“I course-corrected and slowly, something shifted”

By Charles Assisi

This isn’t a story about dramatic transformation. This is no breathless account of having lost a dozen kilos. And there is no “before” and “after” photo. What I do have is something quieter. A shift in how I live. A growing awareness of what my body needs. And a few changes that, over time, have begun to add up.

I didn’t set out to find intermittent fasting. I didn’t read a bestselling book or follow a viral diet trend. I backed into it the way most real change begins—not with a resolution, but with a growing sense of discomfort.

The signs were there for a while. My trousers didn’t fit the way they used to. Shirts refused to button without a struggle. The weighing scale kept tilting right, but I told myself it was faulty. I blamed the tailor, the detergent, the cut of the fabric—everything except, face the truth.

People who cared about me tried to bring it up, gently. I didn’t want to hear it. I convinced myself that the weight was temporary. That I could get it off whenever I wanted to. That I was still fit.

I wasn’t. I was eating poorly, loading up on sugar, and telling myself it didn’t matter. I was sleeping erratically. Smoking too much. Exercising just enough to feel like I was doing something, but not enough to make a difference. I can’t imagine now how I thought I could walk around with a cigarette dangling from my mouth and think I was somehow immune.

Then came the routine medical check-up. I didn’t expect anything serious. But the doctor was calm and matter-of-fact. “You’re pre-diabetic,” he said.

That word landed like a punch. I remember the sudden dryness in my mouth. The feeling of going cold, inside and out. I stood there, silent, staring at the numbers on the page. I had always thought of this as something that happened to other people. But there I was, looking at evidence to the contrary.

Something had to change.

A reckoning

I started by exercising again. And right away, I had to confront another truth—the idea I had of how fit I was and the reality were miles apart. I remembered having run a half marathon once. That memory gave me a false sense of confidence. But the body doesn’t lie. When I was asked to sprint just 100 metres, I couldn’t. Even one kilometre felt impossible.

That moment told me what I needed to know. If I didn’t course-correct now, I’d slip further down a path I didn’t want to be on. Not right away, maybe. But slowly. Quietly. The kind of decline that arrives like rust.

I had assumed that just working out would be enough. That the weight would melt off with a few weeks of discipline. It didn’t. Not in the way I had hoped. So I started reading. Paying attention to the connection between food and fitness.

Eventually, I found my way to a nutritionist. I hesitated at first. It felt unnecessary. I thought I knew enough. What’s there to learn, really? Good food is good food. Bad food is bad food. But within a few conversations, it became clear how little I actually knew.

She asked for bloodwork. Broke down my body fat. Studied my food logs. And showed me, gently but firmly, how off course I was.

On paper, I was consuming between 1800 and 2000 calories a day. But the quality of food was poor. She suggested I bring that number down to around 1200 and shift to food that nourishes, not just fills. At first, this felt close to impossible. One samosa packs 200 calories. A vada pav could add 300. And my workouts barely burned that much.

So we began with the most obvious target—sugar.

I gave it up almost overnight. Not because I was strong-willed, but because I was afraid. I didn’t want to move from pre-diabetic to diabetic. That fear helped me turn a corner. I replaced white rice with Kerala red rice. Paid attention to labels. Cut out processed snacks. One step at a time.

And slowly, something shifted. I didn’t lose a lot of weight, but I began to lose inches. Old clothes began to fit again. Workouts that had once felt punishing started to feel manageable. My body was responding.

A follow-up blood test showed what I was hoping for. I was no longer pre-diabetic.

Around the same time, someone pointed out something I hadn’t noticed where the needle had shifted as well. My last meal of the day was no later than 7 in the evening. I’d wake early, go to the gym, and only eat breakfast by 9 or 9.30. Which meant I was going without food for roughly 14 to 15 hours every day.

“You’re doing intermittent fasting,” a friend said.

I hadn’t planned it that way. But when I looked it up, it made sense.

What happens during intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting (IF) isn’t a diet. There’s no list of foods to avoid. No powders or supplements. It’s just a structure. You eat during a fixed window and let the body rest the rest of the time.

When you go without food for 12 hours or more, the body uses up the glucose from your last meal. Then it begins using fat for energy. This process is called metabolic switching. It lowers insulin levels, reduces inflammation, and gives the gut time to rest. The cells start a kind of housekeeping process called autophagy—where they clean out damaged components and repair themselves.

I hadn’t studied any of this before. I only knew that I was feeling better. My digestion had improved. I didn’t feel bloated. I had more energy in the mornings. The system, somehow, felt cleaner.

Is it just another fad?

This is a question Dr Aasim Maldar, an endocrinologist at Hinduja Hospital, flagged off. He’s seen his share of dietary trends. Keto, low-carb, raw food, alkaline water, and everything in between. Each one promising transformation, each one peaking and fading. So, I asked myself the same question. Is intermittent fasting just another fad?

While he made the point that it works, there are real questions you ought to ask yourself as well. Can you sustain it? What if you’re diabetic or have some other condition that doesn’t permit you to stay hungry for such long periods?   

