Arvind Ashok: Fitness & Nutrition Simplified

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

2
August

I’m not in this world to live up to your expec­ta­tions and you’re not in this world to live up to mine — Bruce Lee.

I am proud to have a wife, and fam­ily that sup­ports me in my endeavours. For the past 3 years, I’ve been look­ing for the right rea­son to move back to India. I wasn’t sure what it was gonna be, but I knew I was gonna move back some­day soon.

I wanna help people. I wanna make a dif­fer­ence in their lives. That’s how I got into User Expe­ri­ence Design, from being a pro­gram­mer. Almost every­one uses tech­nol­ogy — if I could make it eas­ier for them to use, that’s a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in their lives. But once in a while, there comes a new oppor­tu­nity to do more. This post is about that.

I am gonna quit my six-figure pay­ing job in the won­der­ful city of San Fran­cisco, sell my awe­some car, and say good­bye to all the won­der­ful friends I’ve made here. And move back to my home­town of Madras. And I am gonna start a gym. Not just any gym, and not just me. I got a partner-in-crime on this.

Cou­ple of years ago, when I had the seeds of this idea, it was pretty vague — “I am gonna open a Cross­Fit box” — was as far as I had though. Then comes one of those ran­dom meet­ings that change things up, to say the least. Over the past year, the two of us have been devel­op­ing our own train­ing phi­los­o­phy. I think build­ing some­thing big takes more than one per­son. And in Raj Gan­path, I met a guy supremely pas­sion­ate about health and fit­ness, and hell-bent on help­ing peo­ple achieve their fit­ness goals. More impor­tantly, I found a friend and a busi­ness partner.

Now to the “not just a gym” part. If you’ve been read­ing our blogs reg­u­larly, you know we don’t do the same-old things you see all around you.  We want to help change this field fun­da­men­tally, we wanna change the sys­tem, and help improve it. Why do we have to grow old with­out a fight? Why do we have to set­tle for sub-par fit­ness and nutri­tion advice?Even if it is just a week­end sport you are play­ing — wouldn’t you like to be bet­ter at it? Wouldn’t you just like every­thing to feel better?

It doesn’t stop just there. We have some great ideas, and long-term plans. We are here to stay, we are here to make a dif­fer­ence. The gym is the first step in what is gonna be an awe­some jour­ney. If you like what we are about — talk to us. We wanna talk to peo­ple. We wanna talk to you.

Wel­come to The Quad

After all that talk — here it is — Wel­come to The Quad.

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Posted on by Arvind

36 Comments

Category: India, Lifestyle, Me Tags :

  • Mamatha

    Awe­some Arvind! All the best to you and Raj.

  • http://lavanyad.com/home Lavanya

    Majorly ner­vous and super excited for you!!!

  • Vijay

    Arvind,

    Drop by the cen­tre (http://www.thestartupcentre.com) some­time when you are here. Seems like you are onto some­thing neat. Good lucl arvind, and safe trav­els. I know its a touch deci­sion (moved back from canada six years ago), and so far its been a good move.

    Vijay
    @vijayanands

  • Smita

    Con­grat­u­la­tions and good luck on your new ven­ture Arvind and Raj!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Smita!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Sis!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Mamatha!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Vijay! Will def­i­nitely come by the startup cen­tre. And appre­ci­ate the feed­back! I’ve been keep­ing up here and there with what you’ve been doing, with Proto.in and RTBI. Look­ing for­ward to meet­ing up at the Cen­tre in a few weeks.

  • Ann Bell

     It comes to our lives that we want some changes in nature,places or even the life styles.And this hap­pens exactly with you.You just fol­low your instinct to go back home.You prove that there’s no place like home.Congratulations to your new career and good luck.http://www.sellcar-uk.com/

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks!

  • Jean-Francois

    Dear Fit­ness Designer. I don’t like gyms (or don’t have access to one) and would like to keep a min­i­mum of work­out equip­ment at my place to train and com­plete a min­i­mum daily work­out. What would you sug­gest I get? Small dumbells?.. 

