36\/100. A clear day in the middle of monsoon and a blue sky had me reaching for a blue cotton Bandhej that I wore with a sleeveless, cream Fabindia top and arms and my happy stack of silver bangles<\/p>\n
The sunny sky was not the only reason – I chose my 36th saree for the pact to be the saree I had worn for my 36th birthday as this year had been a life-changing one.<\/p>\n
This is the second time this saree has been worn – because I stopped fitting into the blouse you see in the selfie (yes, that was five years ago) just three months later. The reason? I lost weight. About 12 kgs in three months and then about 5 more in the next six months. That’s a good thing, right? Yes. And the next question every one asks me is how I did it. The answer is plain and simple – fear.<\/p>\n
I have struggled with my weight since the age of 25 in spite of a pretty active lifestyle that incorporated dance at least three times a week. No smoking, no drinking, no binge eating either. And I seriously was a small eater. A long-standing thyroid condition was always held up as the enemy I had no weapons against. After my baby was born, my weight shot up even more, though I still maintained an active lifestyle. My constants during this period were an extremely stressful domestic situation, erratic schedules, and a fear of eating. All of which added up to what was not a pretty picture. In more ways than one.<\/p>\n
Then, one day in early August 2010, I woke up to sharp, shooting pains in my chest. I felt this terrible, terrible weight on my chest – so bad was it, that I wanted to lop off my left breast if it would only ease the pressure… This was not the first time I had felt something like this… But this was definitely the most severe. The ECG showed up an inverted T – a danger sign. My BP was way off the charts. My iron count was abysmally low. But the saddest part of all? My blood reports showed that I was mal-nourished while my weight was tipping into obese.<\/p>\n
Sounds weird? Well, it is a proven fact that when habitually we do not eat for long periods, our bodies start storing fat to tide over those ‘starvation’ times.
\nAs my doctor put it, I was starving and stressing myself straight into a zone’ fraught with the danger of heart disease, lower quality of life etcetera etcetera.<\/p>\n
This hit me hard. The basic question – “If something happens to me, what will happen to my child?”, played on a loop through my mind…<\/p>\n
It was time to start taking care of myself. My doctor and a gifted nutritionist who was soon to become a dear friend flagged off the beginning of the transition. The first was a commitment to stay on my medication – something that I had often ignored – in forgetfulness, in hurt, sometimes in anger. The second was to commit to eating more every day than I had eaten in the last eleven years.<\/p>\n
As I eased into this regime, I started feeling better. Much more energy, much more patience and yes, much better diagnostic test results. In three months, I ate, slept and lived myself into better shape. The weight loss – honestly – was actually incidental.<\/p>\n
As this regime became a routine and then, a way of life, I negotiated a new relationship with myself. Today, my food and my sleep are non-negotiable in most situations.<\/p>\n
In this forum, where we women share stories of loves and hurts, of challenges and triumphs and little every day moments – and all through our saree stories – I wanted one story to remind us women, that the most unselfish thing we can do is to first take care of ourselves. To be kind to ourselves. To be gentle… To know that putting I, me, myself first is not necessarily a bad thing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
36\/100. A clear day in the middle of monsoon and a blue sky had me reaching for a blue cotton Bandhej that I wore with a sleeveless, cream Fabindia top and arms and my happy stack of silver bangles The sunny sky was not the only reason – I chose my 36th saree for the…<\/p>\n