Weight loss story: "I swapped rice and wheat with traditional grains and managed to lose 26 kilos"

Ravikumar K, a software engineer was in a rude shock when he saw a video of himself where he looked heavily overweight. While he had tried to lose weight multiple times before, the video became the real turning point in his life. Instead of fad diets, he focussed on having good traditional grains and turned to yoga!

Name: Ravikumar K

Occupation: Software Engineer

Age:32

Height:5 feet 10 inches

City: Hospet, Karnataka

Highest weight recorded: 125 kilos

Weight lost: 26 kilos

Duration it took me to lose weight: 1 year

My real turning point came after a long time. I and my friend had planned to meet and that day, he had randomly taken a video of me and shared it to a WhatsApp group with my friends. That video changed a lot for me because it made me realize what was going on. As seen in that video, I couldn't even walk properly, I weighed 125 kilos. It made me face reality. It was then that I decided to do something about that. To be honest, it wasn't the first try for me and I had attempted weight loss many times before too. However, I couldn't stay motivated beyond 3 months. But once I saw the video, I set my mind to it and focussed on not just losing weight but changing my lifestyle instead.

My breakfast: I usually prefer to have a typical south Indian breakfast but what I did is change the recipe and rely on old traditional grains like having Ragi Dosa, Jowar Dosa, green gram Dosa, rice Dosa before 9:30 AM.

My lunch: I used to have Jowar Roti, Wheat chapatis, Ragi Roti, with vegetable curries and trust me I used to check the calories count for what I eat so during this process I observed that vegetables have fewer calories so you can have two different curries with two chapatis daily.

I also follow a trick to feel fuller- have one small cup of curd or a small bite of jaggery daily which makes you feel full. My advice is to try and finish your lunch before 1:30 p.m.

My dinner: I finish my dinner before 6:30 PM and it could be fruit juice or smoothie-like banana and oats or apple and oats.

Pre-workout meal: I usually do my workout at 7:00 PM and that is yoga where I drink a small glass of water and a teaspoon of virgin coconut oil(i feel coconut oil which has many benefits and first food or liquid should be pure)

Post-workout meal: I have green tea at 8:30 and at exactly 9:00 AM I have my breakfast.

I indulge in (What you eat on your cheat days): I usually don't have rice on weekdays and I am a non-veg lover. So on Saturday, I like having south Indian thali like 2 bowls of rice, palak dal, curry, curd, papad, pickle. And Sunday I include non-veg like chicken or mutton or fish.

Low-calorie recipes I swear by: I don't have any particular food items but mostly traditional grains and vegetable preparations work the best.

I tried working out in the gyms but it was not really effective for me. Since I really believe in the power of Indian culture, I researched and found a yoga guru(Teacher) who now teaches me yoga for an hour (his name is Devendra). He gave me confidence in reducing my weight. Now, I do yoga for an hour in the morning and 1 hour walking in the evening(just 5000 Steps).

First, it is important to work on our relationship with food. We need to have food only to survive and to get the energy to work. So, you only need food based on the work you need to do. Finally, I believe you need to finish your dinner before 6 PM max 7 PM and keep your stomach empty till the next morning at 9 AM). You can have unlimited amounts of water in this period(This is said to be intermediate fasting but trust me in south India villages this followed long back they complete their dinner before 6 PM).

How do I stay motivated: Don't set a specific target like losing an 'X’ number of kilos when you start or you'll only lose some kilos. If you're fat like me, concentrate on changing your lifestyle, as I did. Change your activities slowly and trust me, following this strategy, you'll be able to lose weight

You may feel like jumping back. But once you feel the changes your focus will be on achieving a lot more.

What’s the most difficult part of being overweight? I faced a lot of problems as all overweight people face. What I noticed is if you want to buy t-shirts you don't get your size. If you still dream to buy, you need to spend more on it. But normal people can buy the same t-shirt at a less price. If you want, you can check out an e-commerce site. The same brand t-shirts will be less expensive for small, medium, large sizes but they will be expensive for xl and xxl here. I can adjust but what about buying a bike, car and we are middle class, we cannot afford expensive cars just because we are Fat and we need to have comfortable cars. I bought a new car but after some days I was not able to adjust in the driving seat.

What shape do you see yourself 10 years down the line? I want to be a healthy and active guy. And I wish to be a perfect yoga-inclined person.

What are the lifestyle changes you made? 1. First, to cut the sugar intake in our culture we have substituted sugar instead of jaggery. So add pure jaggery to your tea coffee. Add more curd, ghee, buttermilk to your diet. Finally, only vegetables have the power to heal your health problems so daily add one vegetable curry to your diet.

What was the lowest point for you? So don't check your weights daily if you cannot tolerate them. so check it weekly once.

Lessons learnt from weight loss: Everything is possible if you believe in your work and god.

If you have a weight loss story to share, send it to us at toi.health1@gmail.com

DISCLAIMER

These views are not generic in nature. What worked for the writer may not work for you. So avoid following this article blindly. Find out what works for your body.