the 7th week of the show, when I was in quite a zone where I really didn’t want to interact with anyone as there were some switches and was trying to find an escape. I did ask Deepika, if she could lend me a book as I knew she read books and always us to read books if we got the time. She gave me the book “ It’s not about the bike” by Lance Armstrong and what a Brilliant read it was. Some chapters and scripts from the book still inspire me. Even though I started reading books thru an escape mechanism, but it really worked for me. Till date, reading biographies and autobiographies is always my first preference when it comes to reading.
How can this thought help you today?- I really don’t know what to write on this honestly, but, pick a book and read preferably of your choice. PS- Reading a book earlier, meant getting sleep in 10-15 minutes too, so if you are unable to sleep early at night, grab a book- atleast you will read 4-5 pages a day. My love for Books elevated to another level back in 2018 after I was gifted a book (by Takesh) “ Shoe Dog” by the creator of Nike, Phil Knight and from that day till the end of 2019, I must have read more than 150 books.
CONCLUSION
Lastly, Talk with who you are Isolated with- Get to know them. You would be surprised to know how little you may know about the person even if you have been staying for years with them. One thing , I can proudly say is that I got to know only 3 participants really well on the show, and the other 13 were extremely cordial and close, but the relationship after all these years is just the way it was when the show got over. What I am trying to say is that spend this quality time in getting to know the people you are staying with.
Pick up the phone and talk with people you haven’t spoken to for a while, someone you have been wanting to but haven’t been able to thanks to the Day to Day Life. This was the only privilege we did not have on the show, and am glad we didn’t have a phone, but you do have this privilege, make a list and see the number of names you come up with. I have never ever done so many video calls in the last 10 years, as much as I have done in the last 1 week.
“Create this time as an Opportunity for yourself”
PS- Rakesh, I am going to have you write this again in a fair format
30th March, 2020
( Happy Birthday Tina Kuwajerwala)
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