Kickstart Fitness|Calisthenics|Military Style workout

The military incorporates some of the best full body weight workouts without any equipment.

Here, I have researched some Indian Army, US Navy Seal and British Military workout routines to create a plan that is workable and gives amazing results.

The Kickstart Military workout is very basic but when you do this at a continuous pace and with high intensity, your body will feel the pain.

The best thing about these workouts is that they teach you to listen to y our body. You will be able to complete complex moves and practically be much fitter and stronger.

The workout is divided into 2 work days and active rest days with a yoga session peppered in. You can always choose to jog or run during active rest days but do not stay still.

This workout plan is good for 2 weeks.

Day 1: Full Body Workout

Warm Up: 5-10 times with no rest

10 Jumping Jacks

10 Pushups

10 squats

Lower Body: Beginner 3 sets 15 reps, intermediate 3 sets 20 reps and advanced 5 sets 20 reps

Lunges

Lunge Jump

Squat Jump

Upper Body:

Rowing

Birds

Core:

Crunches

Bicycle Crunches

Reverse Crunches

 

Day 2: Upper Body: 3 sets minimum, 5 sets for advanced level

Wrist Stretch

Wrist rotation

Arm circles

Jumping Jacks

Mountain Climber

Shoulder Stretches

Alternate hand forward and backward pushups

Jack and jill

Cherry Picker

Touch Touch

Day 3: Active rest Day: Suryanamaskar:

Day 4: Lower Body: 3 sets minimum at 15 reps

Sitting Calf stretch

Reverse Crunch

Fluter Kick+sitting flutter kick

Thai Plank

Regular Plank

Standing Lunge

Lunge Jump

Frog Jump

Split Jump

Day 5: Upper Body: 3 sets 15 reps minimum

Pushups

Birds

Crunches

Burpees

Run touch pushup run

Standing jog

Plank

V-hold

Day 6: Yoga

Day 7: Rest

 

Do check the youtube channel for proper form and timings and hit me up with any queries.

Lose weight Fast

I have had a lot of people come up to me and ask about weight loss advice, people who crash diet for a week and obsess over the number on the scale.

Please do not!!

First of all look at yourself and ask why you want to lose weight. A checklist:

1. Did you see a skinny model or an actor you want to look like?
2. Are people around you saying you are fat?
3. Do you think you look ugly?

If you answered yes to any of the above, think again. You are beautiful and the problem is that media and society is used to just one type of body and if you do not see your body represented in the media or represented in a negative way that does not mean you are ugly.
The right reasons to lose weight are:

1. Be fitter and healthier
2. Achieve a fitness goal
3. Feel good about yourself.

I would recommend looking up Lena Dunham’s comments on her weight loss. They have been so inspirational.

Lena Dunham on her weight loss

Now for the good part. My Tips and tricks to permanently lose the weight.

I went from 220 pounds to 110 to 120 pounds and cannot be healthier and stronger.

So here goes:

1. Portion Control: Find out the correct portion size for you. For example, the palm of your hand is the amount of carbs, your fist would be your proteins, your thumb would be fats.
2. Do not hate carbs: Carbs or carbohydrates are everywhere. Fruits and vegetables also have carbs which gives you energy. You need energy to go through the day!! Be mindful of the types of carbs you eat. A piece of cake is carbs but it has frosting and sugar and oil and fats!! Go for options such as whole wheat bread or pita bread.
3. Exercise: Find a type of exercise you like and sweat!!! Get your heart beat up and exercise for at least 20-30 mins every day. After a while you will start enjoying your workouts and find ways to do more stuff and stay active.
4. Consistency: You will have many false starts, start the next monday and all but do not give up!! Keep trying till you reach a point where you workout 3-4 days a week.
5. Dairy: Some people like me have an issue with dairy as it causes bloating and the there are some moral issues as well. So I shun dairy. Mostly dairy is for the cow’s calf and not for humans. So think twice before drinking a whole glass of milk. It has fats and hormones are injected into it and so much adulteration that really does you a lot of harm.
6. Home cooked: Prefer home cooked meals to takeaways. Prepare your foods even if it takes time, dedicate a day to food prep and you will notice a change. But if you make pizzas every day or a grilled cheese, you know you are eating mostly fats.
7. Balanced meal: A balanced meals has all food groups, proteins, carbs and fats. Do that for all meals you eat.
8. Eat your veggies: Eat at least 5 portions of fresh fruits and veggies. Actively look for seasonal fruits and fill up.
9. Mindful Snacking: Do not grab a packet of crisps when you are famished. Look for healthy snacks like carrot sticks, humus, whole nuts and any kind of fruits.
10.  Water: Drink loads of water. Add lemon or cucumbers for some flavour but do aim for a healthy amount of water. Sometimes when you are thirsty, you feel hungry and tend to eat more. Drink water!

Losing weight is not about the number on the scale. It is about a healthier and happier you.

Body Positivity Challenge

We have been flooded by so many perfect pictures of models that when we look at our own selves in the mirror, we feel we lack a lot.

There are skinny models who show off their thigh gaps and bones and curvy models with the perfect curves or fit models with amazing muscles. But we need to look beyond that and see how they are photoshopped or presented in there best possible angle.

I get enamoured by these images and start criticising myself. For the longest I was led to believe that certain clothes fit a certain body type and as a fat girl I would cover my body up. As I started losing the weight, I did not see the bones or muscles that defined the body of these picture perfect girls and felt at a loss with my saggy loose skin.

I look at myself in the mirror and flex and can feel my hard work of 2 years and muscles but it is covered by loose skin. I do not have enough loose skin for a surgery and am coming to terms with living with it. It does not cause any problem to me and after having conversations with people around me I decided I need to stop criticising myself and start accepting the uniqueness of me.

