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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

That day.. This day...

Today as I completed yet another successful run of 6km on tread mill, I got this thought of writing a blog on how this success story transpired.

Thanks to my sedentary job, it didn't take much time for me to become corpulent and I started to look like an obelisk. My waist size was increasing in geometric progression. One might say it is how you recognize a software engineer, but i strongly disagree. There is a large percentage of people who inspite of the sedentary nature of their jobs, do hit the gym or jog around parks and keep themselves fit.

Irony in this was that I too used to hit the gym, but my gluttonous appetite never let me get my weight under control. Every time a new movie of John Abraham was released, my sporadic exercise regime used to become much more systematic. But thankfully most of his movies had a brief stint at the box office and my exercise regime would slip back to once in a blue moon event. Every daybreak starts with a search for an excuse to skip the gym. It used to vary from genuine reasons like rain or work to weird reasons like not finding a matching t-shirt for tracks or vice versa.

It was during one of those days, that the company where i was working organized a 10km marathon. I was very eager to participate in the marathon. I started practicing for it. My decision to participate in the marathon was received with a lot of bantering at office. In spite of all that, I participated in the marathon. I completed it with great difficulty; most of the time walking and running for short spans. However it was a riveting experience and I enjoyed it to the fullest.

In the meantime I changed my company; with this change a lot of other things changed. After around three months in the new company, I decided to buy a cycle to commute to office. The new office was around 12 km. Even this decision was received by my friends with a lot of bantering. Many of them commented that this would be a fantasy for a week and then cycle would be yet another piece of junk. But this thought got engraved quite boldly on some part of my brain. Every time I felt like giving up cycling, the sarcastic remarks and bantering i am going to receive from my friends kept me going.

I started to do some cardio at office gym after cycling. This regime started to show off some results. Soon i got obsessed with cycling and cardio exercises. Yet another motivation to keep me going was the endurance levels of some of my colleagues who come to office gym. I see them running for 30 mins in a single stretch which motivated me to do the same. In a span of two months i too was able to run on treadmill for 30 minutes in a single stretch.

Though after doing all this, there wasn't a noticeable change in my appearance. It was then that i decided to abstain from food. I started eating sparingly and gave up my craving for ice creams, pizzas and soft drinks. Bingo, I started losing weight rapidly. People started to notice the change and my waist size was decreasing in geometric progression. I was getting applauses all around, it then became a responsibility to maintain the good work I had done.

Losing 16 kilos in a span of three months is indeed an achievement. With every ounce i lose, my desire to get thinner and leaner got more intense. I started to go on long runs on Sundays, which spans around 22kms altogether. In addition to that I also started practicing fasting on Mondays which has a more prominent religious connotation and inspiration from one of my best friends.

So dear friends, shred off the sluggishness, eat healthy and be healthy.....