Fat is good, even on diet

For someone who has a weakness for chocolate and started out on the heavier end of the scale, wellness specialist Namita Jain shares quite a relatable story. Her recently released books, The Four-Week Countdown Diet and Figure it Out (a guide to teen fitness), with forewords by starlet Deepika Padukone, and badminton diva Saina Nehwal, are already climbing the popularity charts.With 20 years of experience in the field and international certifications for handling group fitness, aerobics and pilates, it is hard to believe that this exercise addict was once a few kilos overweight. She explains, “I started swimming from the age of five and although I was an athletic youngster, I did compensate for it with my food, and it wasn’t until college that I started exercising with the purpose of losing weight. ” She adds, “I realised that it (fitness) gave me the kind of high you can’t get with anything else and started to equip myself with as much knowledge as possible.” In fact, over the years teaching classes for adults and kids, this 40-year-old health buff has come across her fair share of clients eager to lose weight, but not necessarily to exercise. “A woman came to my class some years ago right after a holiday on a cruise, because she had gained some weight. And she told me up front, ‘I will join your class but as soon as I get back to my previous weight, I will leave’.” Namita says she finds it rather odd that some people consider exercise a form of ‘punishment’. However she points out, it’s only a matter of time before you get hooked. “My client did lose weight, but interestingly after a while she simply couldn’t stop with the exercise. Now she’s more of a junkie than I am!” While it is common to want to look your best, there are those distinctive breeds of ‘must-look-perfect’ teens who tend to overdo it and, on the extreme flip side, the couch potato. To conduct adequate research for her book Figure It Out — a first for teens in India, the author decided to go all out to find as many college go-ers as possible from varied backgrounds to study fitness levels. She reveals, “There are just so many questions that kids have, and when you have the kind of experience that come with years of trial and error, you simply have to let them know that results are only a matter of time away.” Apparently at a recent workshop Chennai, this wellness expert had a roomful of mothers with an abundance of queries about their kids’ fitness or lack thereof. Namita says, “The feedback that I received was that schools in the city do not encourage children to be as active as possible.” She adds, “That’s why I am so excited about this teen book (Figure it Out) because I know that there isn’t anything like it in our country.” So, does Namita have a sacred piece of advice to impart before you fold your paper and dig into breakfast this morning? “There is no such thing as spot reduction,” she says firmly. “Find an exercise connect that makes it fun and eat appropriately, it’s all about  balance.”