I am stronger than ever and in the best shape of my life and I need to accept and love it.

My first step of acceptance is to be confident in my skin and wear whatever I want to without feeling the need to cover up.

I have devised body positive challenge for this.

On days I feel like I really hate my body or certain part, I will challenge myself to a task and make it happen and make myself feel comfortable in my skin.

Today, I decided to workout in my sports bra that showed my stomach. I have been working hard on my core and there are angles where you muscles but there are other angles where the skin on my stomach sags and I get the dreaded stomach pocket. I had to be careful enough to carefree and just workout with it.

I did that today and the feeling of apprehension and dread that filled me was replaced by a weird sense of confidence about myself and my body and in a strange way made me feel closer to myself and love my own self a little bit more.

Body Shaming

As a fat girl for the majority of my life, I have not been averse to body shaming comments.

Many people think that by shaming a fat person’s body, you can “motivate” that person into becoming “thin”. Once again reinforcing the stereotype that thin is healthy or that thin is beautiful. But the point here is that people need to accept their bodies for what they are make it the best version of itself.

Be fit and exercise not because you want to be thin but because you want to live longer and climb that dreaded staircase. Exercise because you want to be able to punch harder than the strongest guy you know and run faster than the fastest person you know.

I remember being called a buffalo by my school mates and made fun of when I wasn’t around. My size did not make me a target but made me more invisible. I was not a girl or even a human being with feelings but I was an ugly excuse of a fat creature to be mocked and made fun of. Boys would come up to me ask me out on a dare because my feelings were inversely proportional to my fat, meaning, I had none.

I was always the last chosen in a PE class and mostly ignored by the “pretty girls”. My relatives and cousins would come up to me and ask me exercise so that I can become thin and pretty. I doubt any of them even cared ab
out my well being or health. This took a toll on my mental health.

As a former fat girl, I know what we do. We either eat our feelings in defiance or sadness or build a wall around ourselves that shapes what we are today. I did not have healthy role models to look at and my body type was rarely seen on Tv except as a butt of all jokes.

Remember, Fat Monica dancing as the punch line of an episode in FRIENDS?

And for the majority of the time, fat people were always a comic thing. My body was shaped by my genes. My hourglass figure is a result of my Indian heritage, I can try as hard as I want to get that straight caucasian figure but I will never get that. And for the first time in my life, I have started accepting this. I am fit and healthy and I can run as fast and as long as I want. I am pushing my body to its physical limits and I love it and yet I have the curve of my hips and my mermaid thighs. I do not have a thigh gap and will probably not have it ever. But this is my body and I am happy with it.

As I started losing weight, the true extent of my smallness hit me. I have a naturally thin face and a thin waist coupled with broad shoulders and broad hips. So, on the other end of the spectrum, I was called skin and bones and a skeleton by many. It felt like you can never impress people. They will always body shame you.

I have been Fat shamed.

I have been skinny shamed.

And with my muscles now, I have been fit shamed.

And I ignore these body shamers. It is a tough journey but a piece of advice, if you want someone you love to lose weight and be healthy please do not call them fat or give them unsolicited advice. Its likely that they are already feeling it and going through the motions on their own. Let them accept who they are, praise them, encourage them. They are more than their size and so should you be too.

Why Girls lift

If you are like me and you lift, you MUST have come across the most banal question ever in existence, “Why do you lift? Aren’t you scared of becoming big?”

To this, I ask, what is the definition of big and why being a girl makes people ask me this.

Our body is the only vehicle we have this life and we should expect to make it the best version of what it is. Be it yoga, pilates or weights, there are various fitness regimes that make you feel super healthy and do things you never thought you could ever do.

It is a wondrous feeling and having lived on the opposite end of the scale for ages, I can truly appreciate the feeling of strength that pulsates through my body after I finish a workout.

For the longest time, I could barely jog for 10 minutes and now I am sprinting and running for 1 hour, lifting weights almost as heavy as me and being so energetic that people think I am younger than I actually am.

This is a small post but the bottom line is, make your body the best version of itself and if lifting does that for you DO IT and ignore everyone else.

A shoutout to my inspiration Bani Judge!!

The head of a Fat Girl

We all know her. We have seen her and mocked her for eating that ice cream alone. Have seen her stuffing a hamburger and feeling pity for her weight. We have told her to lose weight and have given her advice on how to eat properly or workout more effectively. We think we know better because we are thinner than she is. Because being thin is the only measure of fitness and health. We know better because we are better.

But, are we?

I was 200 pounds once, tipping the scale to such an extent that I stopped weighing myself. I lost 100 pounds and have been steady for the past 2 years, now gaining some courage to start building muscle and accept my body.

But losing weight is not a physical process, it is more of a mental one. You may not look like your old self but you still feel like her. She is lurking in the corner somewhere.

When you open the fridge to cook something “healthy” she is there right beside the door staring at the piece of chocolate you have kept as a cheat meal. When you are trying new clothes at a store, she is right next to you criticising your tummy and fat thighs, love handles and fat arms. When you are out on a Friday night, she is in front of you with all the others who judge you for how you dress and how you look.

She never leaves.

When people come to me and compliment me for losing weight, I feel happy but she feels sad. Is she not worth anything? All her achievements in life mean nothing because she weighed 200 pounds?

Because she is fat, people think it is ok to call her names knowing full well she can hear them?

Because she is fat, it is all right for relatives and friends to come and give her advice on what to eat and judge her?

Because she is fat it is ok for mothers to point her out to their daughters and scare them?

Because she is fat she is not worth anything and now that you have lost the weight, the only thing you will ever hear is “how good you look now” because she was ugly.

Because fat was ugly.

Because fat IS ugly.

She will always be with you.

She will always be you.