Arav: I want to become big and fat like daddy!
One fine day, in early 2010, Arav, my then 4-yr old son, told my wife: "i want to grow up fast and become big and fat like daddy!"
and sure enough, my better half (Akshaya Bhosle, a.k.a Vimala Patil) passed it on to me, and my parents who were visiting us. just more fuel to the almost daily discussions we had been having about me doing something about my weight/shape/health.. I had actually gotten used to getting this advice since the past 8-10 years.. to the extent that the frequent "lectures" were becoming a pain!
I wasn't always in such bad shape.. when i passed out from my undergrad, i was in an arguably good shape - 72 kgs on a 6' frame. that was way back in Sept 2000, when i moved to the US for my Masters'. and I had maintained the 70-72 kgs range for more than a few years. But, man! Pizza is definitely a new love I developed after moving to the US :) Nothing to beat pepperoni for pizza toppings ;) and with all the self cooking, i discovered that a lot of oil and butter goes a long way in making food tasty ;). My most recent food-love-affair was with ~1200-calories Red Robin's Royal Red burger :).. Including the bottomless fries, this package is easily an astounding 1500-1600 calories in one meal!!
Sure enough - i added 6+ kgs in the first year. Got married in Dec 2001 with my 11th/12th classmate, and put "health" on the back seat.
Relocated a couple of times from US to India and back to the US in Dec 2006. Tasty food is not hard to find.. and yeah - taste is all that mattered ;) I once thought that it was probably the unhealthy food in US that caused the weight gain, but I guess I forgot all about it when moving back to India didn't stop my weight gain ;)
Was finally able to quit smoking in Sept 2009 - after almost 14 yrs. (btw, Nicoderm CQ does really work). Good thing I didn't let the fact that "quitting smoking causes weight-gain" interfere with that goal. Being smoke free was terrific - and I didn't even think about the consequent decrease in my metabolism and rising weight.
And when my son uttered the "golden" words, I weighed a whopping 94 kgs (208 LBs)! 22+ kgs gained in 9 years.. 43" on my waist.. and at a BMI of 28+, i was on the verge of officially entering the "obese" category, which starts at BMI of 30!
Well.. the good thing was that when I heard my son say it, I figured that at a minimum, I owe him better things to look forward to than a big tummy and a fatty lifestyle. And all the constant, never-ending "lecturing" by my parents and wife suddenly seemed to make a lot of sense too ;)
One thing I know for sure now is that if you are committed, even tough goals are easy to meet. Earlier instances related to myself that I can think of are quitting smoking (2009), finishing my Ph.D. (2008), and another one several years ago about making it through the IIT-JEE (1996) in my 2nd attempt. Was reasonably easy for me to believe that I could stand up to this challenge as well :)
Mid-March 2010:
Current weight: 208 LBs. ( = 94 kgs. Pardon me switching the weight units now - have been in US for more than a few years now ;)
Target weight: 172 LBs.
Time period: none.
Yeah - aggressive target of -36 LBs. But I figured that if u aim for the stars, you might at least reach the moon ;)
Before Pics: tractor, holi
Started slow: picked up the tennis racket after ages.. I had bought it 4 yrs ago and it was still wrapped in the plastic cover when I'd picked it up in the store ;). Tried that with my wife with a frequency of couple of times a week for the first couple of weeks.. Mixed that with 2-3 miles of walk over an hour a couple of times a week with my wife. And all this worked out pretty well with my parents being there to take care of my son. And after the initial 2-3 weeks, I finally tried jogging ;). The first few times was barely a quarter mile jog (and to think that I had jogged a lot in my childhood (my dad was in the Indian Army, and is *very* health conscious), and was the athletics secretary in iitkgp! ;). The quarter-mile jog was about 2 rounds of the circuit in the crossroads park right outside my apt.
