The aesthetic ideal is not the athletic ideal. And the athletic ideal comes in many shapes and sizes. Judging an athlete the way you would judge Chris Hemsworth or Hugh Jackman from that one 60 second sequence in a movie every two years is stupid and a disservice to the athlete. Firstly, most athletes who play cricket, tennis or any sp...

Corporations excel at the art of saying a lot without meaning anything. All their talk will not stop them from taking our money. Nor should it. Apps to see how you use your phone such as Screen Time have existed for a while and most of us simply ignore it. What next ? Will Apple packaging feature a photo of a dinner table with family m...

You must have heard some version of this: Fat loss is xx percent exercise and xx percent nutrition Muscle gain is xx percent exercise and xx percent nutrition Randomly assigning percentages is dumb and trying to sound precise about something you cannot be precise about. It is physics envy and it is unnecessary. I think the statements a...

Apple doesn’t care about you personally in the least tiny bit, and if you were in their way somehow, they would do whatever their might — effectively infinite compared to your own — enables them to deal with you. Brent Simmons https://lnkd.in/gAgsjaZr Atleast your favourite athletes and celebrities pretend to care about you by feeding ...

What makes us fragile is that institutions cannot have the same virtues (honor, truthfulness, courage, loyalty, tenacity) as individuals. Taleb We depend on governments to : 1. Tax food. Some foods more than others. Protein is taxed more than carbohydrates and fat. 2. Support farmers cause it’s a difficult and often thankless job for t...

Walk for 15 mins a day Do 10 mins of breathing and yoga Do whatever activity you enjoy for 2 hours a week Play a sport once a week to stay fit If a coach, physiotherapist or doctor tells you do whatever activity you enjoy and can sustain, they are doing you a disservice. I am not sure if it’s a marketing ploy or they really believe tha...

Our interaction with the food we eat every day is romanticised to our collective detriment. A food can taste good, it can make you feel good and it can evoke memories. But calling it a relationship is a stretch. Let’s call it what it is: A transaction. We transact for our food. The way we pay for transport. We pay for shelter. We pay f...

I received an interesting comment on a post about exercise that can summarized into : Too much exercise or poorly executed exercise can hurt more than it helps. This is a possibility. How about exercise not done at all ? How do you measure the loss in strength, quality of life and independence. There’s an opportunity cost to tendons no...

Main dish - side dish mentality Attached below is my favourite type of transformation. A plate whose veggies have been emptied out. But there is something prominent missing in the before photo. The rice, rotis and pooris. The plate started out with an appalam, sundal, dairy and a little potato as the only notable source of carbohydrate...

Do you enjoy brushing your teeth? How about cleaning your car? Using the rest room? There are things we do not because we want to. Not because we like to. But because we have to. The price you pay for not doing it is immediate, cruel and can leave you labelled unpopular or unsavoury to be around. Your mouth smells if you don’t brush yo...

I have never had or used a visiting card in the last decade of running a gym. In my line of work, before a word is spoken, a pitch is made or any logic or reason expounded on, the most important visiting card happens to be my appearance. When I tell people I own a gym, they scrutinise me from head to toe. The same thing happens to diet...

Sport analogies can apply to the act of eating too. When you are done drawing leadership lessons, learning to manage people and sell stuff from watching people play a sport, you could draw a simple lesson from sport on how to eat effectively. At some point in the recurring act picking up food off the plate, putting it in your mouth, ch...

Instruction: * Do this like this Motivation: *Let’s do this ! Coaching: *Here is what you need to do. *This is how you do it. *This is how you should not do it. *This is how often you do it. *This is when you do it. *This is what happens when you do it. *This is when you should not do it. *Chill and don’t do this now. *This is what you...

Here’s a question we get asked a lot: Why not buy gym equipment from the many Indian companies or even import it ? * The many hours spent coaching, doing exercises and watching people train makes us highly opinionated about making things more comfortable and challenging. This calls for us getting our hands dirty and designing the equip...

None of the people in the image below lift weights, train or exercise solely for the sake of vanity, lifting the most weight or compete in any strength sport. They do what they do in their homes and in our gym to improve their everyday lives and how they feel while at work. They are athletes in that they are good at physical exercise. ...

