The day you start to respect your body it will respond- Kushal Punjabi

Are you a fitness freak and do you follow any fitness regime?
Yes, I am fitness freak, but I do not follow any strict routine as such.

As far as your diet goes, is there a strict regime that you follow?
No, I feel that more strict you make your regime, one takes more time to maintain it. I maintain a descent diet which keeps in good shape. If there is any particular photo shoot or a commercial where I have to do something additional to keep my body fitter, I would go to the next level too and do that extra. I would say one should be on a regular diet as a strict diet is not advisable.

So, what is your usual diet?
In the morning, fiber is very important and in my lunch I try and have more of salads. I don’t eat rice unless it’s home made biryani or something. Rice is just starchy and just makes me feel lazy. I have lot of green vegetables which can include even bitter gourd for that matter. I have good vegetarian food for four days a week while I prefer well-cooked chicken and fish the other three days.

Do you have a dietitian or an instructor to maintain this fitness?
I feel that when you take interest in your body, you automatically get to know how to maintain yourself. I feel that the day you start respecting your body, it will respond. Today most of the people are aware of importance of fitness and this is the starting point to remaining fit.

Were you always this fit since the start?
Well no actually I was very thin and had no muscles on me. At the age of 20-21, I started training with weights and then I realized that I had I had to give my body more rigidity. Right now I have a body which is muscular as well as flexible.

Do you idolize anyone in the media fraternity when it comes to good physique?
I like people who are fitness freaks even though I don’t know them personally. I feel that having a good body is easy. All can undertake weight training and get a good body, but it’s about having good stamina too and I can very well say that I have it in me. I admire the way Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan take care of their body.

What do you think is the best time to exercise?
One should exercise in the morning to loose weight and in the evening to gain muscles. I follow an alternate schedule as I am also busy with shoots many a times. But I do a heavy workout in the morning at least for an hour or so.

Do you Exercise daily?
Ya, around one hour everyday in the morning! It would include 10 minutes of warm up, 40 minutes of weight training, 10 minutes of abs and 10 minutes of cool down stretching.

How important do you think is being fit in today’s world?
If you want to live a healthy life, you have to be fit. Eventually you are going to grow old, but to go through that process you need to be fit, so that you do not end up in a hospital. The key to good health is fitness.

Any health tips for our readers?
I think being healthy is a difficult task considering the fact that we live in a polluted atmosphere and take up lots of stress in our day-to-day work. So a health tip according to me would be, try and be stress-free as much as you can. It’s very important to be happy and not take tensions of small and petty things in life. Finally keep your mind healthy as body just follows the mind.

Reporter and Author: Binita Ramchandani