(From top) Dam works out four times a week, which includes a tough 20min-round of circuit training; Jeet gyms for 45min-90min everyday; yoga is an intrinsic part of Mullick’s fitness regimen; jogging and weight training are the secrets behind Sengupta’s lean and fit look; abdominal workouts are a must for Sarkar

When it comes to flexing their muscles, let it not be said that Bengal’s finest film stars lag behind their counterparts elsewhere. Tollywood actors are flaunting their eight-pack abs and showing off their perfectly-chiselled athletic physiques, while their leading ladies are also making sure they’re in shape for the spotlight. Ever wondered about Indraneil Sengupta’s sculpted frame or the workout schedule that lay behind Jeet’s eight packs in Fighter? Or would you like to know how Koel Mullick stays slim and Paoli Dam curvy? It doesn’t come easy. Each of these actors slugs it out for a minimum of three days a week, incorporating everything from yoga to karate into their fitness sessions, and has a strictly regulated diet. But then again, as actress Payal Sarkar says, “It’s worth it.” So here’s a look at what lies behind those fantastic frames.

Jeet

Six packs are passé. They just don’t match up to the eight-pack ab, especially when you have actors like Jeet flaunting them. “I was training for ten sessions a week when my target was the eight pack (for Fighter, which released this year),” says the actor. When his workout isn’t “target driven”, Jeet gyms for 45 to 90 minutes, four to five days a week. “I don’t do intense cardio,” says the actor, who does a split routine workout, which focuses on two to three muscle groups each day. During tours, he packs a resistance band or free weights into his luggage.

Diet: “I believe that 80 per cent depends on diet and 20 per cent on exercise,” says Somnath Roy Chowdhury, Jeet’s personal trainer and the head trainer at VLCC gym, Behala Chowrasta. To pump up that Fighter physique, Jeet went on an “absolute protein, no carbs, no fat” diet — boiled chicken, boiled egg whites and boiled cabbage —for three-and-a-half months. “The last 20 days were without salt,” adds the actor. In maintenance mode now, his breakfast consists mostly of oats and six to 10 egg whites, while it’s roti, dal and chicken for the other two meals.

Koel Mullick

“I never, ever wanted to be a size zero,” says Mullick. The petite actress began working out regularly from 2010, sweating it out at BodyWorkz, The Princeton Club, for two hours daily — six days a week. She has now brought it down to 75-90 minutes, three to four times a week. Beginning the workout with cardio —running and jogging on the treadmill and cycling — she moves on to exercising two body parts, side bending, yoga and working on her abs. “I make sure she doesn’t exercise the same muscle group on two consecutive days,” says her personal trainer Arjun Bhadra. During shoots in other locations, such as Switzerland and Milan for the film Paglu, she did free hand exercises in the hotel room.

Diet: Mullick keeps her intake of carbs low. Breakfast is a bowl of fruits, bread and egg, while it’s rice with fish and vegetables for lunch. “It’s food cooked at home — I just keep a watch on the quantity,” says Mullick.

Indraneil Sengupta

Starting out with hard core body building, inspired by Salman Khan’s “macho look”, Indraneil Sengupta realised he was “outdated” when he began modelling in Mumbai in 2000. The lean look was in. He now works out for one-and-a-half hours everyday. To change to the lean, athletic look, he started doing lighter weights and added jogging to his routine. “I’ve now incorporated a lot of running (into my workout) — I run for an hour and do weight training for half-an-hour,” says Sengupta. He focuses on one or two body parts a day — chest and back, shoulder and arms, legs — and simply runs on Sunday. “I don’t go by the book; I don’t weigh myself and I don’t measure my biceps,” says Sengupta, who considers the mirror his “best critic”. He’s happy as long as his reflection satisfies him.

Diet:A “foodie” with a weakness for red meat, the only time Sengupta’s strict with his diet is 15 days before a shoot if it involves him flaunting his physique. He then goes low on carbs, eats more proteins and reduces his food intake in the evenings.

Paoli Dam

Dam didn’t want to downsize her curvaceous frame when she hit the gym a year ago — toning it was her priority. With a packed schedule, that recently included an appearance on the Cannes red carpet, she’s hard put to squeeze out the time to gym. “When I’m in Calcutta, I try to work out at least four times a week,” she says. The session could take anything between 20 and 90 minutes. “The 20-minute circuit training is extremely challenging,” says Dam. While core training is mandatory in every workout, she does upper and lower-body exercises on alternate days. “When Paoli joined me, she wasn’t toned at all,” says fitness expert Ranadeep Moitra, “so we decided to develop her muscles without making her bulky.” Moitra made her do multi-joint exercises, which increased her flexibility.

