Featured by Indian Blogger

The Day when enough was enough !

Goals transform a random walk into a chase.

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Well once again we are in the month of July and once again my New Year resolutions are missing their targets. 

Like every year, this year too, weight-loss was my number 1 priority. And to keep things simple, I decided to lose just 1Kg (2.2 pounds) every month. See, just 1 kg a month and I would lose 12 Kgs by the year end. Simply Brilliant!

Well, guess it was not very simple, as after 6 months and 22 days, all that I managed to lose is 800 gms or 0.8 kgs. Damn! Just 0.8 kgs !

I could blame many things for affecting my goals this year. I am is the worst phase of my life currently. My business is in the doldrums, I have some serious financial issues because of which I am not doing mentally to well as well. To add to it, someone very close to me is battling cancer and seeing him suffer is probably the most painful thing I have ever experienced. To top it, I too have been having health issues for the last 5 months. So the gist being, I had and have every reason to be in the shape that I find myself in today, but then these reasons are also nothing but excuses. And excuses don’t get you anywhere.

Today when I decide to bring realign myself to achieve my weight goal I have a mountain of problems to overcome. You see, mental health is something which really hinders your growth, and to be honest, my current financial situation has put a lot of stress on me socially and which in turn has hindered my mental health.

I can go on-and-on about my financial problems, but this is not what this blog is about. This blog is to achieve my health goals no matter what comes in my way. I am going to “Cut the Crap” from my life in order to “Cut The Flab” from my body.

Yes, I don’t have proper shoes to go on early morning walks, So what? I have my slippers.

Yes, I don’t have expensive gym memberships, So What? I have a plethora of free apps for home exercises on Google play store.

Yes, I don’t have a paid dietician , So What? I have apps like HealthifyMe and MyFitnessPal to help me track those calories.

So you see, I have a lot many difficulties but to win my battle against my weight, I need to take up this fight. 

Speaking about difficulties, the number one difficulty which I first need to overcome is to find time in my schedule. I don’t know how, but of late I have become a late riser. I am not able to wake up on time to fit in some exercise into my schedule. Yes, daily I set my alarm for 5am, but you know how that alarm ends up…… Snooze, Snooze, OFF. 

I will have to find a way to get up early and break this mould of getting up late. I have a few ideas in my head, will start trying them from tomorrow morning.

Then comes my lack of basic equipments. Like I said I don’t even have a decent pair of jogging shoes, but then again, I am not starting my weight loss with running and walking. As I had mentioned earlier, I am not in the best of physical health. So I am looking at very gentle yoga and pranayam exercises to start with. Also some home exercises would help to start-off my journey.

Any weight-loss journey involves having a balanced diet. Well here too the problem would be my lack of access to a dietician. I know that without a proper dietician it would be extremely difficult to balance the nutrition but that’s a trade-off I am forced to make. You see even apps like Healthify have nutritional counseling and tracking in their app, but it is a paid service which I just cannot afford. Maybe in the coming weeks I might be able to, but certainly not as of now. 

Now after all this, I do have to mention that willpower and determination are going to be the real fuel which would be required to propel myself towards success. 

No matter how many shoes, fitness bands, gym clothes and protein shakes you buy, the only thing which would make get off the bed is the burning desire to achieve your goal. And I think this time I have that burning desire in me to go all out and win. I know I can do it, and I will do it. 

Yes, it may sound funny, since I have said this so many times before but this time I am going to make it happen. It is just that when life stares back at you with a vengeance, you have no choice but to fight life and come out on top. This year has been so “in-your-face” at me, that I was shaken to my core. It made me go through a spiral of emotions and it took me a good 3 months just to come to terms with it and finally chart out my goals. And that’s when I realised how my body would just not be able to tackle the curveball which life has thrown at me. 

“Health is Wealth”, I had read that many times, but it is only today that I have realised its real meaning. It is today, when I have hit my all time low, is when I have realised why I need a healthy body. Only a healthy body can house a healthy mind which in turn helps you lead a healthy life. 

No more excuses, No more giving up.

No matter how slow I move, but I would move everyday. I will drag my arse off my bed and move towards my goal, everyday. Everyday would be a step towards my goal. On some days it might just be a single step and on some other days it might be a 1000, but a step would be taken daily. That’s a promise!

Look out for my other blogs to know how and what I am up to and I am pretty sure that you will find me moving towards my goal.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you will be inspired with my journey.

by Indian Blogger

6am it is !

“Life is too short,” she panicked, “I want more.” He nodded slowly, “Wake up earlier.”

~Dr. SunWolf

The most boring thing which nobody wants to hear is free-advice. Most don’t care, while some like me, hate it when someone offers me free-advice. The irony here is that in the next few lines, this is exactly what I am going to give you.

It’s been 2 days since I had made up my mind to “cut the crap” in order to “Cut-The-Flab“. The first thing which I decided was to get into the habit of getting up early. You see, when we over-burden ourselves with too many routines all at once, we stick to none. So this time I am taking it slowly, correcting one thing at a time.

As I had said earlier, I needed more time to do things to get life back on track. To do more, I needed more time, and the best thing to do is to reclaim life from your sleep. I was staying in bed for too long for too many days now. I had become a sloth who remained in bed for anything between 7-9 hours. Which is plain ridiculous!

I have tried in the past to wake up like the navy seals at 4am, but that is just not possible for me, not at this point of time. Even waking up at 5am was something which I was not able to judiciously follow. It was always a hit-or-miss scenario, some days a hit and a miss on others and soon the habit would be broken. 

So this time I am trying to wake up just 1 hour before my regular time. 60 minutes is a lot of time to add to your schedule. 60 minutes is generally the time people spend at gyms. 60 minutes is a lot of time if used well. 

What good is just 60 minutes?

Right now, 60 minutes for me is about 10 minutes of pranayam, 10 mins of exercises and 10 mins of stretching. I know that adds up to only 30 mins, but I need the rest to just to make sure that I wake up at 6am every single day. It helps me to do things at my own pace and not feel overwhelmed by the waking early bit. It allows me to ease into the routine and not feel too tired or worked up. Like I said earlier, I need to make getting up early a habit first. So my only priority right now is to be wide awake at 6am and really not care as to how I spend my next 1 hour. These activities which I am doing right now is only to fill the hour and have no real direction. Once I get into the habit of waking up every single day at 6am, only then will I start putting more effort into filling up these 60 minutes. 

In the near future I see myself filling these 60 mins with things like walking, weight training and meditation. And once that goal is achieved then I will try pushing this 60 minutes to 90 minutes and finally to 120 minutes i.e. to start getting up at 5 AM. getting up at 5AM would be a good point in my life, but that is still some days ahead. So right now it is only making sure to get up at 6 AM.