Prad Fitness Journey

I have created a personal website to share my fitness journey..

https://pradfitness.com

It is still work in progress, but you are more than welcome to have a look and provide feedback!

Welcome Prad Fitness LATEST ARTICLES What Motivated me in weight loss? In my previous post, I had mentioned about blood test and how it played a crucial role in my weight loss journey. In September 2021, I finally decided to do something about my weight... Read More Blood Tests I did my annual blood tests e...

12 months difference (Feb 2023 vs Feb 2024)

Achievements accomplished in my weight loss journey

1. Started with walking 2,000 steps a day, then increased slowly every week, every month.. now achieving a total of 20,000 steps everyday! (It is very rare occasion, I don’t do 20K steps a day)

2. By walking steps everyday, accomplished a total of 6,700 kms so far..

3. Even if it rains, cloudy, sunny, always went out for walks to complete daily target steps.. No excuses!

4. Since September 2021, Started training with a personal trainer for twice a week, not missing a single gym session till date.

5. Hardly slept in the afternoon! Even if I do, it will be a quick nap.

6. Did all the medical tests that my doctor asked me to do… never missed any single tests even when some of my friends and family said “unnecessary”

7. Started eating healthy.. slowly avoided eating Indian snacks (toughest part) - from having Indian snacks everyday to minimum of 5 times a month now. Never drank any soft drinks since I started this journey. The only drink I have everyday is just plain water..

8. Always had 7-9 hours of sleep..Avoided watching tv, movies at night. It’s sleep time, so everything can wait. No compromise.

9. Worked for 8 hours a day at office… Not opening my laptop or having work related discussions after business hours. Haven’t configured office emails and chats on phone has helped immensely.

10. Think positively, stayed away from negative people.. There are more people who will make fun of your efforts rather than supporting it.

11. From day 1, I was committed to achieve my goals.. This is the most important step.

12. I never compare myself with others…

13. I only have home cooked food and very rarely go to restaurants.. when I do, I watch what I am eating!

14. Finally, I became selfish to achieve my goals… And never pay attention to what others say/think about me!

The below is etched in my mind!

“I am accountable for my actions, and I need to do something to fix it”

“Accept the reality and work harder… There is no shortcuts”

The difference between these two pics is 2 years and 37.7 kgs..

My inspiring progress on Abdominal/waist circumference

I’ve mentioned about this previously.

Why measure waist circumference?

People carry fat in different parts of their bodies. Some people carry extra body fat around their middle. This is more of a health risk than carrying weight on your hips and thighs.

Waist circumference is a better estimate of ‘visceral fat’. This is the dangerous internal fat that coats your organs.

Measuring visceral fat can give a more accurate predictor of some health conditions.

These include:
* cardiovascular disease risk
* metabolic syndrome
* type 2 diabetes

These are the waist circumference thresholds that indicate an increased risk of disease:

*If you are a female:*
* your risk is increased if your waist measurement is 80 cm or more
* your risk is greatly increased if your waist measurement is 88 cm or more

*If you are a male:*
* your risk is increased if your waist measurement is 94 cm or more
* your risk is greatly increased if your waist measurement is 102 cm or more

The below numbers is a comparison of results of abdominal circumference of my last 3 scans and show why it is important to be in an optimal range..

*Sep 2021 - 122.6 cms*
*Dec 2022 - 110.6 cms*
*Dec 2023 - 92.9 cms*
*My target - 85 cms or less*

‎if you are keen and interested to follow my fitness journey, do take a minute to follow my WhatsApp channel 🙏🏻🙏🏻

For those who are already following my channel, heartfelt thanks 🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️❤️

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Regular comparison photo!

If you are wondering what does daily walking, strength training, eating healthy and being on diet would do, this is what it does to you!

Diet

In the last 6-8 weeks, I hit a snag in my weight loss. Even though, I kept doing what has given me results (walking, exercise, strength training, being active)

I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong or didn’t know what I should do further? In all honesty, I was frustrated.

Chatting with couple of my well wishers, they told me it is completely normal to hit a snag and this is what would happen over a period of time. So, I decided that I needed to change my strategy. Speaking further with my trainer and regular doctor, they recommended me to look at my diet. I told them I was eating healthy with occasional eat out and indulging. They told me even if I do it, without me knowing, there will be some hidden calories which would explain the reason for snag. The suggestion was to look for a dietitian.

I started to get more understanding on the reasoning of why diet is critical to weight loss. When we are put on calorie deficit, the body to get energy, taps into fat and converts that into energy, there by reducing weight. This is just my understanding, but there may be other reasons as well which I haven’t listed yet.

Now, I searched google and found an dietician back in India. Speaking with her few times, gave a confidence that she would the right fit as she understood my health numbers and how diet will play a critical role to help reduce weight and improve my health numbers.

I went overseas for a week so we both decided we will start the diet after a week or two.

Did I start my diet? What diet I was put on?

Pic courtesy: google..

It has been a long delay since I posted my last update and my apologies!

I have been well making some significant progress in my weight loss journey!

20,000 steps a day!

Wait, hey Pradeep! Are you crazy? Have you gone insane?

Yes, this is what many told me when I decided to increase my daily step count from 10K..

So what made me do this?

At work, I saw someone posted in August about the STEPtember challenge!

So what’s that challenge?

This STEPtember, join a community of over 120,000 Australians moving together to drive meaningful change for people with cerebral palsy.

STEPtember is a fun and inclusive virtual challenge that encourages you to move your way to 10,000 steps a day - whenever, wherever, and however you like - from 1-30 September.

This motivated me to form a team of 4 and do this challenge. My goal was to somehow take this opportunity to increase my daily step count from 10K to whatever many I can add to it.

I understood, it is unlikely to suddenly increase my step count (even though I go to the gym on most days for strength training and eat healthy). My mindset need to change and I have to train my brain to accept that.

So, I came up with a very simple strategy.

I used to walk daily morning for 90 minutes and do close to 11K-12K steps. If I could do the same in the evening, I can very well achieve 20K steps.

How will I find time in the evening? What should I sacrifice?

Normally in the evening, I used to watch an hour of TV/YouTube siting in the couch or in the bed.

An idea sparked “Why can’t I do the same thing by walking?”

This is how i trained my brain to start walking in the evening.

Fast forward, I was able to achieve at-least 20K steps or more every day in September. I went overseas for a week and at that time I wasn’t able to do 20K/day, but did around close to 15K/18K steps.

My numbers in STEPtember challenge below:

I achieved a total of 842,467 steps thereby achieving 28,082 steps/day.

A 3 month comparison picture 😎😎