Diet: “I’ve more proteins and fewer carbs in my diet, since proteins help to build muscle,” says Dam. While it’s two to three boiled egg whites and meatball soup or chicken soup with oats for breakfast, lunch and dinner consist of grilled chicken or fish and boiled vegetables. Fruits and protein shakes take care of the mid-meal hunger pangs.

Tota Roy Chowdhury

Roy Chowdhury devotes time to martial arts training once a week; (above) Munshi has been a fitness freak since he was a teenager

Actor Tota Roy Chowdhury never wanted to look like a beef chop. “I prefer the athletic look to the blown up, gym-manufactured one,” he says and trains himself for an hour a day, six days a week. His schedule is a methodical mix of functional strength training, metabolic training, martial arts and balance training, with separate days reserved for each. While two days of functional strength training have Roy Chowdhury targeting all his muscle groups, but with varying exercises, metabolic training has him following the Tabata Protocol.

This prescribes a cycle of 20 seconds of intense cardio-vascular activity followed by 10 seconds of rest, which the actor has converted into a two-minute, one-minute cycle. One day a week is set aside for martial arts training and balance training, stretching and foam rolling (a form of stretching that loosens the muscles. A foam roller is a cylinder of foam that is rolled under the muscles.) to loosen the muscles.

Diet: “I believe that food habits should be region specific,” says Roy Chowdhury, who prefers eating the local food of the state he is in. A believer in snacking healthy, he carries along fruits and muesli during shoots.

Srabanti

Cardio and free hand exercises worked wonders for Srabanti

Srabanti, who went from being petite to plump two years ago (she weighed 70kg at the time), could well be the poster girl for weight-loss programmes. “I dieted a lot,” says the actor who later underwent the VLCC slimming treatment and began working out under Somnath Roy Choudhury at VLCC Gym two months ago. She works out twice a day, an hour each time, 6 days a week. In addition to the daily dose of cardio — 30 minutes on the arc trainer and 20 minutes on the treadmill — she exercises different parts of her body on separate days. “Though Srabanti has lost 5kg to 6kg since she began training under me, we concentrate on toning,” says Roy Choudhury.

Diet: “I cook, so it’s very difficult for me to diet,” laughs Srabanti. But diet she does and keeps carbs at a minimum — eating a bowl of oats before hitting the gym and boiled egg whites and musambi juice after she returns. Lunch is boiled chicken, curd and papaya or watermelon. There’s the evening cup of green tea while dinner translates into brown bread or brown rice and boiled chicken.

Shayan Munshi

Shayan Munshi has “trained since the time (he) was a teenager”, thanks to his enthusiasm for sports. He now does deep sea diving and has been doing Aikido — a Japanese martial art — for the past four years. Add to that a generous dose of yoga, with body balancing asanas like the headstand and scorpion pose, and you know the secret to his physique. Well, almost. The actor also hits the gym thrice a week, training different muscle groups on separate days. He usually uses moderate weights, doing two to three sets of 15 to 20 repetitions each. “We also incorporate athletic drills to improve his agility, core workouts and cardio,” says his trainer Dev Ghosh.

Diet: Says Munshi: “I eat healthy, and try and make sure all my meals have some protein.” His evening smoothie of yoghurt, fruits, nuts and muesli, contains a spoonful of protein powder. Lunch is meat, dal and veggies with some rice. He switches to roti for a low carb diet.

Payal Sarkar

A couple of years ago, anyone would have been able to identify with Payal Sarkar’s gym graph. It would soar for three months before nose-diving into a period of inertia, then pick up pace again. But for the past one-and-a-half years, the petite actor has been a regular at Talwalkars gym, Salt Lake, sweating it out for an hour, at least four days a week. She divides her schedules into three days of cardiovascular training and abdominal workouts, alternating with three days of strength training. “I don’t do the same workout on consecutive days; it’s important to give your muscles one day’s rest,” says Sarkar. “Earlier, I would only make her do free hand exercises to increase stamina, but have now introduced weights for toning,” says Partho Saha, Sarkar’s personal trainer at Talwarkars.

Diet: The actor eats every two hours to rev up her metabolic rate. Breakfast comprises of toast with boiled chicken or eggs, oats or cornflakes, while lunch and dinner consist of roti, veggies, salad and chicken or fish.