To stay fit or look fab?

Gone are the days when people worked out only to stay fit. Now, men and women work out primarily to enhance their appearance, which is otherwise called spornosexuality.

The term is so apt for most of the actors who consider fitness as their priority and often indulge in intense routines to get that toned look right, and they love to flaunt it too. Recently, sportspersons, too, have joined the bandwagon — like Virat Kohli who is sporting six-pack abs.

Fitness trainer Kunal Gir, who is currently training Ranbir Kapoor, Rana Daggubati and Samantha, says that majority of the people who go to gyms are in it for the looks. More than fitness, what they want is to flaunt their super bodies.

“A lot of celebrities who have been working out for a long time have realised that to sustain this, they will have to be healthy because it is impossible for them to eat one salad a day and do three hours of cardio. Another problem is the time factor; they don’t have enough time to invest so they have to be wise in their choices of food and fitness. They can’t overtrain or spend three to four hours in the gym every day. They might be able to do that for one photoshoot or one movie, but if they want to continue sporting the look, they will have to develop a wise and sustainable plan. And that is when they are forced to look at it from the health perspective.”

Actress Katrina Kaif worked hard for 10 days to get the look right for her song Kaala Chasma. No wonder her abs became a hot topic after the song was released. Talking about her rigorous training, Katrina’s fitness trainer Yasmin Karachiwala says, “For the song, Katrina did kettlebell training, bosu, TRX and a lot of pilates  — a combination of all of these along with functional training, cardio vascular training and altitude training. Pilates was included almost four times a week so that there were no imbalances in her body.”

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Actor John Abraham believes that it is important to maintain a good physique not just for looks, but for health. “I want to make youngsters understand the importance of health over six packs,” John says.

According to designer and former Mrs India Shilpa Reddy, “There are a lot of people who exercise just to look good and go to any extent to look great. They take supplements or weight burners to stay in shape. I have always insisted on a fit body and have never endorsed losing weight through fast techniques. There are many actors and socialites, who, just to flaunt a fit-loooking body, use such methods — which is not right.”

However, Kunal also adds, “People who have joined a gym for a year or two are in it for cosmetic purposes, but people who have stuck around longer than that realise that there is more to being fit than just fitting into a pair of jeans. A lot of people are concerned about how much they weigh, and end up being ‘skinny fat’. They burn out their muscles and eat very little so that they hit a target; they could increase their body fat percentage in the long run.”

He continues, “What then happens is that you might end up being skinnier, but you have damaged your body and are more prone to cardiovascular risks, diabetes, sugar issues, etc. I struggle at my gym to explain to people that health is not supposed to be based on a single parameter. You have to look at all the aspects.”

— With inputs from Lipika Varma