While growing up, I never had issues with my weight. I was skinny and considered myself to have an athletic build. However, as I got older and my metabolism slowed down, my health was taking a backseat to my work and my social life. I noticed that I was gaining weight. I started to get a muffin top and I hated looking at pictures of myself.

Whenever I stuck to long stretches of working out, I noticed that as I was getting bigger from weightlifting, I was also getting “huskier.” I knew my problem lay with nutrition, but I did not know how to tackle this issue. Even though I am a physician, we are not taught nutrition in school (at least in the United States). The most readily available nutritional information I found was either for a disease process like diabetes or renal disease, or for muscle bulking. For whatever reason, I found weight loss information so cryptic. I knew I had to expend more calories than what I ate, but I knew it was more complex. I tried various cookie-cutter diets in the past that I found over the internet that always led to the same dead end.

I wanted to do something because I was getting older and at the time just turned 40. Just prior, I lost my father to heart disease at the age of 72. My father was one of the healthiest people I knew. He was very disciplined with his diet and lifestyle. Unfortunately, he was cursed with poor Indian genetics. At the age of 44, he underwent triple bypass heart surgery. His passing was a wakeup call and it was concerning that I was approaching the age that he first began having heart issues. I knew I had to lose weight, but didn’t know how. However, one day I was on Facebook when I saw my friend, Shalini Desai‘s amazing transformational picture. I reached out to her to inquire what she did, and she mentioned RNT fitness. I visited the website shortly after in May 2019 and discovered a wealth of transformational stories as well as free nutritional information, which I felt was a rarity as most fitness sites required you to pay an exorbitant amount of money to get their “secret formula” just to get a generic diet with foods you never ate before or enjoyed eating.

I formally began my RNT fitness journey on July 1, 2019. However, the month prior I did the 30-day program as recommended on the website and within that month lost close to 20 pounds. When I started training with RNT, I continued to lose weight based on an individualized program and I was breaking weight-loss barriers that I didn’t know I could attain. My fat loss journey was interrupted by a torn left proximal biceps’ tendon as well as the flu, but RNT continued to guide me successfully in the right direction. I was able to develop systems, strategies, and structures to my everyday life and I just finished up my fat loss phase. I lost 70 pounds during this phase of the program. Looking back, it’s clear I overestimated my strength and underestimated the amount of fat that I had to lose. It was a slow and steady journey, but I now knew the science behind it with my weekly check-ins and the rationale for every recommendation. There was no bullshit and I appreciated the brutal honesty that RNT provides. I valued that every time I had a physiological or nutritional question, they provided me with detailed answers and the supporting research/articles.

I am now looking forward to The Consolidation and then The Investment Phase, in which I’ll continue to work on the better version of myself. There is an African proverb that states, “if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” I believe that best sums up my journey with RNT Fitness. Before, I was looking for the quick fix, but without my coach and the team approach, I do not believe that I would’ve gotten as far with my results and transformation. I’m very thankful for the renewed confidence I have in my body, but also the improved mental and emotional aspects of my life as well.