Krishan Sengar (35) had always struggled to resist his craving. “Being an Indian, I love eating tasty and high-fat foods,” he says. “Deep-fried dishes, curries, sweets, street snacks, and cool drinks were all part of my daily meals.” Counting calories? Forget it: Krishan was counting the minutes until his next snack. This wanton path of consumption and giving into his cravings—backed by the absence of any exercise routine—led to him packing on the pounds and losing his confidence.
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The Problem
When you enter your 30s, you start to lose muscle mass and your metabolism begins to sputter out. (Some estimates suggest that this burn slows down by 10% for every decade after we reach age 20.) Simply put, Father Time isn’t pulling any punches. It’s when Krishan hit the big threeoh that his unhealthy lifestyle started to dish out its greasy, sugar-laced consequences.
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“That’s when I stopped just being a regular chubby guy,” he says.
The Wake-Up Call
Sitting down to eat with his manager, Krishan began extracting the entire contents of a gourmet buffet from his lunchbox. But this magician’s trick didn’t impress his boss who was alarmed by the quantity of food Krishan was wolfing down every time the clock struck noon.
“I remember feeling so embarrassed,” says Krishan. “I came home and took a real long look at myself in the mirror.” He made it a promise: it was time to improve.
The Food & Fitness
Krishan went cold turkey, ditching most of the sugary snacks and shrinking down his portions. For the first time in his life, he was reading about nutrition to find out exactly what he was putting in his body. He also started scouring the labels glued to the items at the grocery store. A study in the Journal of Consumer Affairs found that those who peeped the macros (and exercised) were more likely to shed kilos than those who ignored the data.
“I understand it’s a simple nutritional science—like a machine need fuel to work—our body also needs fuel and its performance will depend on the type of fuel you use,” says Krishan.
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On the fitness front, Krishan took a full-body approach, spreading his workouts across cardio sessions, weight training and ab-focused days. “I plan my workout around specific muscle groups,” he says. “I train in the evening after I’m done with work and try to do cardio in the morning two or three times every week.”
The Reward
Originally, Krishan was motivated to lose weight, but his foray into fitness sparked new aspirations. He now competes in bodybuilding and fitness competitions like the Arnold Classic, and has even represented South Africa in the Athletic Physique category at the IBBF World Championship in Italy. The Telecom Engineer turned fitness fanatic even has a few titles to his name: a reward that tastes better than any box of sweets.
