The Pursuit of Fitness- Starting small

Five kilograms in five months…she couldn’t understand the reason for the sudden weight gain ! She turned into a lazy girl, with minimum physical activity. All she desired was to sleep in her free time. She started her introspecting-Was it the change in lifestyle ? Or is she suffering from depression !? Maybe it’s a mandatory weight gain after joining office and the “corporate club”.

More than the weight gain, she was more concerned about the changes in attitude. There was nothing much to look forward to in her life, other than dressing up, going to office, coming back and sleeping, and yes plan for the weekends. She had promised herself in college, that her life would be more than this, more than just waiting for the weekends, eating out, posting pictures on social media and repeat.

Is this my story, or a close friend’s ? No. This is every individual’s challenge, who enters the corporate world, leaving behind the active college life. This is every person’s story who starts spending more on luxury and eating out. Moreover, those who fall in the trap of peer pressure or rat race or whatever you call it, and follows image management to post pictures of clubbing, drinking, exotic food dishes irrespective of realising whether it makes them content. There is nothing wrong in eating out, there is nothing wrong in posting pictures. Even my Snapchat and Instagram is filled with food and cafe pictures. What is wrong when this activity itself becomes the happening stuff in life.

I realized the absence of real physical activity, other than daily commute (which is not considered an exercise, as its routine) when I decided to stop eating out. I missed posting on Snapchat and Instagram. It also gave me a deeper understanding for the love of food I have developed. Connecting the dots, the reason I wished to sleep more and why I never woke up fresh for office, was the absence of physical activity and actual purpose of life.

Fitness by definition means-“the condition of being physically fit and healthy.”For me, health includes all physical, mental and emotional health. Our lifestyles are really messed up, which makes it difficult for one to be fit according to this definition. We rush to catch our trains, metros, cabs ; Missing the most important meal of the day- Breakfast. We feed ourselves with biscuits and chai most of the time. And we have late dinners, and then interrupted sleep. Apart from the lifestyles, there are enough crabs present in our lives who will keep us away from reaching our goals. If you haven’t read the crab in the bucket theory find it here.

The only way out is to take control, stay away from negative people and start small. Start from relatively easy exercises, and later push yourself. There would be a lot of inertia in the beginning, but once we overcome it, it becomes easier to continue. When I started cycling after about 7 years, I had no confidence at all for a long distance ride. But after the first ride itself, I felt so much happy and confident that I started looking forward to cycle rides. Then I joined Zumba, as I thought I am not a gym person and I love dancing. But yes, the challenge is to overcome the inertia and believe in the change you want to see. As nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar says it will take atleast 6 months of eating right, sleeping well and exercising well to the years of damage we have done.

So go on, start small and follow the way to fitness. All of us are in some way, or the other in this pursuit, the pursuit of fitness.

PS-The next few posts will describe how I started exercising again in different forms.

Straight From My Heart,

Prakriti Singh