Anyways - things were going good. The first month saw me get rid of 5 LBs.. :) Seemed a great progress! Started more jogging. Moved up to 4.. 5.. 6.. and sometimes even 7 rounds of the jogging track in the park. Seattle summer was helping a *lot*. Amazing weather for outdoor stuff. And then a new issue creeped up - my knees started cribbing. Excruciating pain after 4-5 rounds. And bad enough to bring my jogging to a halt. :( Tried the knee braces (mostly the knee-sleeve type), but didn't help much. Had given up hope on continuing to run/jog. But as luck would have it, a pharmacist suggested the knee-straps to my parents, and the Mueller's knee strap is an absolutely amazing product. The pain was down to absolute ZERO! Naada.. nothing.. GONE!!! I haven't seen many products that do their job so well! I'll cut this short, and link u to my product review. FWIW, this is one of the only 2 product reviews I've ever written in my life (was so compelled to appreciate the product).
So.. I could run again.. had gone up to 7-8 rounds of the jogging track. And then the Seattle Weather played spoil-sport to my newly revived jogging passion. I was down to 195 LBs by May.. which was a good 13 LBs lost in roughly 2.5 months.
First alternative - Join a gym for ~$40 per month.. But the closest and convenient gym had a deal of $40 per month or $300/- for a 2 yr membership. The latter didn't seem practical for me - 2 yrs is a *really* long commitment ;). And knowing that rate, the monthly seemed too high ;)
Not sure how I came across it, but I ended up spending much more on buying the FABULOUS Nordic Trac x7i incline trainer. This is the 2nd of the 2 product reviews I've ever written ;) Won't go into much details - see my review. But this thing really works - lots of calories burnt (I managed 1100 calories in 40 minutes at the peak of my weight-loss training!!), lots of workout variety to keep me from getting bored, and overall a GREAT equipment. Absolutely worth the $2K price tag!
After ~4 months from when I started, I had lost 23 LBs and finally entered the "healthy" range when I touched the BMI of 25. And I kept going.. x7i finally helped me reach the goal on thanksgivings - On 26th Nov 2010, I weighed in at 171.2 LBs and had 7 inches shaved off my waist :)
Before/After Pics (~2 months stale now)
Of course, working out wasn't the only trick. Weight loss is all about losing calories. It's the *net calorie loss* that we are talking about. An average human burns roughly 2K calories per day doing the day-to-day activities. You can eat less, and reduce your intake to achieve a net calorie loss. Or, you can consume a lot of calories and spend a lot more time in the gym (or much lesser on your x7i ;) burning off more than what you consume. Yet another option is the middle ground - make a conscious effort that you don't consume a whole lot, and you can get away without a crazy workout session. Either ways, you need a *net loss* of calories to lose weight and even them out to maintain. Not much of a mystery there. To lose a pound of weight, you need to burn a net of ~3500 calories. Rest of the maths is easy ;) About.com has a bunch of helpful articles on exercising for weight loss.
Healthy diet is a key aspect to it as well. And I can't say enough about my better half's AMAZING low-calorie cooking. Even with almost ZERO oil/butter/ghee used, her cooking doesn't lose the taste. I *am* indeed lucky to have her support and help through my effort :) Some day I'll succeed in convincing her to blog about her cooking style ;)
So..? what next? Not so sure. But one thing I can bet on is that I'm going to stick to watching my calories and staying on a regular workout schedule. Yeah - I don't burn 1000+ calories 5-6 days of the week like I was doing during my peak weight-loss-workout-sessions (btw, with the x7i, this is only 40-45 minutes per day ;), and am down to 700-800 calories sessions (30-mins on the x7i ;) every alternate day. But hey - I don't really need to lose any more LBs ;)
~8 months was a long effort. Being focused for this long can sometimes be tough. Gets somewhat easy if you have a son who thinks that everything you *do* and everything you *are* is the right thing. Yeah - my son's innocent comment did it for me - you might need to find your own catalyst. And it's great being in a better shape (except for the apparel shopping expenses that I've been piling on since the past couple months - I even have an oldnavy membership now ;). I definitely have a bit more to lose (lower abs fat is a tough and adamant beast ;).. But for now I think I've closed this goal :)
Finally, I can tell my son that "big and fat isn't pretty"! :)
and sure enough, my better half (Akshaya Bhosle, a.k.a Vimala Patil) passed it on to me, and my parents who were visiting us. just more fuel to the almost daily discussions we had been having about me doing something about my weight/shape/health.. I had actually gotten used to getting this advice since the past 8-10 years.. to the extent that the frequent "lectures" were becoming a pain!
