Finding myself again through fitness

Bharat Barve
Aug 29
8 min read

This is not one of those cringy know-it-all gyan about the science of weight loss. It is simply my story. A story different from the quick transformations we often see on social media with crash diets, fat burner fads, or sauna belts. My journey has stretched over five years, filled with struggles to stay consistent, times when I lost track, and the small but important wins of always finding my way back. More than anything, it is about gratitude for my coach who guided me, my spouse who stood by me, and everyone else who kept me motivated.

Stage 1: Sailing through the mis-conceptions

It was late 2018, and I was still caught up in all the diet myths floating around. That is when my wife told me about a Facebook group called S.Q.U.A.T.S (now FITTR). She had been following the transformations there, people of all ages making real progress. I brushed it off at first, thinking it was just another get-slim-quick scheme.

After a few days of her insisting, she went ahead and joined the program with coach Ainul Shaikh. He created a plan for her that was tailored to her goals and lifestyle. It felt very personal and different from the usual one-size-fits-all advice.

I still could not understand the idea of measuring raw food before cooking. It felt like something only an obsessed person would do.

Every weekend she had a check-in call with her coach, and her diet and workouts would be adjusted based on her progress. Slowly but steadily, her weight started going down. In about 7 to 8 months she lost more than 5 kilos and still felt healthy and energetic.

That is when it clicked for me. This was not a gimmick, it was backed by real science. I was convinced and signed up with Ainul myself soon after.

Stage 2: The beginning

I was convinced about the diet but couldn't fit the gym in my routine. So I told Ainul that I would prefer working out at home. We already had a pair of dumbbells, so I started with those. The first few weeks of eating measured portions were tough, and I often found myself craving more. But after about a month, my body and mind adjusted. I also enrolled in a gym soon after.

The next big hurdle was my habit of being a weekend drinking warrior. I stuck to my diet and workouts from Monday to Friday, but when the weekend came, I rewarded myself with beers. Those “celebrations” undid most of the progress I made during the week, and Ainul was not impressed. He told me clearly that I was being unfair to myself by throwing away my hard work over the weekend.

It took time, but eventually I accepted that not every weekend needs to be about these celebratory drinks. Once I cut back and stayed consistent, the results started to show. Within four months I saw steady progress. By the end of 2019, I even noticed the outline of my jawline again, something I thought was lost forever.

My weight, which had bounced between 73 and 75 kilos, had finally dropped down to 69.

Stage 3: Big break

2020 - 2024

When Covid hit in February 2020, the world came to a standstill, and so did my fitness enrolment. I paused my enrolment but continued doing some home workouts while sticking to the same calorie intake.

Before the break, I had been on a calorie deficit (~1700 kcal/day diet), and I continued with it all the way through 2020 until 2024. My weight stayed on the lower side, but it started to take a toll on me physically and mentally. My strength and stamina were not the same.

At the same time, my life was going through some of its biggest shifts. I lost my father in July 2020. In December 2021, I became a father myself after a tough pregnancy journey with my wife. ❤️

Then in 2022, my mother’s cancer relapsed. For the next two years, it only worsened, and in January 2024, I lost her too.

While enjoying the responsibilities and joys of being a parent myself, losing my parents put me through a turmoil and took me to the lowest point of my life. After days of sitting with my grief and memories, I realised I had to pull myself back up - for my family, my daughter, and especially for myself.

For years I had been putting my parents’ health and well-being first, while keeping my own fitness and priorities aside. Now it was time to finally take care of myself. And I am glad I chose fitness as the way to do it.

I immediately called Ainul.

Stage 4: The comeback

I re-enrolled with Ainul in late February 2024. The start was slow, and Ainul did not push me too hard, which was exactly what I needed. I had set myself a long-term goal of being at my fittest by my 35th birthday. That gave me 15 months, and I thought it was plenty of time. I soon realised I was wrong.

Coming out of the loss of my aai, I gave myself space and was not too strict. That made me a little too laid-back. I skipped gym sessions, slipped on my diet, and made excuses. There were weeks where I saw no progress at all, and deep down I knew it was because of me. But through it all, Ainul kept his faith. Like a true mentor, he never stopped encouraging me.

He set small non-negotiables for me: three gym sessions per week and 7,000 steps a day. Some days I failed, but on many others I managed to stick to it. Slowly, he raised the bar to four gym sessions and 8,000 steps. This was then changed to 4-5 gym sessions with 10k steps. Bit by bit, I started showing up more consistently.

That is when progress became visible. Over the weeks, I lost several inches of fat, and one day I realised that almost 70 percent of my clothes had become too loose to wear. It was such a good feeling.

On May 12th, 2025, my 35th birthday, I was at the fittest stage of my life. My original goal was to lose fat and then build muscle by 35, but even reaching this point felt like a huge achievement. I was proud of myself, of the efforts I put in, and of choosing to push forward even when life had felt so heavy and hopeless.

