Last week, Gul Panag, the actor-politician who has consistently stood for fitness (thankfully never thinness), put out a #21daychallenge on Instagram and Twitter. “Each time I’ve done a public challenge, it strengthens my own resolve and commitment,” she says, in her post, inviting two other people to join. There are three goals: doing 30 minutes of exercise a day, focussing on using food as fuel, being mindful of thoughts and actions. With a couple of hundred ‘Count me ins’, the challenge got off to a start with two volunteers: a doctor in Gangtok and a project manager in Bengaluru, neither of whom she’s met. The idea behind this is to bring together people from different walks of life and parts of the country. They log what they did by way of exercise and food: this itself can make a change.
This is the third challenge for Panag since April. Her first was a 14-day challenge when she said she’d fallen off the fitness wagon. “I was struggling to build a routine, and I did it with my dad,” she says. Since then, she’s been consistent, but “it was a controlled environment — I was at home and going to work.” Then she began shooting for Student of the Year 2 , where she plays a PE teacher, so it became all the more important to keep up her fitness regimen, despite the tight schedule and long shooting.
This time then, the aim was to simply keep to the routine, and for those who had let go of regularity, to get back to it. “The purpose is not to build big biceps or get six-pack abs, but to inculcate consistency. Second, we all know what food is in terms of nutrition and what it is in terms of indulgence. The aim is to be aware that you’re exercising a choice each time you eat. And third, we often find ourselves in circumstances that are challenging, but the way we react is a matter of choice. Choosing to be angry is a choice we make,” she says.
A public challenge meant she had to be committed and accountable. “Public accountability helps you with a deeper sense of commitment,” she says. And though this is her first year of public challenges, in the past, the way she has dealt with an overwhelming day has been to reposition her thinking, she says. “I tell myself: ‘The challenge today is to eat healthy and find a window to exercise, and finish work as well.’ The moment I orient my thinking that the day will be a challenge, it becomes easier, because then I’m looking to scale a hill, rather than just looking up and saying, ‘Oh my god the mountain is so tall’.”
She feels she’s in a good place to help people because of all the micro-communities she is connected with on social media: some car and bike enthusiasts, some travellers, some movie fans, and some fitness fans. The purpose is a sense of like-mindedness, and “to inspire and push each other,” she says. “They say it takes 21 days to make a change in habits, and once you’re on the bandwagon, you can tweak and make changes.” The point is to get on it then. For Panag: “It keeps me galvanised, enthused, excited about my goals. I want to be the best version of myself and that is not easy. If it was, we’d all be the best versions of ourselves!”
