The Right Fit, a panel on fitness at ABP INFOCOM 2023, saw four enthusiasts who look at fitness from their unique perspectives, share their insights. Held on the evening of December 1 at ITC Sonar, the session was moderated by Tollywood actor and MP Nussrat Jahan and had Nandita Shah, founder, SHARAN India; Karan Kakkad, Nutrigenomics and TEDX speaker; Ranadeep Moitra, ex-cricketer and strength and conditioning specialist; and Yash Daasgupta, actor, make up the panel. Here's what they spoke about...
Reversing disease
The discussion, which saw an eager set of audience in attendance, having a host of questions for their panelists, began with Shah’s journey of founding SHARAN (Sanctuary for Health and Reconnection to Animals and Nature) dedicated to spreading awareness about holistic health and an ecologically sustainable, compassionate lifestyle. “SHARAN is all about reconnection with animals and nature. And why nature? Because I understood that animals and nature know how to be well and we don’t. How can that be? And I also understood that general medicines never cure. For example, if someone has diabetes or hypertension we are taking medicines our entire life, and over time it spirals upwards. And the main reason medicines never cure is when we take medicines, we don’t remove the cause of the disease. So, when I realised all these, I had to change and I had no choice,” said Shah who started SHARAN 15 years ago. She continued by talking about her book, Reversing Diabetes in 21 Days. “The title was suggested by the publisher, Penguin, but it came from a 21-day health week that we conduct regularly, where we take all the reports of the patient in the beginning, and during the 21 days as they get better we reduce the medication. To me reversing diabetes means no more high blood sugar and no medicines and normal report."
Training for life
Nussrat moved on to Ranadeep and asked him how he deals with weird questions and requests from his clients and the weirdest myths about fitness that he has come across. He started by saying that his clients are generally informed ones but when they want to get into fitness following a fad he prepares them for a better tomorrow. He said, “I tell them that the biggest reason to train yourself is to prepare for life’s unforeseen contingencies. And what do I train for? I train because I know what tomorrow is going to be like; I know there’s going to be disease and I know at the age of 75 I am going to slip and fall in the bathroom and it’s not an accident it’s just that you haven’t prepared for it.” He also pointed out how people want to follow a trend and get immediate results but he suggests investing and preparing for both immediate and long-term needs. “People don’t like to look at long-term goals because they want immediate gratification but that’s not the way life works,” he adds.
Yash Daasgupta talks about his fitness mantra at INFOCOM 2023
Fit Fine and Healthy
Karan connected with the audience and asked them if they wanted to be ‘fit fine and healthy in their 50s, 60s and 70s. He said, “There are four things I want you all to take care of. One is food and nutrition, two is physically being active, and number three is sleep and our thoughts and emotions.” Elaborating on the impact of thoughts and emotions, he said, “As human beings, we have 60,000-70,000 thoughts every single day. Each thought has an emotion and each cell is listening to your emotion. So, either you live in higher thoughts and emotions like love, joy, happiness, gratitude or live in lower thoughts like guilt, regret, fear, etc. If you are living in lower thoughts, you are inviting more disease and higher thoughts invite less disease.” This simple and agreeable explanation reminded the moderator of the significance of the phrase “Stay positive” that we all use colloquially.
Fitness is about longevity of life
Yash, who is known for being a big fitness enthusiast, was prodded by Nussrat to explain, “How does one stay motivated in the face of so many odds?” The actor informed the audience of the backstory behind his enthusiasm for fitness and went down memory lane. He said, “I used to be a very skinny kid in school who used to get bullied by the seniors and classmates very often. My father was in a transferrable job so every few years I had to move to a new school, make new friends and get bullied yet again by a new set of students. Sadly, it’s a real issue and nobody talks about it. So, I resorted to getting into fitness like basic push-ups and Taekwondo… and that’s how it all started. Fitness is much more than what people see; it’s about the longevity of life. In today’s age, we have stopped moving. We don’t need to get up and change the channel. People have started becoming couch potatoes.”
Chicken and paneer are the same in our body
The discussion turned to Shah again and this time she gave an interesting insight into plant-based products, the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian and more. She said, “Vegetarians and non-vegetarians get the same disease because meat and milk have the same properties. So, when a non-vegetarian goes out for dinner, they order chicken, and a vegetarian orders paneer. Chicken and paneer are the same in our body.” This statement made the star moderator ask for further explanation. Continuing, Shah said, “They both are high in protein, high in fat but no fibre. Paneer is a concentrated form of protein and fat and the same with chicken… maybe a little different. Basically, we have to think about what nature expects us to do. Animals and nature are in great sync. If we were out in nature what could we eat? So, more fruits and veggies.” Explaining how it fulfils the requirement of the body, she added: “If you eat largely an animal-centered diet where will you get your vitamins and other nutrients from? These are found in plants.”
Nussrat Jahan hosted the Right to Fit panel
Vegetarians are not eating vegetables
Taking forward the vegetarian and non-vegetarian discourse further, Ranadeep said, “The problem with Indian vegetarians is that they don’t eat vegetarian food. Most vegetarians don’t eat enough vegetables. I am not a food expert but I want people to have a balanced diet. One single vegetable cannot give you everything. You have to have the right combination. Vegetarian eating is a superior form of eating but you have to know to get it right.”
In the concluding part of the evening, Karan talked about eating more seasonal food consciously. “In the last 20 years, issues like diabetes, cholesterol, and other diseases have increased. People are consuming less real food, less fibre and more preserved and junk food. It’s all about becoming aware and conscious and choosing the right option.” He listed aerated drinks, junk and processed food, and deep-fried and salty food to be avoided. And things that one must have? Drumsticks and one to two fruits a day.
Lastly, Yash gave the audience a glimpse of his mantra of enjoying his favourite food and yet maintaining a strict diet. “I keep a calculation of seven days like if I lessen the calorie for two days then I can eat the food I love on the third day. It’s not like I am having biryani every day; that is not okay.” Concluding the session on a fun note that made the audience chuckle, he said: “Fitness is like being with your wife. It is boring to do the same thing every day, but if we can stay together for long... fitness is also like that. It might be boring to do the same thing again and again but we have to do it. If you think of doing something exciting every day then fitness doesn’t work like that.”