Stage 5: The final stretch

I finally reached 65 kilos, looking leaner and feeling so much better. But I knew there was still room to improve, especially around my belly fat.

Within a month, I dropped another 2 kilos. I was excited and thought this was the point where we would switch to bulking. But Ainul disappointed me, as he informed that we still had 3 to 4 kilos to lose. That felt crushing.

The last stretch turned out to be the hardest part of the journey. There was no space for mistakes, whether in diet or workouts. Progress slowed down to a crawl. Some weeks I would lose 600 grams, only to gain 400 the next week. This cycle went on for a couple of months, while I stayed on the lowest calories I had ever been on, about 1500 kcal/day.

At times I felt lightheaded, sometimes in public places and sometimes during workouts. My frustration peaked.

I kept questioning everything. Am I drinking too much water? Am I constipated? Is my body holding on to water? Why are these last few kilos not moving?

I began to dread my Saturday check-ins with Ainul, because the conversation was almost always about no progress. But he kept me grounded, reminding me to stay patient. I kept my head down and tried to focus on the bigger picture.

At the same time, the constant unsolicited advice and comments from self-proclaimed fitness experts around me only added to the frustration.

Is everything alright with you?

Are you sick?

Why are you losing this much weight?

Why do you need dieting? You are already slim.

Are you stressed?

Budha dikh raha - stop the dieting!

Diet-wiet is nothing - we should enjoy our lives by eating everything!

Every time I looked at myself in the gym mirror, the comments and doubts from others echoed in my mind. It was driving me crazy.

That is when I decided to change the narrative. I reminded myself to trust my coach and my journey. I also reminded myself that one of my goals for 2025 was to stop letting other people’s opinions control me.

Slowly, I started feeling more connected. With my mind. With the weights. With the music in my ears. And eventually with my body.

In July 2025, I reached my optimum weight of 60.8 kilos. For the first time, my Saturday check-in felt exciting. But the one person who was even more excited than me that day was Ainul.

For the first ten minutes he spoke only about my journey and how far I had come. And then he said the golden words:

"Now we start bulking!"

He also encouraged me to do a photoshoot, something I was super uncomfortable with at first. But he guided me through everything, including the diet, body composition and even the water intake leading up to the day of the shoot.

The shoot went well, and when I saw the final photos, tears rolled down my face. Not because I looked like a bodybuilder or had an Arnold-like physique, but because I had built something out of nothing. I had built this during the darkest days of my life, by showing up to the gym when I least wanted to, by saying no to sweets that were right in front of me.

What I had achieved was deeply personal. This was not just progress on the scale or in the mirror. This was my victory.

Some of the metrics: Aug 2024 - Aug 2025

Takeaways

During one of our check-ins, I remember feeling a little ashamed about how long my transformation was taking. That is when Ainul shared something that stayed with me.

He said that the six-month transformations we often see, where we see people getting transformed beyond recognition, are only one or two percent of all cases. It does not mean those transformations are any less admirable, or that they require less effort, or that those people have an easier life.

But he reminded me that my journey was part of the larger group, the majority. And within this group, the chances of failure are much higher. Many people get discouraged, frustrated and eventually give up.

The difference for me was that I did not quit. I stumbled many times, but I kept picking myself up each time. That resilience is what carried me through.

And this is my story. My win.

Here are some of the key takeaways from this journey:

What kept me determined was staying focused on my own journey and not paying attention to the comments or opinions of others.
Calorie deficit does not mean starving. Even at my lowest intake, I was still eating full meals with rice, dal, chapatis, vegetables and of course the right amount of protein (in quantitative portions).
Shifting the narrative in my head about negativity and failure helped me bounce back whenever I slipped.
I also learned that even a week with no progress was still progress, because it meant I was willing to put in more effort.
Fat loss, and fitness in general, is a science. But for me it also became a lesson in compassion. It taught me not to judge someone else or their journey.
Just because this plan worked for me does not mean it will work exactly the same way for someone else. This made me more mindful about not giving unnecessary advice.
Along the way, I also met some genuinely curious people who wanted to hear my story. It felt good to share it in social settings, not as instructions or prescriptions, but simply as my own experience.

Gratitudes

To my coach - Ainul
To FITTR and JC - for building a reliable platform in a world full of misconceptions
To my gym - which has become my safe haven of sorts.
To my wife, for her unwavering support and dealing through my tantrums in general.
To the people who taunted me, sometimes out of concern and sometimes just to mock me, thank you for reminding me that the science of fitness still has a long way to go in reaching everyone.
And to the people who encouraged me, who celebrated the small wins with me along the way, thank you for being a part of my journey.
And finally, a special thanks to my friend Manoj Yermalkar for all the effort and support in making the gym shoot happen.