Payal conducts a yoga session with Saif and Kareena in Mumbai

How did yoga happen to you?

I used to do yoga when I was in school. They used to call me rubber band because you could turn and twist me the way you wanted, I was that flexible! I could do a shirshasana when I was 11 years old. And I didn’t even have formal yoga education for that.

Yoga happened about eight years ago. I was a qualified interior designer by profession. At that point in my life I decided to give yoga a strict six months of my life. And after those six months, I’ve never looked back. It came as a spiritual calling for me, never a money-making thing.

How did your book, From XL To XS, happen?

I will call the book a manifested thought. Somewhere during my years of teaching, I felt that there is so much I have learned and can in turn give back to the universe. I did not know how to go about it. One day I voiced that thought. I called a friend and said I wanted to write a book. She said I would have to collect snippets from this book and that book, put my ideas on paper, take notes. I said I didn’t have that kind of patience. This happened sometime in March last year. In April, I had the editor of Random House India calling, expressing her wish to meet me. She said she wanted me to write a book on fitness.

From XL To XS is a bestseller and still on the top 10 non-fiction list. The reviews are very good and the book is doing great. People continuously leave me notes on Facebook and I get calls from all around the world from people who have read my book and loved it.

Do you follow any specific school of yoga? Who was your guru?

Both my husband (Manish) and I follow the Kaivalyadhama School of Yoga in Lonavla. We have definitely made modifications to it. We first make you aware of your body type and then give you asanas and postures according to that. So there would be cardio as well as surya namaskar, but a little faster than normal.

No class is the same as the previous one, so it’s not boring. We target specific body parts, which makes us different from the rest of the yoga classes.

The title From XL To XS suggests weight loss. However, in the book, you talk about asanas, kriyas, water retention and even celebrities. What is the focus of your book?

The main focus of the book is to get people who have never done yoga motivated to try it. And also to clarify that yoga isn’t slow and boring. I have used asanas and kriyas both to achieve weight loss. Because often people think that yoga is only meditation or only spirituality and feel it is a very slow process. The focus of the book is to make people aware that yoga definitely is a path of spirituality but it works first on the physical body. It is a great tool for weight loss and finally when you are happy with your physical body, you un-fog your mind and get into the social and spiritual aspects of yoga.

What is the USP of your book?

It has a positive approach to weight loss from the very first chapter. Then the book delves into changing the body structure. You could be an apple, pear or any kind of shape. After that we go into fitness. We have discussed five aspects of fitness in the book — endurance, strength, stamina, agility and body composition. You may not be fat but you may lack flexibility. The book helps you understand that.

Kareena and Saif posed for the book. Did it help push up sales?

I think it just adds to the glamour quotient. They are my celebrity clients and I wouldn’t take that credit away from them — after all, people are so into celebrities today that they will buy whatever celebrities endorse. But Kareena and Saif are icons in yoga and support the book because they have been my clients for years now.

In the book, Kareena says, ‘Payal has helped me challenge my genes and transform my body’. Tell us how you did it.

I have been teaching Bebo (Kareena) for about six years now, maybe more. The first and most important reason why Kareena looks the way she does is discipline. In six years we have never missed a class. We work out together for an hour a day, every day. If she is travelling out of town I am travelling with her.

Also, as a student, Kareena has never disobeyed me. If I tell her, ‘Bebo stand in the corner, it will help you get fitter’, she will do it. That’s the kind of faith she has in me. I get dedication from her. So she gets the best out of me.

I never work with her on a specific routine. I always keep changing her routine. Sometimes we only do asanas, only cardio or only pranayam and sometimes a combination of all.

Saif says in your book, ‘It is hard to be unhealthy once you start yoga’. Did you help him kick any bad habits?

He truly means that yoga is the best kind of exercise. When he came to us he said he had done it all but he had found nothing better than yoga. In the middle, his health was giving him a little bit of an issue, so to get healthier and leaner he took to yoga. He changed his diet, partied less. He became healthier and leaner. Everything started falling into place.

Kareena was also instrumental in Saif taking up yoga. Stamina was never an issue. Initially, flexibility was where he lagged. He has a much weaker lower body and mid-body so we had to work a lot on that. Yoga has opened up his whole body. So that’s become a routine now. He usually travels with one of my teachers or I travel with him.

‘Payal has brought about an intrinsic change in the way I feel and look,’ says Rani Mukerji. How did Rani get her toned body?

With Rani I had to work on a different level. But it was again discipline that got her to what she looks like today. With her, initially, I had to work out for two hours a day. Now it’s reduced. My hubby takes her class now for an hour a day. She doesn’t need that rigorous training anymore.

She, like many Indian women, has a heavier lower body, so I put her on a cardio routine. I would make her walk up and down the stairs of her Juhu bungalow for about 45 minutes, and then we would do a yoga class. For a body type like Rani’s, we usually do utkatasana — the chair pose in three sequences. She had heavier arms, so we would do santolasana quite often. She loves the inverted posture, so we would do a lot of sarvangasana. Now she has been with us for three-and-a-half to four years. We started about a year-and-a-half before Dil Bole Hadippa! came out.

Your celeb clientele list is endless — Kareena, Saif, Rani, Malaika Arora Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Farah Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Priya Dutt, Sussanne K Roshan, Maria Goretti, Amrita Arora Ladak, Tulip Joshi.... Who has been your most disciplined client so far?

Bebo, Saif, Malaika, Tusshar and Rani are my most disciplined clients. Then there is Maria who has been very regular. They have just got hooked on yoga.

And the least disciplined?

Farah Khan was never regular. Another person who doesn’t stick to the routine is Amrita. She gets very bored but then she comes back. She is like a yo-yo all the time. She hates exercising.

Who was your first celeb client?

Kareena Kapoor.

Which celebrities have you converted from gym or outdoor training to yoga?

Rani and Bebo were both hardcore gym people. In fact, Bebo went to the gym for eight years before she joined yoga and after that she hasn’t been back to a gym ever! Tusshar uses the gym as well as yoga because he has realised that flexibility comes with yoga. Sussanne and Malaika love the gym but they have taken to yoga because it is more health-oriented.

You say that yoga can make you look 10 years younger. Which of your clients proves that?

Sridevi. My husband has been working out with Sridevi for the past eight years and she has never missed a class with him. I cannot give you a better example than Sridevi. She is 40-something and the hottest-looking woman of her age. She is a fab example of yoga making someone look years younger. She is the idol for any woman who wants to look hot at that age.

Most of your clients are women. Why do you think there aren’t as many men?

A lot of men think that yoga is a girl’s deal… some feel it’s not very manly, which is not true. When we have all these celeb men coming out and speaking on yoga, I guess men will become a little more aware.

Do you have any instant pick-me-up yoga poses?

One thing I recommend very strongly is the surya namaskar. It’s like a magic wand to keep you healthy. If you really want to work on yourself, start with five surya namaskars a day and then do as many as your body can take. It works on your weight, your blood circulation, your entire system... so that your skin glows.

You can really look younger if you are doing surya namaskar and kapalbhati every day. You will never have a health issue in your life.

What has yoga taught you and what is left to be learnt?

Yoga has changed my life. It changed me spiritually. I thank the almighty for allowing me to help people follow the same path. So even if I have reached out to a few people and touched their lives, I feel that I have been an instrument for what god wants me to do.

When should we expect your next book?

Next year. I am working on it right now. It will pick up from where From XL To XS ends. In fact, I am jotting down the points right now but I can see some clarity coming about in it.

Which Bollywood star do you want as your yoga teacher? Tell t2@abp.in