I have had a poor body image, probably since I was 15 years old. Initially, I never anything thought could be done about it. It was only after my second year of college, one summer, that I first experienced the joy (intense pain) of exercise. I was not even much of a mirror looker, and it was hard to realize in salwaar kameez, that I started looking fitter. But, when I returned home and to college, people voiced it, and I was pleasantly surprised. But, dieting was never on my mind. I did try to stay more physically active however.
The weight always slowly added up, and I would always fall back on some physical activity like jogging or badminton to rein it back temporarily. A shocking diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of 23, was when I took to yoga (Tejas Yoga by Yannis in Houston, Texas), and had progressed so well that I was doing over an hour of yoga everyday, and was really feeling fit despite my pains. RA had also introduced me to an ayurvedic doctor who recommended some minor changes to my diet (like avoiding tamarind, etc.), but nothing significant. There was also a doctor back in Ahmedabad (courtesy Vacha) who recommended I fast two days a week! I did not really know why, but I did it anyway (with lots of fruits and fruit juices, which now I think I should have skipped as well). Although I now understand it much better, this was the first time I thought even minutely about the food that I was pumping into my system.
After a few months, I started training with a personal physical trainer three times a week. Along with his brutal strength and cardio training workouts, he questioned everything I ate. His recommendation was that I eat six small meals a day! He did not try to change what I was eating, mostly because I was usually eating home-cooked vegetarian meals. I was amazed that I was asked to eat so often, and accepted his reasoning with some limited articles I read on the internet (ignorant then of google's search bias). To be fair, several doctors and dietitians still think of this as the best diet for overall body fitness (now, I am sure this is just a bad idea for people with normal lifestyles. It may work for cinema actors or sports people who spend several hours a day on fitness). Again, my primary motive was not weight loss, but to make myself fit, build muscle strength (to help my joints) and feel energetic. Over the next several months of following all his instructions, I looked leaner and more toned than I had in high school, lost inches but did not lose weight.
Fast forward ten years, with several brief weeks of exercising, counting calories, pulling back a couple of kilos, gaining them and some more.. I was slowly and unhappily accepting that I had a bad metabolism, and there is not much I can do about it. This counting calories was tiresome and not sustainable. The fitness regimens that I chose were not sustainable. I always consoled myself that I was on the higher side of a normal bmi, and maybe it was not the end of the world. My weight six months after I delivered a baby put me well into the overweight category (despite not gaining much during the pregnancy) gave me a serious wake up call, and I decided something had to be done about it, and I fell back on my usual "eating in moderation". Of course, it works, and I steadily dropped the kilos over the next six months and hit a plateau with just more mindful eating, and insignificant exercise. The weight plateaued 3 kgs over my pre-pregnancy weight, and I was convinced that only exercise could break the barrier, but found no motivation to start any exercise regimen. "Luckily" for me, covid lockdown happened and I was juggling a lot more things at home and work, with full time baby-care, household chores and office work. Yaay, the weight steadily dropped again over the next six months! By the end of 2020, I was three kilos lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight, but that was not to last!
What happened? I am not sure...I relaxed in Hyderabad with my parents, and they came back with me to help out. Maybe I started eating more (although it did not seem like it). Maybe I was also eating more junk food? Or maybe I was not moving as much because of shared household work? Whatever it was, in the next six months, I did pile back the three excess kilos, and the scale was still steadily climbing. Once again, while the weight did not make me feel pretty, it was the way I felt mentally and physically that really bothered me. I was constantly tired both physically and mentally. I was having recurring joint pains in my wrist, shoulder and back, and I was just an irritable, short-tempered mess. The fact was that I was less physically fit than both my parents who are twice my age! It was at this point that I really decided that this had to stop now, before it was too late. This was now a time for drastic measures!
During this time, I was also seeing a lot of posts in the OPOS support group on facebook about their Transform programs, the weight-losses and diabetes reversal. I was intrigued, but did not really want to join. I was fairly sure that I would see some results if I was disciplined on their program, but I have never really explored any diets, as I personally do not feel any diet vastly different from the way I normally eat would be sustainable. And then, they introduced the "Initiate" program, that eased the participants into a low-carb way of eating in a month, and I decided to give it a shot (drastic measures). I started the program intending to do it fully no matter what, and see what happens.
It is now close to two months since I finished the Initiate program. I lost about 7 kilos in the last three months, but I feel younger and more energetic than I have in several years. BUT, in the last three months, I have learnt so much about our eating styles, food choices and lifestyle diseases along with my experiments as an RA patient, and my mother's who is a fifteen year diagnosed type 2 diabetic, that I shall pen them down in the next post.
