500 kcals per day, come what may!

I lost considerable weight from the end of April until, say, the end of June, when almost all my years of precious belly fat got vaporized. Now, this is a combination technique: you've got to control your food, and you've got to walk. And walk a lot. Like 10,000 steps as a minimum, at a pace of about 3.0 km per hour.

So, about the food first, and since nothing on the Pakistani menu fits in the range of a passable low-fat, low-carb diet, it's a challenge to have homemade food and plan any form of diet, or to even remotely dream of not being indulgent. Still, there's a way to this, and here's what I've been doing:

Flip the script: no THREE Cs – no chapatis (flat bread), no cheeni (sugar) and no chawal (rice) – so none of those for a long while. Replace chapatis with yoghurt, cheeni with honey (hardest, and yukh-tasting in milk tea) and rice with yoghurt too. I am used to the yukh-tasting milk tea from whenever.

Give it 13 to 15 hours: Finish your evening meal by 7:00 PM, which means no eating after this point until the next 13 to 14 hours. No snacks, no nothing. For me, this means having something by 10:00 AM, which is when I begin my work, so during those days, I choose to have my milk tea (made in milk, no water added) with no sweetener. This gives me 13 hours of fasting and a much-needed energy bump at 10:00 AM with milk and caffeine. Now, this is me; everyone's metabolism is different, so find a way to get that fast in. And remember, if you go without eating for that long, you can have body pains or migraines or something. So don't push yourself. Still, once I've had my 10:00 AM tea, I'd give it two more hours and have my breakfast (yes, if you still want to call it that) at 12:00 PM. That's 15 hours of a fast, okay, almost. You can have a wholesome breakfast now and call it a brunch, or whatever. Just remember, there's no lunch after this; simply plan for and have your dinner sooner than 7:00 PM.

Get a fitness tracker and track these: Active calories burnt daily, your daily step count and the number of minutes you exercise. My personal goal is to burn 500 kcals per day, exercise for 45 minutes and walk 10,000 steps. The 10,000 steps tip came many years ago from Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, who I recall said it helps keep away some kind of diabetes (sorry, I don't understand this much). So, hitting this goal is quite hard, and you need to find the right combination of exercises that get you there, but I've simply done so by walking, walking and walking.

Walk, Walk and Walk some more: Yes, I do this about 2–3 times a day, or, when I'm working and have the energy, in one session, but this can be very hard. Why? Because burning 500 active kcals on a treadmill at 3.0 km per hour requires about 90 minutes of walking. If you're planning to walk this much outdoors, it's never going to happen, because you'll never have the patience or the pace to do it. So, get a walking pad and set it up in front of your desk. Then, very safely, over the first few days, walk at a slow speed, trying to work at your desk. Now, I've simply placed an IKEA Lack table on top of my lovely IKEA Bjursta and called it a standing desk for years now. So I don’t work much while sitting. Though at times, like this one, I do sit and write, or code. Back to the walking part – get into the habit of walking as you work, and try to walk at least three times a day, every day. See how soon you hit those three markers: 500 active kcals, a minimum of 45 minutes of exercise and 10,000 steps. And the tough part is getting those 500 active kcals done, because trying to hit that will up your exercise minutes and those steps too, so if I had to say it aloud – 500 kcals per day, come what may!

You don’t need fancy tech: No Apple Watch, no specialist treadmill, nope. I’ve moved away from Apple Watch for reasons of my own, and have, for the past three years, used a simple Huawei Band for tracking – steps primarily, and now all this stuff, more so. And buying a walking pad (not a full-blown treadmill) was on my list for a long while, but I’m not sure why I hadn’t thus far – it proved to be a mercy from Allah, and it is! You’ve got to get one. So, a band and a walking pad of your choice, and this little tip: if you work while standing and rest your wrists on a walking desk, your tracker or watch will count absolutely zero steps or movement. Heartbreak, yeah? So, the solution is: wear it on your leg, right above your ankle. I wear it on my left leg and take it off while I sleep at night. If you want to track your sleep, you can leave it on, but I like to leave behind my tech while I rest. As for the tracker, the better part is, it’s waterproof and has no calling features. So, you can safely keep it on, make as much wudu as you want, or just go shower, or swim or whatnot. It stays on, and you never forget it, unless, of course, I at times forget to wear it back on the next morning. Still, this is way better than wearing it on the wrist, when you’ll want to take it off for wudu and then forget to wear it back on – so strap it on the left foot and let it be there.

