Another milestone in my journey

Thank you for choosing to read this blog. You love and support keeps me going. It will make me really happy if you read the entire blog. It will put a wide smile on my face if you can also provide your comments personally. But no pressure.

If at any point of this blog you go "Ahh fuck it. I am done" and proceed to close this blog, please don't close. Just read the last two sessions of this blog.

If anything from this blog offends you, I am sorry. I just wanna say that it is either poor English or my inability to frame that sentence or my terrible sense of humor. If any part of the blog, where I have addressed as "you", offends you please imagine me standing in front of the mirror and reading it. I have the habit of talking to myself and everything in this blog is more for me than for you. So chill. If it sounds dumb or offensive you are probably hearing one of my most intense mental talk.

Why part two?

This blog is likely the sequel to my previous blog which was about me cutting down nearly about 10kg of bodyweight. I transformed my body from fat to a little less fat. For people who thought that that blog was the last, "Naaah. I've got another one for you". I know, it is like on of those movies which was pretty good and satisfactory until someone thought "Let's do a second part" and then fucked up the whole movie, leaving you hating the second and the first movie altogether. Well, I hope this blog doesn't create such a scenario. Honestly, I never thought I would be writing another one. "That's what the said when the released the second movie too, bruh!!" is that what you are thinking? Well I am sorry. But let me explain why this is a blog.

So this is what happened. I was about to post the cool video that I edited, on Instagram. Then my inner self said "Remember your previous post where you said you did'nt what to show off? " "Remember saying that you did'nt what your transformation stories to be like one of those I-got-packs-what-you-got-bro-vibed posts?" "Now just because you got some nice pics this time, you are posting, you fucking hypocrite" . After all this mental shit talk, I thought okay lets write a blog - "My journey towards the center of body dissatisfaction - Part 2". So that's why this is a blog AGAIN.

The real reason

But the real reason why I chose, despite being lazy, to write this down as a blog is that, there are people out there who feel bad looking at transformation videos/photos. They end up comparing. They end up feeling dissatisfied about their bodies. They end up under-valuing their accomplishments. They end up losing trust in the "process". They try rushing it. How do I know all this? Well, that's because.....

I want all those people to know the process. I need you to know what I have learnt from this journey so far. I strongly believe that the lessons are more valuable than the results themselves. I just want these lessons to accompany you in your journey, through thick and thin. I want you to come back and read this blog to keep you going. That's why I have taken the pain and effort to write this blog with whatever English I can remember from all those GOOD character developing English movies that I have watched so far. One last time, the process and the underlying lessons are more important than the results. The results are only for, well, showing off.

Once again thank you for choosing to read this blog.

Recap or as movies call it, "the flashback"

I remember going home in the month of November 2019 after Covid lockdown and things. I visited my grandma's and to my surprise, the usual dialogue was missing - "Look at you, why don't you eat properly. I can literally see your bones. What is this?." I thought my grandma was sick or something. So asked grandma if she was okay and told her why I thought so. She was like "No kutta... I am alright its just that you are FUCKING FAT NOW!!!" (She never said that.) My colleagues did tell me that I had put on weight. I never trusted them. Only then I realized something and this is very important - if you visit your grandma's after a long time and she doesn't tell you to take care of your health and eat properly, then its is time for you to take your ass to the gym.

So I came back to Bangalore, joined the gym, started dieting, working out and cut down about 9 kgs in four months. I knew I won and that everything was back to normal when I visited my grandma's and she added an extra piece of that fish fry. Everything was back to normal including my grandma's dialogue.

What happened after that?

Like all those good things in my life, my progress also came to an unexpected halt. Covid second wave stuck and I had to go home. Gyms were all closed. Whatever muscle I built simply disappeared. But I started going for a run. I ran and ran and ran. Somedays I ran 8kms, someday 6 and somedays 12. I was too scared to become fat again. So I was cautious about my diet too. I continued to lose weight. I was 72 when I came home. I reached 68kgs.

At that point Covid wave settled down and I got a new job in Chennai. Yaaayyyyyy!!! right???? No!!!!!!!!! Coming to Chennai was like those it-was-at-this-moment-he-knew-he-fucked-up moments. Don't take me bad. Chennai is awesome in its own way. But Bangalore was where I felt like home for its own reasons (*coughs*...chicks). I had to rent a house and set it up all by myself. It was a hectic job. The heat, the dust, the new place, the expenditure, the food, the new job, the new people, the mosquitoes, everything took a toll of me. I lost a lot of weight and also the will the live. But somehow I set things up, got the house ready, and started cooking. Everything was so tightly packed. I couldn't even find the time to take a peaceful dump. But again somehow everything was slowly starting to settle down.

