However, a poor self-image is not the domain of fat people alone. There are millions of people of all shapes and size who suffer from the same syndrome. Fat or thin, they are victims of themselves. Themselves? you may ask. Think. How many times has somebody told you, "You look like a washed-out dish rag"? Once? Twice? Three times? or perhaps, never?

Be number one with yourself

Today, television screens dish up sports bacon sizzling hot. Speed merchants zip across on winged feet. Tennis tycoons serve aces with pungent power. Swimmers splice and explode through water like turbo­powered fish at an Olympic meet. It's not just sport, but life out there, as superhumans battle for records and recognition. Medels hang around athletic necks trumpeting the triumphant Number One note.

You may not realise it, but you are privileged because you have the choice. And it is up to you whether you want to be in control of your health and life by making the right choice. Even if your immediate goal is to lose weight, you should also have a long term one - to be forever fit and healthy. This way, you can always maintain your weight loss.

Morning:

What do you want to be first thing in the morning? Energetic Fresh. Vibrantly alive. You can be all these and more - because the key to them lies, in your hands! What you need to do is start your body's energy cycle that lasts for the entire day. And how do you rev up this energy cycle which means, you create- use-up-create energy constantly? By two simple ways - exercise, and eat (when you must) the right food.

We have read several fitness books and articles. Every one of them lays great emphasis on physical fitness through exercise and sensible eating, but none of them has yet explored one more dimension that fitness explores - the inner you.

And you can give your body - and yourself - the opportunity by believing in yourself. Believe that you are special. Help yourself and this belief by allowing fitness to sing through you. How many times have your eyes been drawn to the words: Know yourself through your stars?

For years you have been eating pulses such as moong, chowli, channa, masur, etc. You probably soak them overnight in water before cooking them the next day. It is a good practice because soaking them in water makes them less gaseous. Interestingly, we Indians have always followed such healthy practices without really knowing why except that we learnt them from our parents. The west has discovered these means only recently!

Call us romantics. But do you know what we like to think? That every time a warrior in the Mahabharat shot an arrow from his bow, it was not to kill. Rather, it was a metaphorical act - to trigger off a quiverful of new ideas and let them cleave through the air thick with outdated notions. It was to allow clean, invigorating thoughts to shaft through the excess 'fat' and generate fresh, positive energy into the field of life. To restore, to rejuvenate, to bring back a balance, a rationality, to make new patterns of peace with a surging vibrancy into an almost-forgotten art called living.

You could have learnt at your grandmother's knee that a healthy body is one that gathers food, digests what it requires and throws out the waste. It is a simple philosophy drawn from common sense. If you look around you, you will see that Nature has organised our planet to perfection. We have days and nights for all earthly creatures to work and sleep, animals who prey on other animals, animals that eat plants, the four seasons. Our entire world functions in cycles, Since we are Nature's children, our bodies too ought to be working in similar rhythms. For years, scientists and psychologists researched and analysed - trying to figure out if we functioned in a set pattern. After all, women have menstrual cycles. So, was it possible that the human body operated in some' kind of health rhythm blueprinted by Nature?

If you are a pure non-vegetarian, you will probably raise a hue and cry at the thought of turning vegetarian! But the truth is that meat of any kind is tough on your smart cells. If Nature intended you to be a non-vegetarian, she would have equipped you with claws, and sharp pointed teeth to tear into any flesh; given you acidic saliva to digest the animal protein; a round stomach with the capacity to produce plenty of hydrochloric acid, fewer intestines to shorten the process of digesting the meat so that you could expel it before it putrefies inside; a liver that could dispel more uric acid than it does.

"You've not exercised unless you've exerted yourself to the point of sweating and panting." It was one of those careless, over-the-shoulder remarks thrown at a cocktail party by a self-possessed young woman. A petite teen-aged girl reacted with a dainty grimace which said, "No way! I'm not about to join the sweat brigade!" Another nodded knowingly. "How about dieting?" asked another, interestedly.

Blood vessels play an important role in metabolism too. You must have read this mystical word - metabolism - in almost any fitness article or book. What does it mean? It means transformation or change. Your body has two kinds of metabolism. One: the transformation of food, which is burned by oxygen, to become energy. Two: the transformation of food into forming new tissue.

Enter the date of the first test at the top and the results of each activity beneath the heading: FIRST SURVEY.

Take your second test three months later and enter the date as also the results beneath the heading: SECOND SURVEY.

After your second survey, award yourself with:

extra 5 points for each activity where you have improved(+5).

Like finishing in the first five, most of us have exercised at least once in our lives. But like education, exercise too shows long-term benefits if one goes about it regularly, diligently. They say genius is 99 per cent perspiration. Fitness demands 100 per cent exercising effort and a complementary, committed lifestyle before you pluck the fruits of fitness.

Some time ago, we met a fitness freak.. If the description suggests a woman who exercises all day long, forget it. She is a compulsive reader of fitness. Books, pamphlets, magazines - anything she can lay her hands upon. She never misses a single TV fitness programme. She has long, earnest conversations about calories and cholesterol with every doctor, dietician, and food-shop attendant she chances upon. One of her ambitions in life is to "chart out a programme" - columns giving advice on what she would eat and drink, what kind of exercises she would perform. When we bumped into her again, she said seriously, "I haven't started exercising because i haven't yet drawn up my chart." She, probably, never will.

Ashik Desai's Odyssey

You will find Ashik Desai's odyssey as remarkable as we do. Ashik was a sunny-natured boy enjoying all the luxuries offered by a well-to-do background. Suddenly, his father - a high-flying executive - was stricken by a progressive brain disease. Overnight, the family finances plummeted. His father resigned from his firm. His mother struggled in an underpaid job. And Ashik had to change schools. The sale of their family car came as another blow to the sensitive boy.

The first tiny step is to rebuild our body temple. Strengthen those muscles that act as pillars. And we'll find the verses of our scriptures singing through us ­mantras to the god within us. The awakening of an energy that ripples through us. To banish the shadows. Or view them as friendly shaded spots.

Incidentally, fat grows more from underdoing than from overeating. Scientific studies at universities all over the world show that it is almost a universal phenomenon - most people, stout or slim, eat about the same quantities: between 2300 and 3000 calories per day. Significantly, the same studies concluded that fat people exercise much less than normal people.

The most exciting part about the fitness match is that anyone and everybody can participate in it. You can be of any age, belong to any sex, be endowed with any kind of build... Nobody can discriminate against you, nobody can stop you - except yourself - from entering this wonderful, fulfilling lifestyle. And however much or little you do, you stand to gain. Even if you are a cardiac or hypertensive patient, a diabetic or a myopic, you can be given a special entry pass - certified by your doctor. The medical go-ahead is important because if you are or have been unwell, you need to recuperate before putting your body through the mildest of exercises. The fitness lifestyle is matchless because you do not have to compete with anybody. You are and will remain Number one.

The fact is that even if you are into isometrics, isotonics or anaerobics, you still need to do aerobics for overall health and fitness. That is the reason why even body builders with their sculpted biceps and sharply-defined waists are advised to add aerobics to their fitness programme. That is also why specialised books on weight-lifting or abdominals always include running-on-the-spot or stairway climbing to burn off fat.