Arvind Ashok: Fitness & Nutrition Simplified

Asterix and Obelix were a huge part of my child­hood, and I always wanted some of that magic potion! And then, I grew up. But it looks like there’s still a bunch of folks around who think stuff like that exists. There are a plethora of prod­ucts out there — fat burn­ers, fat busters, fat blasters, mass gain­ers, energy bars, energy shots, growth hor­mone boost­ers etc. Almost all of these try to jump­start some­thing inside, and get your hor­mones work­ing dif­fer­ently. Either increas­ing adren­a­lin to increase metab­o­lism, or reduc­ing estro­gen — things that are not nor­mal, and def­i­nitely things that have bad side-effects. From feel­ing jumpy to hav­ing heart pal­pi­ta­tions, things can go down­hill real fast. And don’t even think about stuff like steroids. That’s just incred­u­lous, that reg­u­lar gym-goers want to take steroids, see fast results. If you are a nor­mal, healthy human being — you do not need any of these things. Again, side effects range from mod­er­ately to severely unhealthy.

If any trainer promises you “unbe­liev­able results”, “20 kgs in 3 weeks” or what­ever — stay well away. Bar­ring excep­tions, unless you chop off an arm or a leg, that’s just not pos­si­ble in a healthy fashion.

There are no such things as magic potions. Stay com­mit­ted, find a good place to work­out with solid train­ers, get on a solid nutri­tion plan, and do the work!