Two things were really troubling me. Number one, I was all alone. It took a while for me to get along with the people here. I felt so marooned. I was very depressed. Number two, I wasn't earning much. I had to pay the advance in chunks since I couldn't afford to pay it all at once. I struggled a lot with money. Its not that I had to beg. But it was very bothering to see my money vaporize into thin air like petrol. One fine day I had some 40k in my account and the next day "poof", I was broke. That was so painful.

Despite all that my old friends joined me during these initial days in Chennai, self doubt, depression, anxiety, insecurities and personal issues. I wanted to set things right. So I did the thing every guy does when he fucks his whole life up, join the gym.

Fast-forward a month ahead and I was at the gym. After about three months of working out and eating somewhat clean, I got the chance to click some pictures of by body. I have put on some muscle mass. My body has bulked up, fortunately, with more muscle than fat. I have added the images by the end of the blog. I want you to read through the lessons before seeing that.

Lessons I learnt:

1. Win lose win

When results started coming while I was working out in Bangalore, I expected building some muscle mass and definition a few months from then. But when Covid stuck and my company closed I had to go home. Since gyms were all closed, I started running. As I mentioned before I ran a lot and combined with a poor diet, I lost all the muscle mass. I still retained a few muscle definition but other than that pretty much everything else was gone. It was not a happy thing seeing all those gains shrink away. Coming to Chennai made things even worse. I could'nt eat well, sleep well and combined with other personal stuff, my muscles went "Ctrl A + delete". I never felt like joining the gym again. But with the push of some (one) good people I joined the gym. It was so hard working out to build everything all over again. But I kept going hoping that someday I will be back on track. I am glad that I kept going and that's why I am here today. "What the fuck is the lesson. Say it already" Yup I can hear you.

Sometimes, the journeys in our lives never go as planned. We might be winning and we expect to keep winning until we reach our goals. We find it hard to accept failures, obstacles and detours. There will be moments in your journey where you may have to stop, pause, or even go back. You may lose all that you had gained since the beginning of the journey. You may find ourselves helpless at such moments. During such moments, I want you to try. When you see the things you took so much effort to built, wither away, I want you be patient. I want you wait. Wait for things to get better, all the while still doing whatever is possible. When things clear up bounce back up. Never lose hope. Your dream is a dream and it never dies until you do. So expect failures, it will hurt, it may even drag you back to square one, but whatever happens, how much ever things get delayed, wherever you find yourselves, just stand up, dust yourself off and resume walking your journey.

Note: There is this thing called muscle memory. It's body's way of saying "Don't worry buddy. I'll make things easier for you." Just Google "Muscle memory".

2. The bare minimum

The gym sessions in Bangalore were awesome. The gym was good. The coaches were good and of course, there were pretty girls too. Apart from the gym, I even got to cook and hence could eat as I wished. But when I came home there were no gyms. I couldn't cook because my mom already owned the kitchen. I couldn't eat the food I wanted to because Indian moms think that their ladies finger dish bathed in oil is better than oatmeal. I couldn't take protein supplements because my mom thinks they are steroids. All those good habits and diet plans I followed in Bangalore simply were out of reach.

But somehow I did at least the bare minimum. I couldn't convince my mom to eat 4 eggs a day. But I ate one. I couldn't lift weights. But I did a few push ups everyday. I couldn't follow a clean diet. But I ate whatever was healthy. There were a few things which I couldn't control. While at Bangalore I never ate any snacks mainly because I never bought them and because they weren't near me. But home was different. Some form of snacks was always there at home. I won't lie that I never ate them. I did eat them. But I made sure that I never over did snacking, Why I am I telling you all this?

Well, we are obsessed with being perfect. A perfect workout routine or nothing. A perfect diet plan or nothing. A perfect morning or nothing. Things will never be perfect. If you don't get to go by your "perfect" plan, at least do the bare minimum. If you can't workout at the gym, try working out at your home. If you can't workout at all because of some health issue, try eating clean. If you can't eat healthy all day along, at least eat one clean meal. If you can't eat one clean meal whole, at least avoid some part of the meal that's oily/fatty/fried. Worse, if you are depressed, heartbroken or sad and you can neither workout nor focus on eating clean, at least drink enough water and pee a lot. That will keep you healthy to some degree.

Stop waiting for things to be prefect, the perfect diet plan, the perfect workout routine, the perfect daily ritual. Stop putting off things waiting for things to be perfect. Stop trying to create that perfect day where you eat clean, workout like one of those protein supplement ads and sleep like a baby. Start somewhere, start small, do at least the bare minimum. The bare minimum may not get you anywhere, it may never yield you any progress, but remember doing the bare minimum is sometimes better than doing nothing. In my case, the bare minimum of trying to eat healthy and going out for runs kept me from putting on weight again. It may not have yielded me muscles but it was still better than putting on fat. No matter what situation you find yourself in right now remember, things will be alright. May be not immediately but eventually. Until then do what you can even if its the bare minimum. Don't slip back into those bad habits just because things aren't perfect.