I wasn't always in such bad shape.. when i passed out from my undergrad, i was in an arguably good shape - 72 kgs on a 6' frame. that was way back in Sept 2000, when i moved to the US for my Masters'. and I had maintained the 70-72 kgs range for more than a few years. But, man! Pizza is definitely a new love I developed after moving to the US :) Nothing to beat pepperoni for pizza toppings ;) and with all the self cooking, i discovered that a lot of oil and butter goes a long way in making food tasty ;). My most recent food-love-affair was with ~1200-calories Red Robin's Royal Red burger :).. Including the bottomless fries, this package is easily an astounding 1500-1600 calories in one meal!!
Sure enough - i added 6+ kgs in the first year. Got married in Dec 2001 with my 11th/12th classmate, and put "health" on the back seat.
Relocated a couple of times from US to India and back to the US in Dec 2006. Tasty food is not hard to find.. and yeah - taste is all that mattered ;) I once thought that it was probably the unhealthy food in US that caused the weight gain, but I guess I forgot all about it when moving back to India didn't stop my weight gain ;)
Was finally able to quit smoking in Sept 2009 - after almost 14 yrs. (btw, Nicoderm CQ does really work). Good thing I didn't let the fact that "quitting smoking causes weight-gain" interfere with that goal. Being smoke free was terrific - and I didn't even think about the consequent decrease in my metabolism and rising weight.
And when my son uttered the "golden" words, I weighed a whopping 94 kgs (208 LBs)! 22+ kgs gained in 9 years.. 43" on my waist.. and at a BMI of 28+, i was on the verge of officially entering the "obese" category, which starts at BMI of 30!
Well.. the good thing was that when I heard my son say it, I figured that at a minimum, I owe him better things to look forward to than a big tummy and a fatty lifestyle. And all the constant, never-ending "lecturing" by my parents and wife suddenly seemed to make a lot of sense too ;)
One thing I know for sure now is that if you are committed, even tough goals are easy to meet. Earlier instances related to myself that I can think of are quitting smoking (2009), finishing my Ph.D. (2008), and another one several years ago about making it through the IIT-JEE (1996) in my 2nd attempt. Was reasonably easy for me to believe that I could stand up to this challenge as well :)
Mid-March 2010:
Current weight: 208 LBs. ( = 94 kgs. Pardon me switching the weight units now - have been in US for more than a few years now ;)
Target weight: 172 LBs.
Time period: none.
Yeah - aggressive target of -36 LBs. But I figured that if u aim for the stars, you might at least reach the moon ;)
Before Pics: tractor, holi
Started slow: picked up the tennis racket after ages.. I had bought it 4 yrs ago and it was still wrapped in the plastic cover when I'd picked it up in the store ;). Tried that with my wife with a frequency of couple of times a week for the first couple of weeks.. Mixed that with 2-3 miles of walk over an hour a couple of times a week with my wife. And all this worked out pretty well with my parents being there to take care of my son. And after the initial 2-3 weeks, I finally tried jogging ;). The first few times was barely a quarter mile jog (and to think that I had jogged a lot in my childhood (my dad was in the Indian Army, and is *very* health conscious), and was the athletics secretary in iitkgp! ;). The quarter-mile jog was about 2 rounds of the circuit in the crossroads park right outside my apt.
Anyways - things were going good. The first month saw me get rid of 5 LBs.. :) Seemed a great progress! Started more jogging. Moved up to 4.. 5.. 6.. and sometimes even 7 rounds of the jogging track in the park. Seattle summer was helping a *lot*. Amazing weather for outdoor stuff. And then a new issue creeped up - my knees started cribbing. Excruciating pain after 4-5 rounds. And bad enough to bring my jogging to a halt. :( Tried the knee braces (mostly the knee-sleeve type), but didn't help much. Had given up hope on continuing to run/jog. But as luck would have it, a pharmacist suggested the knee-straps to my parents, and the Mueller's knee strap is an absolutely amazing product. The pain was down to absolute ZERO! Naada.. nothing.. GONE!!! I haven't seen many products that do their job so well! I'll cut this short, and link u to my product review. FWIW, this is one of the only 2 product reviews I've ever written in my life (was so compelled to appreciate the product).