All I can say is, I don’t think of it as a fad; nor do I have any condition that insists I stay satiated. In fact, this doesn’t feel like a diet. It doesn’t ask me to cut out entire food groups. It doesn’t make me carry food scales or log macros. It just helps set a rhythm. And when I stay with it, my body seems to respond.

It’s important to say this though. I haven’t lost a lot of weight. Some, yes. I’ve lost inches. I can fit into a few older clothes. But this isn’t a transformation story. This is about building a new baseline.

Dr Aasim explained it in a way that stayed with me. “If you weigh 100 kilos and lose 10 percent of that, you’ve done a lot. Holding it there, keeping that as your new normal, that’s the real work. To lose another 10 percent from that point takes even more time. None of this happens overnight.”

That helped. It reminded me not to expect miracles. The weight didn’t come in a month. It won’t leave in one either. This is a long journey. The kind that asks for patience.

The things we live with

If there’s one thing that still frustrates me, it’s dinner. Or rather, how we do dinner in India. Most restaurants don’t start taking orders until 7 pm. If I’m lucky, food arrives by 8 pm. At someone’s home, it’s even later. And by then, I’m starving. Trying to stick to an early eating window in this culture isn’t easy.

There are awkward conversations. Some amused looks. A few polite questions. I’ve learnt to manage them. Sometimes I eat early and join later. Sometimes I bend the rules. But I know that this way of living suits me better.

This isn’t advice. I’m not suggesting everyone should do this. I’m only saying it’s helped me find some steadiness. It’s helped me feel better, sleep better, move better. That’s all.

And for now, that’s enough.

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Sustainable Wellness: Takeaways from a conversation with Dr. Aasim Maldar

Earlier this week, Dr. Aasim Maldar, Endocrinologist and Diabetologist at PD Hinduja Hospital & Medical Research Centre, had a conversation with our entire team on intermittent fasting, medication and healthy lifestyle in general. 

Here are the key takeaways.

Intermittent Fasting has benefits

Intermittent fasting can lead to meaningful weight reduction, with studies showing 3-10% weight loss over a 3-6 month period. The mechanism behind this weight loss is straightforward: after fasting for 8-12 hours, your glycogen stores begin to deplete, causing your body to switch to utilizing fat (adipose tissue) for energy by converting it into ketones. This metabolic shift promotes fat-burning and weight reduction.

Besides weight loss, it has other metabolic benefits, including increased insulin sensitivity, which helps regulate blood sugar levels, reduction in visceral fat (the dangerous fat around organs), improved cholesterol profiles with decreased bad cholesterol and increased good cholesterol, lower blood pressure and better diabetes control.

However, IF alone is not enough, we need to pair it with other healthy habits.

A critical limitation of intermittent fasting is the risk of sarcopenia (muscle loss). During fasting, the body doesn't exclusively burn fat—it also breaks down muscle protein for energy. This muscle loss leads to increased fatigue and tiredness, loss of strength and a greater tendency to fall. So, one has to pair IF with a high-protein diet to spare muscle proteins, and resistance training exercises to build and maintain muscle mass.

Extended fasting periods can lead to nutritional gaps. So, it's important to eat nutrient-dense foods during the eating window, and supplement it with vitamins (particularly B12, D, and calcium).

There are weight loss drugs in the market to manage obesity. Use them with caution.

Weight loss medications like Ozempic (semaglutide) and similar drugs represent a significant advancement in obesity treatment. They primarily function through GLP-1 (Glucagon-Like Peptide-1) receptor activation, which produces weight loss through two main mechanisms. They induce satiety and slow down digestion, making you feel full even after consuming smaller meals. They act on brain centers to reduce hunger and suppress appetite.

However, there are side effects. It could cause nausea, bloating, dyspepsia, constipation, or diarrhea for about 30-40% of users. Besides, rapid weight loss can increase the risk of gallstones and cholecystitis (gallbladder inflammation).

Also, remember, once you stop these medications, there will be weight regain, to an extent at least. Whatever has been lost, up to 50% is usually regained.

Consult a doctor, and make informed decisions.

Diet beats exercise for weight loss. But exercise has other benefits.

While both diet and exercise have important roles in weight management, diet is significantly more effective for weight loss.

Consider this: Walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes burns only about 150-200 calories. Simply skipping a vada pav or burger saves 400-500 calories. “Even if you exercise for 4 hours on the treadmill, that will be equivalent to skipping a vada pav or burger.”

There's a ceiling to how many calories you can realistically burn through exercise. Most people cannot sustain extremely long exercise sessions daily. The calorie-burning effect is relatively small compared to dietary changes.

While diet takes precedence for weight loss, exercise serves other crucial functions. It prevents sarcopenia (muscle loss) during weight loss, especially resistance training. It produces “healthy hormones” like dopamine and oxytocin that improve mood and motivation. And it provides cardiovascular benefits beyond weight management.

Sustainability is a major challenge with IF. 

