WELLNESS

Fit, Strong & Healthy!

Bonny Sikdar, A Telecom Management specialist turned Strength & Dance Fitness coach. A woman who makes it happen and loves to uplift people around through fitness. A voracious reader, lusty traveller, Dog Mom at Home & to Street pooches. After a 10 year stint in Corporate, she switched her full-time career to fitness at the age of 32 and since then there has been no looking back. It’s been 6 years that she has been working with people to make them fitter and to fall in love with themselves a little more. She is a Lead Coach at Cult fit and in love with what she does. Answering herself to the most frequently question asked related to fitness.

How and where to start with a fitness journey?

Before one start, it’s important to understand and put together the goals that one wants to achieve. Whether one wants to focus on weight loss, weight gain, increase strength, improve stamina and endurance, focus on mobility and so on. Based on the goals the overall exercise regime can be planned. Exercise does much more than just facilitating weight management. For example, strength training will improve bone mass and keep joint pains at bay (because you are making the muscles around those joints stronger), Cardiovascular exercises will help to improve endurance and heart rate. I am more of a firm believer in fitness as a lifestyle. It should be an indispensable part of your life similar to eating, sleeping, education etc. If you are starting for the first time and have no clue from where to start, it’s strongly advisable to train under proper guidance. One can head to a gym or even follow a workout from home regimes. Pandemic has brought fitness on OTT / Apps platforms which makes it so much easier, affordable and doable. If nothing works, start with walking. A 10k step daily can work wonders.

How to reduce belly fat or arm or leg fat?

Let me break this bubble for you. Spot reduction is a myth. It’s remotely not possible to only reduce fat from a particular body part. Weight Loss can be achieved by going on a calorie deficit diet, which is the intake must be lesser than the amount you burn. However, a calorie deficit doesn’t mean a nutrition deficit or eating less. It means eating right and wholesome. We will talk about this a little more in detail when we address the point on diet. Exercise will facilitate burning some extra calories and tone and not spot reduction.

Motivation is indeed overrated. What one needs is consistency and discipline and understanding that you are doing this for your body. This is where you live. Often boredom and convenience are strongly related to stopping exercising. To avoid this, you should mix your workouts. Do what you enjoy. Include weight training, dance, boxing, yoga, HIIT etc. This will not only help you to overcome boredom but also avoid reaching a plateau in your fitness journey.

Will women develop a body like men if they indulge in weight training?

Sounds funny but this is also something I get asked a lot while I am training people. The straight answer is NO. In fact, women should practice weight training even more

Often starters face post-exercise pain and muscle stiffness. How to avoid this? What is the importance of recovery in fitness?

This can be tough to explain in a few sentences and recovery by itself is a vast topic. But I shall try to address this for I can’t stop talking enough about the importance of it. Firstly one needs to understand whether the soreness is a mild pain (DOMS) or muscle overuse. Soreness is not necessarily an indication of a good workout. Regular exercising doesn’t let one get sore. But if it happens, stretching or walking the next day helps release the pain. Beginner, intermediate or advanced, never miss your stretching post-workout to keep yourself sore and injury-free. Recovery is underrated. Sleep is as important as exercising, being active throughout the day and diet. One can induce active recovery on the rest days, which could be yoga or only performing the daily stretches and holding them for a prolonged period of walking. than men because we lose a lot of bone density post the age of 30. Weight training will only help you with anabolicalism (the growth and mineralization of bone and increases in muscle mass). Plus, developing bulk like men is facilitated by the hormone called testosterone which is negligibly present in a woman’s body.

What role does diet play and how to avoid going off track?

Diet is imperial. In fact, as cliché, as it sounds abs are truly made in the kitchen. Like mentioned before a wholesome diet is paramount in weight management and feeling good on the workout floor. Include nutritious source of calories like carbohydrates (whole wheat, brown rice, pulses, mushrooms), proteins (eggs, chicken, whey, soya, daal etc), fats ( good oil, ghee, fish, seeds, nuts, peanut butter, avocado etc), fibre & vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables. In fact, one should always incorporate these in every prime meal of the day (bf, lunch & dinner). One way is to have small and frequent meals. When you hit the supermarket, purchase only the good stuff. Do Not indulge in packaged or processed food. Cook wholesome meals at home. Fad diets will not take you anywhere. Follow that’s simple, easy and sustainable.