[VIDEO] Losing weight isn’t difficult when you know ‘why’ you’re doing it

KUALA LUMPUR – For many people, being healthy would be an impetus for losing weight but not for 39-year-old Mandave Purewal.

What triggered him to lose weight was a simple yet self-indulgent reason – to look and feel good in his own skin.

Although Mandave, who weighed 175kg, had repeatedly heard that the reason why people decide to shed unwanted pounds was to be healthy, it was never enough to convince him to rid himself of his excess weight.

“It is common knowledge that being overweight is unhealthy,” he said.

The idea of implementing a workout regime or adhering to a diet plan never seemed to work for him either.

In today’s body positivity culture, there have been countless discussions online on how one should embrace one’s present figure and not support criticisms of an idealised future self.

However, when Mandave shared his weight loss journey with The Vibes, he admitted that he does care about his appearance despite the popular saying that “looks don’t matter”.

“My ‘why’ is purely selfish,” he said. “I can sit here and tell you that I want to be healthy, that I want to be the best version of myself and so on, but the truth is, that’s what everybody expects me to say because that’s what they expect to hear.

“The ideal world, where everybody says, ‘you should embrace who you are, be yourself, everybody should love you the way you are’ − in reality, that’s not how it is.”

Mandave decided to start his weight loss journey on October 1, 2020 using a weighing scale and some neighbourhood routes.

“I swear to God I had no idea what to do. What I knew was I wanted to lose weight, and I asked myself, how would I go about doing that? Well, if I wanted to lose weight, I know moving burns so I figured, I just walk and control my food,” he said.

Every morning, he would put on his shoes and go for walks around his neighbourhood.

He began with a distance of just 200m − pacing himself throughout the walk whilst monitoring his heart rate.

Despite having a difficult time adjusting to it all when he first started, he kept at it until he was able to comfortably circle the entire neighbourhood, which encompassed a radius of 5km.

Mandave gradually learnt how to reduce his meal portion throughout the month, beginning from the very first day.

Being consistent was the key to achieving his goal. The most challenging part of the entire process were the distractions.

“Your social life comes into play, too. You get distracted. You get tempted. You lose focus.”

Despite it all, Mandave said, he persevered. After going through the process for almost a year, he noticed major changes in his body.

“This one line was showing. I kept moving my arm up and down, trying to figure out what it was. After a while, it occurred to me that the line wasn’t moving, that it was fixed in the same position.

“Right then, it dawned upon me that this ‘line’ was my rib! I could finally see my rib!

“I smile more now. I don’t intend to but when I look in the mirror, I begin to smile. The way I look at it is − I want to be the one that’s happy with me – first and foremost,” he said.

“You do something because you want the desired outcome. When you learn to love doing it, getting there is no longer the difficult part − you’ll be able to endure it.

“I have been the (absolute) biggest (version of myself) my whole life. Do you think I want to go back there? No way!”

What started out as a superficial desire to look good has led Mandave to experience a significant transformation, one which has left him feeling good about himself – physically and mentally.

Since he began his weight-loss journey, Mandave has shed 96kg − he may have lost half his size in terms of body weight but he gained much more in terms of emotional wellbeing and happiness.

Mandave believes that for anyone to actually go about improving their lives, they need to first discover their “why” and to know exactly what they want to achieve so that they’re able to prioritise what needs to be done.

“Why do you want to do this and what are you willing to do to get it? If you don’t know why you want to lose weight, you will never be able to do it because you have no (solid) ground to stand on,” he said.

It is also important to have the strength to say “no” to a lot of things that will hinder your plans because “not everyone is going to understand why you want to do it as much as you do,” he concluded. – The Vibes, January 13, 2022.