KABADDI.
That started it all.
You see, when you are already 28 years old and haven’t stretched your physical limits ever, doubting your capabilities is very easy. Doubt is almost certain when you have a dream. The more you think about the dream, the more the doubt should grow. Doubt means there is a stretch! It means it’s not going to easy but it is going to be worth it if done right.

The ever prestigious sports meet. It was a do or die situation. 4 teams battling it out for the top spot. I started the game from where my team was. I gave birth to the idea of kabaddi there. It was my arrogance that somehow made it possible for my area to form a team and participate last year. But we lost miserably. We were placed fourth in the ranking. Last.

This year, the venue was my area. Home ground. People would look up to it. I had done my initial bit by forming a nice team and getting together people who were as passionate about the sport as was required. We had practiced for nearly 40 days and we had developed solid strengths. The coach and team were confident about the team’s improved game and even more on my performance in the practice sessions. I mean I was amazing! So amazing that I myself felt good! It’s that feeling you get when you accomplish from yourself something that you couldn’t really believe you could ever! I gave my blood, sweat, and soul to the practice and it had paid off. I was definitely one of the strongest bet of the entire team.
I do not wish to praise myself by explaining how good I got, but I do it because it is important to understand the next part. The rule of the game was no player should be over 85 kgs. This rule changed it all.

A little more background about me is required here. So please, bear with me. I will keep it short at the technical spots. I was an endomorph, meaning I had the body type that stores fat very easily. This body type is very prone to obesity as they put on weight very easily. Also, I don’t run. Ever. Unless I am running for life.

20 days before the competition, I was 92 kg. I had 20 days to get to 84 kg mark, keeping 1 kg as the safe margin. This meant dropping 8 kilograms. Now I will walk you through how I did it.

So the first basic steps were easy to strategize and implement. Diet modulation began. No fats, no sugars, no complex carbs. Workout every day. Drink lots of water. Improve the sleep cycle. All this was being done.

The first big revelation was the need to run. This is what I need you all to read and take information from. I understood that in order to lose that much fat that quickly, I needed to run.

To give you a little perspective, one kilogram of pure fat contains 7700 calories. Doing a 30-minute intense physical workout, where you lift crazy weights, can burn around 170 calories for a 185-pound man. Running, on the other hand, can make the same weight man burn around 410 calories in 30 minutes at 9-10 kilometer per hour. This means while physical workout would take 45 days to lose a kilogram of fat, running would do the same in 18 days.

Now that you have understood the theory, understand the process. I have never liked running and have always shied away from it. But when I had no other option, I did it right.

Step 1: Get your running shoes right.
Very critical, for we generally run on hard surfaces. These surfaces exert back pressure whenever our foot hits the ground. These continuous jerks of pressure are absorbed by all our joints and in the long run, the joints get damaged due to this. Hence, it is very important to use proper running shoes with correct cushion and shape.

Step 2: Get your running posture right.
You need to take care how your foot lands on the ground while you run. You should not stomp your feet while running. This means your foot should not land all at once on the ground. This flat-foot running is detrimental to your knee and ankle joints. The rolling motion needs to be kept in mind wherein your heel should hit the ground first and create a rolling motion towards touching the front of your foot. Hence when the toe and sole is in contact with the ground, the heel should be taken off by then. This circular rolling motion makes sure minimal pressure is exerted on the joints and enables you to run for longer time.

Step 3: Layers matter.
The dress code is crazy for running. We need to ensure we generate maximum heat and let minimum get off. I used to wear one thermal inner, one t-shirt, one sweatshirt zipped up with a cap on my head. All this would trap a lot of heat when you run and help keep body temperatures elevated for longer. This, in turn, would burn fat speedily.

Step 4: Be clear of the motive.
The motive is to keep my heart rate spiked and body warm. Simple. To keep heart rate spiked, I would have to stretch my limits as I run. This means if I am very comfortable running at 6, I would run at 7 for I need it to be a little difficult for me. Not too difficult because I need to do it for a long time, say 40-50 minutes.
So I get my heart rate up and this, in turn, signals my lungs to breathe faster as more oxygen is needed for the fast-flowing blood. Now when I breathe faster and deeper, I immediately start burning fatty tissues in my body. Simple.

Step 5: Do the time.
Running isn’t easy for those like me. But, you need to do it for a long time nevertheless. One simple trick is to break the time in fragments. I used to run for 40 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes in the evening. For the evening time, I used to break it even further. I used to start my evening workout with 45 minutes of running and conclude it with another 45 minutes of running. This way I never felt the mental heat.

This way, I got to 86 kilograms 3 days before the competition. This was time to go crazy. Now please note that till now whatever was written can be implemented by everyone to lose fat. But please understand what I write below about what I did in the remaining three days will make sense only if you have a stringent deadline to lose weight as I did.

Having come this far, I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t even leave any margin for error. My target weight wasn’t 85 kilograms but 84 kilograms, leaving a 1-kilogram margin for exogenous factors. Just in case what Murphy’s Law suggests comes to life.

The next three days were defining. I took guidance from a very renowned and experience powerlifting coach. I had to drop carbs to a bare minimum, switch to liquid diets and lessen my water intake.
I was eating one granola bar every day. I consumed pulses and curd only. I took 2-3 glasses of water in a day, not even a liter full. In short, I was killing myself with all that running and physical workout, and so less diet. But, as I said before, it was imperative as I was on a clock.

What you need to understand here about the lessening of water from the diet is the logic behind it, which is that our bodies store a large quantity of water. This reserve is utilized only when demands aren’t met externally, with us consuming lesser water than our body requires. It is similar to the calorie case, where we consume lesser calories than we use up and thus creates a calorie deficit to enable the body to burn stored fat and help us lose weight. Similarly, when we consume lesser water than what our body requires, it utilizes the stored water and thus our water weight drops, thereby dropping our overall body weight. While this is not a healthy and sustainable way to lose weight, I repeat, it was important to meet the deadline.

Finally, the day of the competition arrived. We had to give our weight measurement 10 minutes before the game began. In those 10 minutes, I had a plan to eat as many calories as possible to gain energy boost for the game. I had bananas, big chocolate bars, and energy drinks ready in my bag.

I gave my weight. It was 83.8 kilograms. The whole team started cheering. They knew that the final hurdle was crossed. I suddenly felt super confident about winning all games as I could play and contribute!

I hope this real-life story helps you understand things about fat loss and help you gain insights for your own struggle to get fitter.

Thanks for reading. 🙂