I can tell you exactly what was going through my mind when this photo (see far right) was taken. It was my 20th birthday and along with my brother Gora and our group of friends, we had taken off for an impromptu vacation. I had just come out of the shower and my friend said, ‘Damn, you are looking like Patrick Swayze!’ I was so pleased that I could have blithely broken into ‘dirty dancing’ and happily posed for him, little knowing that he was taking the piss out of me. 

Friends! When the roll was developed (pre-digital era, you see) and my friends had their fill of belly-laughing at ‘Patrick Scrawny’, I decided to keep the photo as a reminder to be in shape every year on my birthdays.

Today I am 40-plus. Honestly I found no point in counting the years once I hit 40. And frankly what’s the point of keeping in shape if I can’t pass off as someone younger (I can see the ladies shaking their heads vigorously, in agreement)? 

Health first 

Jokes apart, being fit has always been a priority for me. Obsession even. I have been discouraged, ridiculed and vilified; mostly by my esteemed colleagues many of whom used to munch on chicken manchurian and kebabs while dispensing with dietary advice, asking me to loosen up a bit and live a little. 

These days the same bunch asks me for advice on what to do about their waist measurements exceeding their chests. When I ask them to exercise regularly and clean up their diet, they ask me to suggest a less painful way or a magic remedy. 

Well, sorry to burst the bubble, ‘consistent, smart work’ (not hard work, all you three-hour-workout gym rats) is the only magic that will work in the long run and fetch lasting results. Working out has to be a part of your everyday life. 

I was a chubby and overweight nine-year-old when I started playing organised football. I loved football, I lived football! I wanted to be the best player of my team. 

I realised that I needed an edge over the others and that edge would be speed. So I started running. All sorts of distances. 100 metres, 200, 400, 800, 1,500. I also took part in 110-metre hurdles, long jump and even triple jump. My speed and stamina improved dramatically along with my game. I had discovered the magic of cross-training without knowing anything about it! 

Till a point I nursed the dream of playing football professionally but an ugly injury which tore my hamstring muscles at the hip insertion point put a damper on my plans. 

The resulting inactivity plus my depressive state of mind made me find solace in food. So much so that in six months, I ballooned from an athletic 72kg to a blimp-like 96kg. 

I ate because I was depressed and was depressed because I ate and got fat. Classic Catch-22. 

One day I was walking down (then hawker-free) The Oberoi Grand hotel arcade when a schoolfriend passed by me. 

I called out to him and it took him some time to register who I was. I had officially become fat-beyond-recognition! That night I promised myself that I’d never become fat again. 

Next morning I started walking since that was the only physical activity that I was allowed. After 10 minutes I was out of breath! Six months prior, I could run around my opponents for 90 minutes! That’s how fast your hard-earned fitness can come to a naught. 
 

If I am blessed with any trait it’s pit-bull tenacity. So I kept at it. Ten became 20, then 40 and in three months I was brisk-walking 60 minutes daily. I also restructured my diet. No more rolls, singaras, kochuris and jilipis; it was seasonal fruits, vegetables, healthy nuts and moderate amounts of rice, roti and fish. 

My hamstring had healed sufficiently so I started jogging, gingerly at first. The kilos started melting away as I increased my distance along with my pace. I was 80kg. That’s when I renewed my love with martial arts and combined alternately with cycling and jogging, it finally got me down to 72kg. 

My six-pack was visible once again though the term was ‘washboard abs’, back then. All within nine months!

It was Christmas and my friends had come down to Calcutta. When we met they exclaimed, ‘Man, you still look like you are in Class X!’ And the friend who saw me at my weightiest best was astounded by my transformation though no one believed him when he said, ‘He was nearly a 100 kilos, 10 months back!’ Lesson number one; when you control your weight, you control your age.

These days, there is a glut of information regarding fitness. You have a million routines, a billion videos and a trillion gurus on the Internet. The genuine ones are lost in the rabble and their sane voices are drowned in the surrounding cacophony. Mainly because they advocate learning the basics thoroughly and having a sustainable diet keeping your food history in mind. 

They also discourage any usage of supplements unless one is a professional athlete or is on an ultra restricted diet due to medical reasons. Then there are the celebrity trainers who usually have 12 weeks to whip their clients in shape. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about fitness knows that it’s simply impossible without the aid of a plethora of hardcore chemical substances, most of which are banned and pose extreme health risks.

But for many, the supposed rewards outweigh the potential risks, at least for the time being. What is a liver, the kidney or the coronary system if one can get a toehold to play in the big league? 

But, health always comes before fitness except in the dictionary, and certainly well before a chemically enhanced perfect looking body. 

Diet do and don’t

What do I do? 

For starters, I don’t train muscles. I train movements. So it’s not a bench press, it’s a horizontal push. It’s not a chin up, it’s a vertical pull. I train all the primal movements through a full range of motion, with perfect biomechanics and breathing pattern. In laymanspeak, I weight train twice a week. I also work my energy systems hitting the anaerobic and aerobic zones at predetermined intervals. 

I do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) using a series of calisthenics. And I love doing multidirectional running at varying speeds. Simply put, I do cardio twice a week. 

Yoga time

Yoga fascinates me. I still cannot fathom how ancient Indians could design such an advanced and scientifically sound exercise system thousands of years, ago! I do a series of Yogasanas twice a week. The remaining day, usually a Sunday, is reserved for football or I simply rest.

My diet is essentially Bengali, but healthily so. It’s a judicious combination of white rice, atta rotis, chochhori (mixed seasonal vegetables), dal, machher jhol (fish curry), seasonal fruits, healthy nuts, tok doi (curd) and chhana (Bengali cottage cheese). 

But come Sunday lunchtime and I just let loose since it’s my weekly cheat meal consisting of kosha mangsho and a whole lot of mishti. Sharmili, my exasperated better half, says that I open up my second tank! I also sleep for seven hours every night and have three to four litres of water every day. 

And I don’t fret unnecessarily about the future but try to make my present perfect. You will often find me mumbling. Don’t be alarmed. In all probability I would be muttering, Que Sera Sera.