There is reasonable science backing the idea that working out 6-8 hours after you wake up is optimal. But how many people can carve out time at 12 in the afternoon or later to workout? There is a lot of evidence indicating optimal protein intake for a 70 kg individual is between 85 and 110 grams. But try getting a person eating 20-25 g...

I know everybody wants to build big muscles. Even I was like that. I loved bodybuilding. I used to participate in all these contests, but there's nothing like yoga. Yoga has a magical impact on your life. Believe me, at least for 10-15 minutes every day practice yoga and then, please quit smoking." This is a an excerpt from an intervie...

I move terribly. I was never good at any sport. Not particularly gifted with thick joints or any predisposition to pack on muscle readily. In short, never excelled at any sport or academics, did not take naturally to running, climbing, swimming or riding any thing or any animal. But I like problem solving. Again not puzzles, board game...

1. Walking up stairs 2. Walking down the stairs (different from walking up) 3. Walking places 4. Carrying objects or bags 5. Carrying kids 6. Moving big things occasionally or more often if you own a gym 7. Running to places 8. Really long occasional walks 9. Hauling really heavy bags occasionally 10. Pushing a car or dragging a bike w...

I have been accused of sounding like a broken record for the case of eating more protein. But here’s why I think it matters: 1. Indians are under-muscled. Blame it on genetics, adaptations, culture, social priorities or history, but our frames are less pre-disposed to pack on muscle. Are there exceptions? Sure. But the norm is we could...

Here’s what an effective city seems to do: have plenty of interrupted stretches of walking pathways, pedestrian paths, overpasses and generous room for walkers to cross busy roads. There is little friction to rack up kilometers. It could be to get from one place to the next. Or it could be to get to the station or bus stop. This is dis...

A few days at Singapore have more than convinced me that apartments might be better served having more space to walk around, hang, play and run around rather than pack it with clubhouses and amenities that take away from common spaces. Indian apartment buildings pack in amenities at the cost of space. Blame it on feature seeking, cost ...

* What makes you think about exercise ? Someone terrible happens in your close circle A physically demanding goal A medical scare Bad blood work Old photos Social media or a movie * What makes you do something about it ? A social media post :D A determined spouse A pushy family member A motivational piece of media A movie * What makes ...

Probiotics can’t make up for a calorie deficit Exclusion diets alone can’t do for joint health and arthritis what movement can Quality of food can’t make up for protein or fiber insufficiency Nuts and flaxseed can’t give the same quantum or quality of omega 3 that algal oil, fish or krill oil will Strength training cannot create the ca...

Here’s a stupidly simple hack to be able to grapple with the problem of how much are you eating in a day. Just know the volume of the cup you are serving yourself with. A standard cup is 240 ml. Volume is measured in milliliters or ml. Knowing how much ML of rice, curd, vegetables, dal and anything that can be put in a cup whose volume...

A good holiday, a good movie, a play a good meal, an old school reunion, a nice aquarium visit, a great beach, night sky or a really good drink. These are things that people talk about and want to share the experience. It’s part of the human condition to feel like ‘I want to experience that!’. Takeaway There is lack of curiosity or exp...

The broad consensus is that movement is good for your existence. But every existence has different constraints and pains. So if movement is medicine. Some prescriptions are clearly more appropriate than others. Take walking. Necessary? Yes. Overdone at the cost of getting stronger? Hell yes. Take squatting. Necessary? Absolutely. But t...

When you have a bad meal or even a good meal that you didn’t enjoy, you don’t blame the entire restaurant industry for being terrible. Or declare that eating out is not for you. You leave the meal behind. Maybe a bad review. Tell your friends and family that meal was not for you. And you try another place. Or go back to something tried...

This is a slightly tangential take on why you should try to eat healthier. When you eat close to what your body needs to remain lean and healthy, most of us will wind up eating a lot less food and will eat out or order in a whole lot less. That matters. Each Indian wastes 55 kgs of food a year. This is not counting the third of our pro...

Client: after a couple of months, I should be able to train by myself at any gym of my choice ? Me: Yes but here’s the deal.. The norm is you pay for the gym and you pay for coaching separately. This makes sense for some people. Especially if you know how to find/write a program that can give you the adaptation you’re after, know how t...