“Strength comes in response to a need , not a desire”
Since my childhood days being fat was always a part of my identity. In school, locality and even during social functions I was constantly bullied for being fat. Soon enough I tried to avoid social functions. I lacked confidence and I would lock myself in a room and stay there for hours until one day I decided I cant take it any longer and I had to lose the weight. My age was 14 and my weight was 91. My height was 6 ft which meant that I was around 10 kg overweight slightly along the obese borderline. Like every guy who wanted to lose weight I have always tried to go the gym and eventually fail after few weeks. I used to eat a lot and lie around a lot so lifestyle change was also a crucial aspect I needed to look out into.
Everytime I tried but I failed until one day I was severely body shammed in the football field. I ran back home and I went into my room and started crying. I realized I coudnt take this anymore.It was no more a question of “I wanted to lose weight” it was “I needed to lose weight”. The first thing I realized was that I needed to gather information and get advice from people who had lost weight.
I read up articles in the internet and I started to watch youtube videos. The first and foremost thing that I learnt was about BMR(Basal Metabolic rate). In layman’s term it meant how much calories your body burnt while it was in rest. Typically an average person’s BMR is around 1800 calories, mine was 1300 calories due to my slow metabolism. I learnt that for every 3000 calories burnt I would lose 1 kg.The first thing I needed to do was to bring my metabolism to a normal level. People often misunderstood that eating less is the key to success which is absolutely wrong. I was consuming around 2000 calories but it was fully of veggies, lean protein and vitamins. I exercised around 1 hours initially(30 mins cardio and 30 mins weight training). I realized I could not even give a single push up. My strength level was nowhere even close to normal. I started giving push ups in bed, here I could manage around 8. My exercise routine comprised of a 10 minute jog followed by stretching for 10 minutes and then sprinting for 5 minutes and boxing for 5 minutes. For strength I gave 40 push ups in bed (8*5). I had a 5 kg dumbbell which I lifted 35 times (7*5). I gave 25 squats(5 *5). This was really challenging. At times I fainted and I woke up after 2 hours. I realized I needed to eat more and have more glucose in order to avoid filling dizzy. It was very important to understand your limit and not to push yourself too much and also to get loads of rest and drink lot of water.
Soon enough I was able to lose around 7 kilos like this. I had amateur-moderate level stamina and moderate strength ( Now I could manage 17 push ups on the ground). But soon after I realized but my body was getting accustomed to the exercise routine,it was no longer challenging anymore. I realized I was not able to lose further weight. I modified my exercise routine a little. I went for high intensity interval training and explosive sprints , did a lot of compound movements which included deadlifts,pull ups and bench press. Soon after I realized I was able to lose a lot 5 more kilos (Losing the last 5 kilos was always more harder than losing the first 5 kilos). I still felt that I could do better.I understood that I was doing a lot for my physical health and I needed to concentrate more so now it was essential to exercise my mind. I started doing pranayams and it worked wonders. I could concentrate a lot more and each of my exercise session was more fruitful.
Finally I lost around 14 kilos in 3 months and yes it felt really good. The first and foremost thing is the confidence which increased dramatically and then the way you walked the way you sat everything felt so easy.Eventually I realized that it was a balance of both mind and body that we needed to concentrate on combined with a healthy diet and sleep and also drinking loads of water.
sam 