Many give up fasting before it shows results. In 6 months, on an average, at least 30 to 50% people drop out of intermittent fasting regimens. Our motivation levels keep on fluctuating, making it difficult to maintain strict fasting schedules over time. Besides, after some time your weight loss stagnates, as the body becomes intelligent and starts to grab all the calories one consumes. This in turn makes people give up fasting, and many end up becoming fatter than they were earlier.

But there are ways to maintain it.

• Start with common approaches like 16:8 fasting (16 hours fasting, 8 hours eating) but then transition to a sustainable low-calorie diet for long-term maintenance.

• If stricter regimens (like 16:8—16 hours of fasting and an 8 hour eating window—or 18:6) become difficult, try modified approaches like 14:10 or 12:12 which can still provide health benefits in the long run.

• Aim for 5-10% weight loss rather than trying to reach ideal body weight. Even 5% weight loss translates into multiple benefits.

• Occasional cheat days can help maintain motivation, though ideally these shouldn't exceed your daily calorie requirements.

• Do it as a group. Doing it in groups, family dieting, play a role in long-term adherence. When everyone in the family is following something, then it becomes so easy.

• Understand the science. When people understand the mechanisms of weight loss and how their body works, they are more likely to continue their regimen.

• Aim for long-term consistency. Maintaining weight loss for at least a year to 2 years helps it become your new baseline, making it harder to regain weight even if you relax your regimen.

• Finally, take inspiration from Virat Kohli. When someone like Kohli is told to eat junk food, they won't, because “that circuit in their brain is broken”—meaning they don't get the same happiness or reward from eating high-carb foods that others might. Kohli's brain's reward circuitry has been modified through long-term dietary discipline, making it easier for him to maintain healthy eating habits.

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My Intermittent Fasting Journey: Five Mistakes I Made

By NS Ramnath 

About fifteen months ago, I started my Intermittent Fasting journey. I didn't go to a nutritionist. I didn't take an online course. I didn't read a comprehensive book on the subject. It was mainly based on bits of information I picked from various sources, and small experiments. The good thing is I haven't given it up yet. The bad thing is I made many mistakes on the way. Here are the top five.

1. Ignoring nutritional balance

This is probably the biggest mistake I made, despite knowing the importance of a balanced diet. A few years ago, I experimented with eating only peanuts for a few days. On the fourth or fifth day, I started getting rashes. I learnt an important lesson — and would avoid doing extreme experiments like that.

However, I realised that such mistakes can happen even with an almost regular diet. I was gorging on beetroot almost every day as a salad before lunch (along with carrots, cucumber and radish). I had also stopped taking milk after finding out it made me feel less energetic. This went on for a few months. Recently, I was diagnosed with kidney stones. (It can be painful.)

While I was genetically disposed to get it, the combination I mentioned might have been an immediate cause. Beetroot has high levels of oxalates. Milk is a source of calcium. Without calcium to bind to, they went to the kidney, forming stones.

I am taking nutritional balance more seriously now.

2. Skipping hydration

This is another big mistake. When we are on a diet, we tend to focus too much on food and forget all about water. Drinking water can be boring. I prefer drinking black coffee. But there is only so much black coffee you can drink. Besides, having too much of it can mess with your sleep. (Having too little for a couple of weeks might have contributed to my kidney stones, my doctor said).

Now, I realise that I often waited till I felt thirsty to take a sip. Thirst can be a delayed indicator of dehydration. What I should have done is keep a reminder and take water every 30 minutes. It's harder when you are travelling or when you have a series of meetings.

3. Not listening to my body

I was regularly tracking two metrics throughout — weight and waist. I started measuring waist because I read weight alone can be misleading (it doesn't tell anything about muscle weight vs fat weight). And waist is a good measure because bigger waist circumference is associated with a number of ailments.

But even these two aren't enough. You can see them both moving in the right direction with calorific deficit, but it won't say anything if there's also nutritional deficit. At one point in my journey that's what happened. I was losing weight. But I was also feeling less energetic. I had to quickly fix my diet and include more vegetables before I felt like my normal self.

4. Neglecting sustainability

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy, the UK, tells the story about a very successful salesman. When a customer walks in, most salesmen ask ‘how do I make this sale?’ But this salesman asked how do I make sure he comes to me when he wants to buy his next car?

I was optimising for weight loss and cutting calories initially. But I realised I was coming close to giving it up altogether. Then I made a tweak. I decided to have one cheat day a week (Saturday, usually), where I am a bit more relaxed about it. Similarly, I decided to be less strict about my diet during key festivals (like Deepavali, Pongal, etc) and when there are visitors at home. These decisions helped.

5. Forgetting fitness

This is a problem I'm yet to crack. I am not much into exercise, except for a 30-minute walk in the evenings. I also try to avoid escalators and lifts as much as possible. But, that's not enough. I need to look at strength, stamina and flexibility.

I am wondering whether to hit the gym or take up yoga. That sounds like a good problem to have, except, I have been wondering about this for the last six months. Any suggestions?