On January 1, nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar launched The Fitness Project 2018. “I was expecting 500 people to sign up,” she says, on a call from Mumbai. “But, within the first 2 minutes, we hit 500 registrations. In 15 minutes, we got to 5,000. We closed at 25,000.”
It didn’t end there. Her social media handles and phone lines were inundated with requests from people to be included in this free, public, 12-week health programme. “I picked up a call from a techie from Hyderabad, who gave me a earful,” she chuckles. “He said, ‘You are so bad at tech; you don’t know how to make this into a mass movement. Why bother with the number of registrations?’ And I thought he made complete sense. I had felt 25,000 was a lot of people, but after I spoke to him, we opened it out for another 24 hours.” They finally began with 75,000 people registered from 20 countries.
Bengaluru Karnataka 06/08/2017 Nutrition and exercise science expert and Author , Rujuta Diwekar. Photo: Sampath Kumar G P
Over the course of 12 weeks, Rujuta gave participants and her social media followers one health guideline every week via Facebook live. Participants had to work on integrating these into their everyday life. They also had to fill compliance on a weekly Google form and rate progress on a range of parameters (sleep quality, energy levels, exercise, and a few more) once a month.
An organic change
The project ended last Tuesday. Though participants are still filling out the final set of Google Docs, these are the results collated from the first and second month. About 9,335 people have reported losing 1 inch from their waist, 3,227 have lost 2 inches and 848 people have lost more than 2 inches. More significantly, participants have reported better energy levels, sleep and digestion. More people are exercising regularly, and many have cut back on all junk food.
Rujuta is delighted. “Every year, people resolve to lose weight. Then they do such unsustainable things, that by the time you meet them in March, they have given up on on exercise and their diet. I know what the pitfalls are: doing too much too soon,” she says. “Sometimes we don’t understand that 2018 is a full 12 months. We act like it is just the next twelve hours.” Which is why she decided to give participants just one guideline a week. “This way, you are adapting to these ideas in an organic fashion. We need to reengineer eating correctly into our lifestyle...”
- Start your day with a banana or any fresh fruit instead of tea or coffee
- Eat ghee. Without fear, without guilt, without doubt
- Rethink, reform and regulate your use of gadgets
- Eat a wholesome meal between 4-6 pm in the evening
- Move more, sit less
- Start with at least one session of strength training every week
- Eat dal and rice for dinner
- Use the mental meal map as a tool to help you eat the right quantity
- Practise Suryanamaskar daily
- Have sherbets and other traditional summer drinks through the day
- Clean up your kitchen by reducing plastic, cooking in an iron kadai and ditching the microwave
- Bring these three fats back into in your daily diet — cold-pressed oil, coconut and cashew
It helped that the project snowballed into a group movement, aided by her social media following, (5,29,000 followers on Twitter, 1,60,000 on Instagram and 5,59,139 on Facebook) even though a lot of these principles were already in her books. “I think social media is a great way to get people together. It is accessible. And there is an inherent sense of accountability, because people knew we were keeping track of progress...,” she says, adding that they are getting a constant stream of success stories. The rules are, in typical Rujuta style, simple. So simple, it’s almost disappointing. “It’s because of the whole narrative around weight loss,” she says, “People believe that unless they do something that is complicated, it won’t work.”
Keeping it simple
Although the guidelines were up for everyone to follow, the avalanche of calls and messages from people (mostly women) asking to join the programme throws up another issue: the endless, punishing quest to be thinner. No liberation can happen without us accepting our bodies the way they are. When we distrust our body, we distrust every intuitive decision we make.” She adds, “I think people are so confused because we don’t value what comes from our own homes, and our own regions. But look at how turmeric is becoming a posh weight-loss agent in New York. And how five-stars in San Francisco are giving diners clarified butter instead of maple syrup on French toast.”
Meanwhile in India, health junkies are still constantly in search of the next big thing. “ABC juice is the new Maggi of the Himalayas. People think it’s the new cool thing, but what would be cool would be to have bel (wood apple) or buransh (rhododendron) sherbet instead.” Her solution? Keep it simple, and return to your roots. Which could be why she’s garnered such a loyal, almost cult-like following, despite the inevitable naysayers. “I do feel that a lot of the love I receive is borrowed,” she laughs. “It’s the love everyone has kept for their grandmothers and it comes my way.”