Resist the feedback, break some rules: Or you’ll never get this done. The idea of doing something, or anything, to fit your exercise into your day is so alien in our culture that we’d rather go have another meal than actually plan a fitness routine. That’s, I guess, the Pakistani culture. In a nutshell. If you can’t figure something out or the sky is about to fall on your head, ask for tea, or ask if you’d like to have a snack or some food. Come to fitness, oh my, all kinds of alerts begin to ring, all kinds of questions too. So let the feedback be what it is, just someone’s opinion about what they feel your situation is like. I’ve ignored praise, caution and whatnot to keep going, and I literally shut my hearing down when I sense something’s about to be said regarding my exercise setup. It’s something that’s personal, and it’s something you’ve got to do with extreme care and focus. Now, whenever someone asks me whether I’m still walking or says that I should take care (since it is actually risky), I simply say yes, reply to the question and then move on. I’m not going to stop walking, neither am I going to let those calories get added back on.

Eat like Stallone: In his book, Sly Moves, which I have owned for over a decade or more, in print and as an audiobook, Sylvester Stallone gives you one day for an ‘all-you-can-eat’ spree. I follow this rule as much as I can. I do bend it at times, but I try and keep my fancy eating from lunch on Thursday to dinner on Friday. This helps me enjoy things I love to eat all the time, yet refrain from them during the week, when, actually, it’s healthier to have more fruit, vegetables and meats. Anyway, I’m not a fitness expert, so remember, there’s nothing like a diet; it’s just absolute control of your blessings from Allah. And most of us are blessed with abundant food. Alḥamdulillāh.

If you miss a day or two, it’s just fine: I miss meeting my target once in a while. In July, I wasn’t able to walk much due to a condition, so I largely controlled my food intake to keep in shape, which I did, and it worked. Still, by August, I could sense I was putting a little bit of weight on, so I got back to my walking regime, and it’s helping again. The idea is to meet your target every day, and let some slip if they do, because that’s how things are; at times you forget or mismanage it. Fine, meet the target the next day. Discover more exercises too. I’ve found that cycling on my tiny exercise bike is great for keeping your legs in shape, so go do that, and I’ve done it in the past successfully while watching TV. I simply drag the thing in front of the television and go about it. I must say, I’m missing doing that, so I should.

A couple of final thoughts.

I found out running gets your belly tighter, or toned, as they say. You can’t run if you can’t walk, so once you’re able to walk for about 2 kilometres on a treadmill without any qualms, try jogging a bit, then build stamina. I’ve done that, and it feels so good.

Then, ‘why must I do this?’ isn’t the question to ask. Ask ‘why mustn’t I?’, because that’s a much better stance. Life’s not about settling in, it’s about discovering stuff as you move along. I was never resigned to the fact that I was putting on years and weight, nope, I was resigned to the fact that I knew nothing about this type of exercising and had no idea where to start. I’ve always been an outdoor cricket and football or activity guy; this all-formalized exercise is so beyond me. Yet, bundled with work or play, exercise can help one get back on their feet, look slim and trim, possibly get a new perspective on life.

If you’re fit, you’re fighting fit. Losing weight, Alḥamdulillāh, has left me wanting to move to the next phase – a complete daily workout to engage all muscles and get them in shape. I think I’ll find some time to explore this today. And also nudge in Dr. Eric Goodman’s Foundation Training workouts I’ve done in the past to keep my back healthy – you have no clue how good that is, and it takes about 45 minutes to do all those exercises (I bought a set of his DVDs some ten years ago).

And finally, remember, there’s no barakah in anything unless, of course, Allah’s blessings are with you, or upon you. If you experience a profound change in yourself due to circumstances, or when someone said something to you, or something happened to someone you know – and instead of thinking or rethinking a dozen times, you simply got up and got about doing something for the better – remember, that nudge is from Allāh Subḥānahu wa Taʿālā, and not your own. And what better than a nudge from Allah, in the right direction.

So stop thinking, and get doing. Bismillāh.