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icanbefitter.com — About

No one is coming
to save you.

The one who can — is you.
The first thing I want my son to understand.

Lt Cdr Upendra Prasad in Navy whites

◆ Subject Profile

NameLt Cdr Upendra Prasad
BirthplaceJamshedpur, Jharkhand → Kerala
ServiceIndian Navy · 14 Years (2010–2024)
CommissionShort Service · no pension
DisciplinesCalisthenics / Investing / AI
CompetedMr Jharkhand 2021 · Mr Kerala 2026
North StarAvyaansh · my son

◆ The Origin

A small town. No map.

I come from a small town in India — the kind of place where ambition is treated with suspicion and the safest thing you can do is get a government job. I finished my CS degree in 2010, right as the 2008 crash was reminding the world that nothing is guaranteed.

I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have connections. I didn’t have a mentor. What I had was a deep, uncomfortable feeling that if I stayed where I was, I’d spend my whole life wondering what I could have been.

So I applied for the Navy. And against every odd a small-town kid faces in India — I got in.

Navy years

01 · Military Years

The day everything changed.

The day I stepped foot inside the prestigious Indian Naval Academy, everything changed.

The Navy gave me things no degree ever could. Discipline — the kind forged when you have no choice but to show up. Brotherhood — bonds built under pressure, not comfort. Identity — the quiet confidence that comes from knowing you’ve been tested.

But it cost me too. A short-service commission means you give your best years, then walk out with no pension, no corporate network, and a résumé the civilian world can’t read.

I left with everything inside me and zero in the bank — discipline and hunger in my bones. That combination, it turns out, is more dangerous than any weapon. The good kind.

Twelve years of physical transformation

02 · The Fitness Journey

I just never stopped.

Four years of college — bad food, no exercise, 24/7 gaming, every habit a young man picks up — wrecked my body. Then, a month into naval training, my right tibia shattered in multiple places on a cross-country run.

One of the hardest phases of my life. (Looking back, it wasn’t hard at all — life beats every one of us down.)

I was humbled. I was skinny. I had no idea what I was doing. But I showed up — day after day, year after year. Then calisthenics opened a door I didn’t know existed.

I started lifting in 2011, and the rest is history. Today I can hold a handstand, a back lever, throw a backflip. Not because I’m gifted — because I never stopped. No coach. No gym. Just consistency, and the stubborn belief that the person in the mirror could become someone worth respecting.

◆ The proof — 1988 to now

I never stopped.

Swipe through the years →

  1. 1988

    Childhood

    Born. A small town, no map.

  2. 2006

    School years

    Class XII.

  3. 2006–10

    College years

    B.Tech · Computer Science.

  4. 2010

    Indian Navy

    The Navy. The Academy.

◆ Beyond the metrics

The Inner Game

Where the reps end and the questions begin.

Upendra playing guitar
“You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work.”
— Bhagavad Gita, 2.47
🎸

Guitar

I play guitar — Pink Floyd, mostly, the kind of music that makes time stop and the universe ask you a question it already knows the answer to. And Shiv bhajans on quiet mornings, when the world is still and the strings vibrate with something I can’t name.

🔱
🔱

Shiva

I am a Shiv bhakt — not the temple-ritual kind, but the kind who sees Mahadev in discipline, in silence, in the burning away of everything that doesn’t serve. Shiva is the destroyer, yes. But destruction is what makes space for truth.

🔱
📖

The Gita & The Stoics

Follow the father–son journey@icanbefitter

Everything here is the inheritance I’m building for my son — and I’m handing it to you too. So no one has to start from zero alone.

The one who can — is you.

Your turn.

Start from zero →
Or go deeper:PhysicallyFinanciallyTechnically

I still don’t have it figured out. But I show up. Every day.

हर हर महादेव 🔱

icanbefitter

What I'm building — so my son never starts from zero.

Kerala · est. 2024

A lone tree — patience and compounding

03 · The Financial Education

Nobody can save your money but you.

No pension. No family wealth. No corporate provident fund. When I left the Navy, I built my financial future from scratch — and the early lessons were painful. I lost money on tips, got burned by impulse, and spent years not understanding how compounding actually works.

Then I started reading. Graham. Housel. Lynch, Munger, Pabrai, Buffett. Zerodha’s Varsity. Slowly the fog lifted: wealth isn’t the right stock, it’s systems, patience, and making peace with the fact that the best returns take decades. I’ve held through four crashes.

Today I invest with a framework, not a feeling — and I share my real portfolio, not to brag, but to prove a man with no pension can build his own. That’s what I want Avyaansh to understand before he turns 18.

Avya — the AI fitness app

04 · The Builder

Building is thinking made visible.

I build things — not because I have a CS degree, but because building is thinking made visible. Avya, an AI fitness coach named after my son. The Blog Engine, an AI agent pipeline that turns an idea into a published article. Social managers, automations, content workflows.

I’m not a Silicon Valley engineer. I’m a self-taught builder who figured out that AI is the great equaliser. You don’t need a team of fifty — you need clarity, stubbornness, and the will to build in public, mistakes and all.

2011

2011 — training begins

First weights. Skinny, humbled.

  • 2013

    2013 — progress

    The grind takes hold.

  • 2014

    2014

    First mutual fund.

  • 2015

    2015 — physique

    Stronger every year.

  • 2018

    2018 — physique

    Years deep. Still showing up.

  • 2019

    Avyaansh

    Avyaansh. The why arrived.

  • 2021

    Photo
    coming

    Mr Jharkhand — on stage.

  • 2024

    Navy farewell

    Left the Navy. No pension, all hunger.

  • 2026

    Mr Kerala 2026

    icanbefitter · Avya · Mr Kerala. The game just started.

  • The Gita taught me that action without attachment is the highest form of living — you do the work not for the fruit, but because the work itself is sacred. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus knew the same truth: the only thing you control is your response. The market crashes, the body fails, the world disappoints — but your character is yours to forge, daily, in silence.

    🔱
    🕉

    The Witness

    The big questions — who am I, what stays, what matters — I don’t have the answers. But I sit with them. That’s enough.

    “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
    — Rumi

    Verticals

    • Physically
    • Financially
    • Technically

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    © icanbefitter · 2026हर हर महादेवBuilt solo · Kerala