So.. I could run again.. had gone up to 7-8 rounds of the jogging track. And then the Seattle Weather played spoil-sport to my newly revived jogging passion. I was down to 195 LBs by May.. which was a good 13 LBs lost in roughly 2.5 months.
First alternative - Join a gym for ~$40 per month.. But the closest and convenient gym had a deal of $40 per month or $300/- for a 2 yr membership. The latter didn't seem practical for me - 2 yrs is a *really* long commitment ;). And knowing that rate, the monthly seemed too high ;)
Not sure how I came across it, but I ended up spending much more on buying the FABULOUS Nordic Trac x7i incline trainer. This is the 2nd of the 2 product reviews I've ever written ;) Won't go into much details - see my review. But this thing really works - lots of calories burnt (I managed 1100 calories in 40 minutes at the peak of my weight-loss training!!), lots of workout variety to keep me from getting bored, and overall a GREAT equipment. Absolutely worth the $2K price tag!
After ~4 months from when I started, I had lost 23 LBs and finally entered the "healthy" range when I touched the BMI of 25. And I kept going.. x7i finally helped me reach the goal on thanksgivings - On 26th Nov 2010, I weighed in at 171.2 LBs and had 7 inches shaved off my waist :)
Before/After Pics (~2 months stale now)
Of course, working out wasn't the only trick. Weight loss is all about losing calories. It's the *net calorie loss* that we are talking about. An average human burns roughly 2K calories per day doing the day-to-day activities. You can eat less, and reduce your intake to achieve a net calorie loss. Or, you can consume a lot of calories and spend a lot more time in the gym (or much lesser on your x7i ;) burning off more than what you consume. Yet another option is the middle ground - make a conscious effort that you don't consume a whole lot, and you can get away without a crazy workout session. Either ways, you need a *net loss* of calories to lose weight and even them out to maintain. Not much of a mystery there. To lose a pound of weight, you need to burn a net of ~3500 calories. Rest of the maths is easy ;) About.com has a bunch of helpful articles on exercising for weight loss.
Healthy diet is a key aspect to it as well. And I can't say enough about my better half's AMAZING low-calorie cooking. Even with almost ZERO oil/butter/ghee used, her cooking doesn't lose the taste. I *am* indeed lucky to have her support and help through my effort :) Some day I'll succeed in convincing her to blog about her cooking style ;)
So..? what next? Not so sure. But one thing I can bet on is that I'm going to stick to watching my calories and staying on a regular workout schedule. Yeah - I don't burn 1000+ calories 5-6 days of the week like I was doing during my peak weight-loss-workout-sessions (btw, with the x7i, this is only 40-45 minutes per day ;), and am down to 700-800 calories sessions (30-mins on the x7i ;) every alternate day. But hey - I don't really need to lose any more LBs ;)
~8 months was a long effort. Being focused for this long can sometimes be tough. Gets somewhat easy if you have a son who thinks that everything you *do* and everything you *are* is the right thing. Yeah - my son's innocent comment did it for me - you might need to find your own catalyst. And it's great being in a better shape (except for the apparel shopping expenses that I've been piling on since the past couple months - I even have an oldnavy membership now ;). I definitely have a bit more to lose (lower abs fat is a tough and adamant beast ;).. But for now I think I've closed this goal :)
Finally, I can tell my son that "big and fat isn't pretty"! :)
posted by bhosle at 12:36 AM
4 Comments:
Very inspirational.I need a catalyst. But it's good to know it can be done.
Thanks parul.. :)
And I'll endorse the x7i any day.. I've already said it so many times.. But not getting tired of appreciating it ;)
Wow! You are a fighter... Congrats! I'm going to recommend your blog to my friends/family who are giving up on losing weight.
Thanks Sandy :).. there's more coming to this blog series ;)
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