3. Pause, appreciate, resume

Appreciate yourself.

Start appreciating yourself. "Yaa...we know. Self appreciation, self love blah....blah...blah....We have heard it before. Say something new." Is this what you are thinking? Well, then tell me ten things you did today that you are proud of. The small things, the little accomplishments, the tiny daily wins. Go on, I will wait..

I can hear some of you saying.................

More often than not, we see other people do amazing stuff. "She baked a cake. Wooooww!!". "He went out cycling. Noice." "He got stoned. Damnnnnn!!!" We appreciate everybody else except us. Maybe you do. If you do, you can skip this para. But if don't, keep reading. You got to acknowledge your small wins. Did you wake up despite feeling sleepy? Did you decide against taking another piece of that oily/sugary snack? Did you workout despite not feeling like doing so? Did you run/walk a few extra steps? Did you push that extra rep? Did you do that extra pushup? Did you push yourself to be happy despite all that mental mess? Did you choose that useful video over some random YouTube reel? All these are wins. Some of them may be out of the context of this whole blog but my point remains the same. Acknowledge small wins. During your journey appreciating these small wins is what is going to take you to make your journey enjoyable. No matter how small and insignificant they may seem, they really are your building blocks to achieving your goals. When you lose that first 100 grams, pause for a moment, feel proud, acknowledge that small win. It may not have changed the way you look. It may not catch the attention of people. But its a win, big or small and you have worked for it. Appreciate yourself. Self appreciation is paramount. If you don't appreciate your efforts then no one's appreciation really matters.

4. Love the now

Most of us embark on a fitness journey because we want to change the way we look in the mirror, or in pictures or in clothes. This is not a bad thing. What's bad is that we begin the journey by hating our current physical state.

It is understandable that you want to attain a better physical appearance. It is also understandable that you aren't really happy about the way you look. But none of this justifies your act of hating yourselves for being who you are. Its a good thing, wanting to change. But it is not really a wise thing start it by hating your current situation.

Why? Well, because if there is someone in this whole wide world who can take you out of this situation, then it is the NOW you (you in the preset). It is the NOW you who will have to decide, plan, work, fail, get back up and work again towards a better you. All this won't be easy if you hate the NOW you. No matter how bad your current situation is, it is all that you have. It it all there is for you to work from. It's your only resource. It is the ground you stand on and you cant jump without it beneath you. So no matter where you are, you could be eating junk food all three meals, you could be binging on movies and series, you could be waking up at 12 PM after snoozing the alarm multiple times, you could be so lazy that a sloth sees you in slow motion or you could be at your worst possible mental or physical state. But none of this should make you hate yourself. If you have screwed up your routine, that's okay. May be you feel bad for that but don't carry that feeling any forward to the point that you start hating yourself.

When you hate your current situation, you try running away from it asap, you try rushing the process and you expect results quicker. When results don't come as you expect, it frustrates you, it makes you lose hope in the process. This is when people usually quit and slip back to old habits. So stop hating, start working. Your decision to build a habit or break a bad one should begin with acceptance and not with dissatisfaction and hate. It should be fueled by the will to better yourself and never by hate for the current situation. No matter how many times you fail, remember that its okay. Its in the process. Push yourself. But all through your journey you must pause at regular intervals to accept, appreciate and love the person you are at that moment no matter how far away you are from your goal.

Trust me, its never easy to work on yourself and push yourself when the only reason for doing that is the hate you have developed on yourself. I hated me for who I was. I know how it feels to be in a bad mental and physical state all the while hating myself. Trust me, if you want to escape that situation you must start slow, with a lot of acceptance and an insane amount of hope towards a better tomorrow. It takes time. You are all you have, especially during those initial months of your journey when the results are just your glimmering dream and far from materializing. Take it one day at a time. No situation is bad as long as you accept it and work patiently and hopefully towards a better tomorrow.

5. Why did you start?

It is easy these days to look at the physical transformation stories of people and decide "I want to do that. I want to be like that." The whole point of fitness and living a healthy life has changed. Eating a balanced diet, sleeping well and mentally at peace are no longer considered as checkboxes when it comes to living a healthy life. A flat stomach and big/shredded body parts have become the norms of a healthy life. When did this happen? What decides a healthy lifestyle? When did our perspective of fitness change? Why is a little tummy fat and love handles considered unhealthy? Don't our parents have them? Don't our grandparents have them? If we are honest, they are all healthier than us. I wish it wasn't this way, but we are gonna face more illnesses than them, we already are. My father never hit the gym, but he more active than me and he is on his 60s.

