The following article was posted by the author on Facebook page of ICANBEFITTER ! Shubham Agarwal, delhite, former foodie, fitness enthusiast and a M.Tech CSE student at…
From the original icanbefitter.com archive (2019), lightly edited for the new site. — Upen
The following article was posted by the author on Facebook page of ICANBEFITTER ! Shubham Agarwal, delhite, former foodie, fitness enthusiast and a M.Tech CSE student at IIT Kanpur, was humble enough to write a testimonial for ICANBEFITTER ! He time and again emphasizes on the importance of Quantified Nutrition in fitness.
About Shubham
I'm a core Delhite and I belong to a semi Punjabi culture. The only thing which defines me is food. For me there are two types of people, the one who "Eats to Live" and the one who "Lives to Eat". I've always belonged to the later one. Being regular customer at McD, Domino's and CCD, they used to remember my name/number and give me exclusive service! Moreover I used to go out 5 times a week to these places. When anyone says that you should not eat so much fast food, I was like this is the right age of eating. When it comes to fat shaming, I love to do it and others love to do mine. Parents only see one problem in me and that's my belly. Now you have a good idea what was my mentality before starting my journey.
How did you approach Fitness?
I was told multiple times by multiple folks to work on my health. Even tried multiple things multiple times like gym, walking, running, exercising, playing etc. But after 2-3 days or in a month I was back to my regular self. There were three things common in every scenario, lot of work on my head, a sphere-shaped belly and half-knowledge with zero experience. Then came Lt Cdr Upendra, he had already mentored a friend of mine who had shown results but he left it after a month and was back to normal! So to be true with you I wasn't a fan of him and was against the idea of a diet. All my life I was taught to eat 10 chappatis a day, how can I switch to 1-2. Moreover protein shake and eggs were totally off my list. If I can drink a liter milk daily for protein then why should I take these things.
How did you start?
I started with low carb diet and a workout routine half-heartedly. Started this journey on 15th Dec 2018 at 90kgs. Meanwhile, I fell ill due to viral so I got back to my so called normal diet. On 5th Feb 19, I was recovering from the illness. I had already lost 5 kgs by that time. This made me believe that diet and gym were effective. And thus the actual story starts. I went a bit far and started conditioning for the keto diet. Since I was a vegetarian, recently turned eggetarian it was way hard to make my keto chart. On 7th Feb I restarted my journey. Went to gym regularly 5 times a week. Learnt various exercises, tried to push myself and to be honest, I started loving spending time at the gym. From 1hr with friends, it was transformed to 1.5hrs with weights. The diet was the hardest part. Eggs became staple food now. Every week I was losing a kg.
Learn how to make a Quantified Diet Chart !
90 Kgs vs 80 Kgs
What problems did you face?
Controlling my diet was the hardest thing. Instead of fat shaming I was constantly joked for my stupid diet. My girlfriend and parents didn't support me, in fact, they were totally against it. On top of that, there was work pressure and tasty unhealthy food everywhere. Since I trust Upendra, I went with this routine which was kind of torture for me, for a month until I went home for Holi and there were so much food and no gym. Parents were not supportive of eggs and they were like if you visit home then instead of eggs you will eat chapati.
Turning Point
When I entered home, my parents were shocked to the core with my transformation. My mom ordered eggs for me. Though she never touched them , neither she let me keep them in kitchen or fridge. I was given permission to cook them in the kitchen but with separate pan and plate. When I went to meet my girlfriend, she wasn't able to identify me from far even though I was waving at her. When we met she was like you have become half but the catch was all I had lost was 5kgs. I was 80kgs now. That's the same amount of weight I had when I graduated 2 years ago. But that time it was all fat and now I've some muscle. We spent the whole day together. I was able to control my temptation for food.
Post vacation, I came back to college. It was summers and without my sweatshirt people started noticing my hands and belly. Most of them were pretty sure that I've lost weight because I was sick, it was hard for them to digest the fact that I got this the right way. The jokes on diet were converted to appreciation and knowledge seeking. On 25th March I ended my keto and switched to low carb. This time I made my chart according to my ease of access. Now I'm not a foodie anymore. I do have my cheat days and I'm still losing weight. I'm in love with my body now.
How do you manage finances being a student?
One can argue that it's costly and all, but to be frank I used to spend more money in a month on just pizzas. Imagine the cost if I add the bills of burgers and coffees. I end up saving money by eating clean !
There are still 2 types of people, one who are proud of me that I went through this transformation and let's not discuss the other category.
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