  • Vivek

    All the best to you guys!!
    I am a chen­naite as well, cur­rently liv­ing in Texas and fit­ness has been a point of focus for me in the past year. I read through many of your blog posts today and they are very infor­ma­tive. The arti­cle about grains is an eye-opener for many. I have heard a few pod­casts of Robb Wolff and I am going to read that book you have men­tioned about. Like you keep men­tion­ing in many of your blogs to eat real food and eat right, it is def­i­nitely impor­tant. I had been work­ing out for about 8–9 months with­out see­ing proper results and couldn’t achieve my goals. But then I went for a set of train­ing ses­sions here in Texas and that is when I learnt to eat right as well. I saw dra­matic results in less than 2 months. So, I am sure chen­nai will ben­e­fit from highly trained guys like you peo­ple! Good luck again and prob­a­bly I will drop in to The Quad when I come to chen­nai next time. :)

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Hey JF,
    Yeah, you can do a lot with a pair of dumb­bells, a 35lb ket­tle­bell, and TRX bands — or just one of these.

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Vivek! Appre­ci­ate the feed­back, and def­i­nitely swing by and say hi when you are in town.

  • Shee­tal

    Con­grat­u­la­tions! Great work–keep it up :)

  • http://bhamla.com Saad Bhamla

    Awe­some. Wish you good luck! 

  • Karthik Pad­man­ab­han

    Super. Wel­come back. You got a client waiting.. :-)

  • Karthik Pad­man­ab­han

    Super. Good luck.. and you got a client waiting.. :-)

  • Ramakr­ish­nan Seshadri

    I can be your chal­lenge! Definitely! 

    Am just won­der­ing off with thoughts on how I could loose the “bulky bulk” — Wait­ing to meet the challenger! 

    You know ways to reach me out and please do get me loos­ing more. I am in for the program!

    Thanks
    Naren

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Shee­tal!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Saad!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Karthik! Good to hear, look­ing for­ward to work­ing with you!

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Hey Naren,
    Read some of the links on this blog to start off with — http://arvindashok.com/blog/2011/06/27/starting-trouble-unfit-overweight-over-50-overworked/ and http://arvindashok.com/blog/2011/06/22/the-last-diet-you-will-ever-be-on/ are two to start with. We will def­i­nitely fix you up, dont worry about it!

  • http://www.facebook.com/jigard Jigar Doshi

    Lets catch up when you get here !

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Def­i­nitely!

  • A-kay

    Good luck Arvind.  It was fun to meet you & Raj and work out with you @ Greer Park, albeit just once.  I wish we had more ses­sions.  Keep us posted on how it goes in Chen­nai and also, on your plans to spread­ing the wings to other metros.

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks for the wishes! Those boot­camp ses­sions were the start, and I wish we could’ve had more of those here as well. But train­ing is a full-time job, and that’s why we are tak­ing the plunge. We will def­i­nitely be con­tin­u­ing the con­ver­sa­tion — both on our indi­vid­ual blogs, and as part of The Quad. First stop — Madras. And hope­fully spread to other met­ros soon!

  • Swarna

    I know this works…so good­luck with “The Quad” at our home­town chennai.

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Swarna, really appre­ci­ate it!

  • http://kusumrohra.blogspot.com Kusum Rohra

    Hey Arvind,

    I am really look­ing for­ward to be work­ing out at the quad. I will be email­ing you soon in detail. I totally love your pas­sion and approach for fit­ness. I sure will spread the word around.

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Hey Kusum,
    Thanks a lot! Really appre­ci­ate your com­ments, and spread­ing the word. See you soon in Madras.

  • Smruti Shah

    hey, I just found this blog and I had no idea you lived in SF—I live in SF too and have been going to a boot­camp which I love. I might be mov­ing to Delhi soon and in my cur­sory research did not find too many boot­camp options (women friendly or oth­er­wise). Until you guys open in Delhi, any rec­om­men­da­tions for trainers/gyms?

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Hey Smruti,
    Sorry for the delayed response. I don’t know of any train­ers or gyms in Delhi that are not the run-of-the-mill kind. At The Quad, we are hop­ing to setup a net­work of train­ers with sim­i­lar philoso­phies, and if we find any, will def­i­nitely share them.

    Cheers
    AA 

  • Smruti Shah

    thanks Arvind! look­ing for­ward to any resources you can share! best of luck in Chennai!

  • Vikram

    good luck Arv,  look­ing for­ward to be a part of the camp some time soon ! 
    Cheers 
    vikram 

  • http://twitter.com/arv43 arv43

    Thanks Vikram! Swing by some­time — on a Wednes­day or a Thurs­day. Your first train­ing ses­sion is on us.