Our definition of "being fit" is flawed, thanks to social media. Its almost always about how well your body looks. You could be eating trash and pumping in PEDs, but if you have a flat tummy and some muscles, you are fit. Your body could be screaming for a good night's sleep or a well balanced diet. Nobody cares. You got packs, you are fit. Nobody cares about the any other aspect of fitness. Its almost always about the physical appearance.

Here is the definition of fitness and then of "being physically fit".

Where is the word "body" or the word "big muscles" or the word "flat stomach" ? Where are they?

Don't take me wrong, I am not trying to convince you to settle for whatever physical situation you are in. I am just trying to say that being healthy or fit is far from having that flat stomach, rounder shoulders, jawline or slim thighs. If you want it, then go for it. But don't forget to pay attention to the actual things fitness is all about. Don't let social media force you into anything. Don't hate your body or feel dissatisfied for not meeting up with the social media's body standards. Your body does so many important things to keep you going. It is working behind your consciousness to keep you alive. It is fighting diseases. It is supporting you despite all those terrible things you say and do to it.

Lot of us have already been consumed by these body standards. It has consumed me and it has consumed most of you as well. Don't trust me? I will prove it. Imagine an intense action scene from a movie where the hero goes shirtless. Try imagining or if that's difficult, watch it again. Feel the intensity. Feel the rawness. Understand how much those muscles add to the whole gravity of that scene. Understand how much those muscles convince you to believe in those stunts. Now use your imagination to switch that shredded/built body with a skinny fat body. Suddenly, all those insane stunts seem unfitting. All those punches seem hard to swallow. The hero doesn't seem masculine anymore. See, our perspective of strength, power and masculinity has changed. It's flawed.

Why am I telling you all this? My blog is one amongst the millions of transformation stories out there. There could be a thousand more that are in the process right now. Your Instagram page may be bombarding you with a lot of such stories too. None of this should instill dissatisfaction or hate about the way you look in the mirror. None of this should create an image in your mind that not meeting with the body standard's of the social media means that you are unhealthy.

Don't force yourself into workout routines or insane diet plans just to transform yourself for the sake of looking cool. An awesome body may get you a lot of things. But someday all that body will fade away and when it happens don't be surprised to see all those things that came along with it, slowly slip away. I hope you understand what I am trying to convey. Physical state is temporary, mental state is permanent. Attract things based on what is permanent, if you want them to stay.

The End

I don't know if this blog is well composed enough to keep hold your attention till the end, but here is what I have to say. Some people may hate me for always talking/writing about working out, gym, eating healthy and all that. All I have got to say is this: I see working out and eating healthy as the best form of self care. I have gone through the darkest of times alone and my body has always been supportive. It has never let me down. It has pushed me to go to my job on days I never slept. It has never been a nail in the coffin. It has kept me healthy all through the pandemic. It has digested all those bad stuff I ate. It has never given up on me. Taking care of it is the least I can do. I only wish you to do the same. I want you all to know that despite whatever little transformation I have been through, I am the same person. So a better physical state never equals a better mental state. Happiness and confidence is a state of mind. It is never the body. I have been depressed. I have been through darkness. There were night when I went to sleep wishing not to wake up the next day. I have come a long way from all that. I still go through stuff. I am telling you all this not to create a feel of sympathy or to remind you of your dark days. I am telling you all this because I want you to know that if a guy like me can do this, you can too. Never let hope die. Just keep going. Someday things will be fine, FOR SURE. Start small. Start slow. No timelines, no last dates.

Talk

We all go through mental warfare. Self doubt, anxiety, depression, dissatisfaction, loneliness and what not. We all are fighting demons in our head every single second. Fortunately, we have mastered the superpower to hide it really well. Someone could be filled with suicidal thoughts and yet not even a trace of that will be detectable. Deceiving smiles, jokes, laughter and talks do an amazing job in hiding the mental war one goes through. Sometimes all we need is someone to open up to. The world is so connected yet we feel so marooned. So many likes, comments and messages yet no one to vent out to. What makes it even worse is opening up or seeking help is often considered weak. Added to this is the fear of being judged. What if I open up and they think I am crazy? What if I tell them what's bothering me and they make fun of me for worrying for such seemingly small stuff? What if I tell them and they simply don't care? Well, all your fears can come true if you open up to the wrong people. All this has happened to me as well. That's why I can be of little help. If you find no one to talk to just know that I am here. You are not alone. Take care. Peace.

Thanks

All this was possible because of many good people in my life. There is always this amazing person who I wanna thank but can never thank enough. This person has done a LOTTTTT. I wanna thank all those people who supported my previous blog. You mean a lot to me. Your support and love motivated me to write this one. Akhil and Satheesh...thank you guys. I wanna thank my mom, dad, sis and cousins. (They probably don't give a fuck about this blog, but anyways.) Finally, last but not the least...

Results

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/dac0d4_91209a0928184ea79c39634fae1433a2/720p/mp4/file.mp4