How to lose weight and stay fit with Ramya Subramanian: Exercise, chase the sun, chew your food and practise intuitive eating

In her late teens, Ramya began as “a sari-clad anchor with a sweet face”, her plumpness confining her to a certain kind of role-playing. Two things scarred her, the absence of bigger-sized clothes for children and the societal gaze that made her self-conscious and nervous about wearing anything else. She tried every kind of fad diet, friends’ suggestions, followed everything floating online zealously but the bulge just would not go. Her anxiety levels rose as she found it hard to keep up with expected appearances. “My cardinal error was to not consult an established nutritionist, assess my health or seek fitness guides. And I lost a good many years of a disciplined approach. So I took a sabbatical and signed up with professionals. That’s when I began a proper gym routine and I gave it all, understanding what my body needed at each step. For example, I was trained on conditioning exercises and stretches, and how to warm up before every session, something that I used to totally ignore earlier. I started with workouts based on ‘High Intensity Interval Training’ or HIIT,” Ramya tells us. Not only did she lose the fat rapidly with a structured regimen, with a little help from her protein-rich diet, she built muscle.

Her dedication and willingness to literally punch above her weight drew the attention of her personal trainer Jyotsna, who suggested that she try power-lifting. As it did wonders to her body, it also made her competitive in the mind and gave her a sense of achievement and self-confidence “That’s when I participated in it as a professional sport and even won the gold at the district level. It also helped break my body consciousness as my male gym mates encouraged me to go to the arena and were my biggest cheerleaders. Powerlifting changed me forever. And after that, I wasn’t just offered stereotypical but action-oriented films,” she says.

Start young, especially if you have PCOS

That’s also the time Ramya decided to help other women like her by counselling them on fitness. She researched extensively during the lockdown, signing up for every kind of expert session, reading and finally setting up a fitness coaching academy with nutritionists, clinical dieticians, doctors and fitness experts. “Most Indian women do not understand or report their problems other than gynaecological issues like the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), something which impacts their reproductive health. But between 30s and 40s, most women develop several health conditions like diabetes and hypertension, complicated by stress. That’s why it is all the more important for women to build a fitness routine from their girlhood. Begin as early as eight or nine by taking up some kind of sport. So that by the time you are in your middle ages, your basic parameters are sorted. Fitness is about insuring your health, not just about losing weight to look good. If you have an active lifestyle, you do not need to build your body as such,” she tells us. Ramya further suggests that it is not just important to adopt a routine that works for you, it is also important to like it so that adherence doesn’t seem like drudgery. “Be consistent and happy. So be it yoga, Zumba, cardio, weight training or HIIT, consult an expert, experience it and then choose. Most importantly do a full body assessment before you begin anything.”

Circadian rhythm, being like a hunter gatherer, follow the sun

Ramya has found the virtues of being like our predecessors when they were hunter gatherers and did all their activities during sunlight and retreated into their shelter for the night. “I just follow the sunlight. Circadian rhythm fasting is a form of time-restricted feeding in which you eat most heavy meals and expend your energy in the earlier part of the day. So basically you have a functional time between eight to 12 hours a day. This makes the most sense because then you align with your internal body clock which regulates day and night hormones like cortisol and melatonin. Circadian rhythms impact the action of insulin and leptin. Our sleep schedule, body temperature, hormone levels and digestion are all greatly affected by circadian rhythms. If we can respect this correlation, then we can reduce much of our disease burden,” she says.

‘I practise intuitive eating’

Having suffered the worst consequences of every kind of fad diet, Ramya decided to follow the intuitive eating method, choosing to eat only when her hunger pangs kick in and, in the process, learning to recognise her own satiety levels. “It doesn’t mean denying or restricting any food. Instead, you listen to your body and eat what feels right for you. It also doesn’t mean you can eat anything, anytime. No, operate within the diurnal time range but eat only when your body tells you to, instead of following social habits. Sometimes I am good with two meals, sometimes I go in for three or four small ones. This way you retrain your body to act like it is meant to. This is a long-term solution to weight management and also mental well-being. In this scenario, food doesn’t quite become the enemy. Remember changing diets lead to eating disorders,” she says.

One person’s food is another person’s poison: Find your own plate

“I often get asked how I manage my diet and I tell everybody what works for me may not work for you and could even be poison as our body condition, type and metabolism differ from person to person,” says Ramya. But she does follow some basic and sensible practices.

“(1) Don’t go for exotic food that you have not grown up with. Keep your food choices regional and sustainable.
(2) Keep away from frozen and processed foods.
(3) I eat four to five portions of vegetables, protein-rich foods and have at least three litres of water. Indians do not have enough protein or as much as is proportional to their body weight and instead rely on carbs. Hydration is very important to flush out toxins. Protein worked for me as I was stronger in my workout sessions and had a new-found energy that helped me stay positive.
(4) Chew your food and break it down completely for better absorption, at least 20 to 30 times before your next morsel. I set a timer of 20 minutes for every meal that I eat.
(5) Do not eat too fast. Your brain doesn’t understand what you have eaten and cannot process their satiety index. So, it cannot alert you when what you eat is too much and the excess food piles up as unwanted fat.
(6) Do not overeat.”

‘How to avoid a fat plateau’

It took many trials and errors for Ramya to get rid of stubborn fat. “Over the course of time, when we keep eating less than usual, the body understands that this is the new normal and adapts to the change. At the end of the day, our bodies don’t care about aesthetics, and its job is to protect us by storing as much fat as possible to be prepared for a time when we might not give it external food. By eating less for long periods of time, we suppress our metabolism. With undereating or starving, your body will eventually adapt and learn to survive within the new limits, so you won’t continue to lose weight like you did at first. We call this a ‘fat loss plateau’. Although this can be reversed by slowly and consciously eating more in a planned and distributed way, it isn’t easy to do this, and you need to be really patient during the process to set it back,” she says.

(Stop Weighting is published by Penguin India)