Cost of Staying Fit

One of my friends put this status message on Facebook:

“America is a country where half the money is spent buying food, and the other half is spent trying to lose weight”

It seems true to me as I remember the day when I started going to gym, of course not the paid one (who want to pay around $100/ month when you are not sure if you are going to use the facility or not).

I put on weight after coming to US due to unhealthy free food which I ate during my graduate studies and irregular timing of eating.

 After working for few weeks, I felt that nothing was working. Then suddenly one day I saw an ad on my company gym saying “New Year - New You: get 50% discount on a trainer starting this New Year”. When I checked the rates, it was $1/min even after discount. Looks like trainer’s pay is more than a Software Engineer and you have the advantage of meeting ‘new’ members everyday. The one scene of Hindi movie ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ got alive in memories.

But, present is something different. I talked to one of the trainer and registered for 45 min classes.

 The schedule he gave me is as follows:

1)   Don’t eat any sugar

2)   Don’t drink any coffee/ tea

3)   Run at least 20min per day @ 5.5 miles per hour

4)   Drink at least 2 cups of Green tea

5)   Drink at least 8 cups of water    

6)   Do exercises as given

7)   Gave me a sheet of what to eat (I didn’t follow as most of things is non veg )

After paying, I asked my friends what else to do. The additional stuff is:

1)   Drink water after half an hour of eating

2)   Eat 2 hr before sleeping

3)   Try to eat less rice

Other things which I did is stop eating delicious chocolate ice creamsL

There were many motivations for losing weight (most imp. is I am paying), I lost more than 12 kg in 3 months.

Every friend whom I met after a gap of 3-4 months used to ask the secret which I am revealing here: Motivation to write this blog entry.

Reduce Weight: feel Energetic :)

The first flight to US

As usual, I was planning to write this blog for a long time. I was thinking that in job you always have enough time every day. Thinking this, I kept postponing my next entry day by day.

Anyways, I was thinking of blogging my first journey to US.

After consulting many of my friends, I decided to join University of Minnesota for my Masters after getting admits from Minnesota, USC and Ga Tech. (Why???. It’s a long story I will blog later ? ).

Finally the day arrived when I had to go overseas for my higher education. This was the first time I was going that far from my family. While in job time in India, I used to visit my family every 2-3 weeks. It was evident that I will not be able to come back to India at least before a year. Thinking all this and along with nervousness of the first International travel, I went through all the formalities of airplane boarding.

While boarding, I met another student who was going back to US after a visit to India. During the conversation, he mentioned when to graduate, how to look for job, how to manage medical benefits while looking for job, OPT, CPT etc. I started thinking that getting student visa is just the start of whole trouble. Life will not be easy in US :(

The flight was full and my seat was in the middle row. Next to me was an NRI family with 2 kids. I had normal conversation with the lady of the family. She was sharing her 15 yr of experience in US. I started realizing again that life would not be easy in US.

In the mid night, I was surprised to see that people were sleeping on the floor of the aircraft. Sleeping between the legs of people is much wired for me. I think I slept well in the flight as I can sleep anywhere.

I kept many medicines which include Vicks inhaler, Allergy medicines, Disprine, Digine etc in my backpack. And the time arrived when I was thinking I might need them: the time when my aircraft landed in US. Before leaving the plane, I checked once again whether I have all the medicine.

After leaving the plane, I took a deep breath and try to feel whether I had any allergic symptoms or not in US weather. Realizing that there was nothing wrong I moved toward the immigration checkups .

I had to catch another flight to Minneapolis from Chicago airport. The airport is very big and I got confused which inner train I had to catch. The family which was sitting next to me helped me in giving the right direction.

After reaching my terminal for flight to Minneapolis, I felt little bit hungry. I started roaming on the airport. It was morning time around 7 am. As I am a vegetarian, it was tough to find a vegetarian dish. Before leaving to US, I tried to learn what is veg and what is not from internet. I tried to recall that list anyhow. I figured out some dishes, I converted the price into rupees. Then I said ‘it is dam expensive’ . Even the tea costs 200 rupees. After thinking a lot, I dropped the plan of having breakfast.

I had to call one of my senior from my undergrad college (MNNIT) with whom my temporary accommodation was arranged. I moved toward a public calling booth and get to know that to make a call you need 50 rupees (1 dollar ) per min . I said this is again very expensive as compared to 1 rupees per min in India. After thinking for 15 min, I decided to spend 50 rupees only for one min.

After reaching Minneapolis, I had to call one gal who was voluntarily picking me up from airport and dropping me to my temporary accommodation. I called her and told her I would be out of the airport at Gate B by spending another 50 rupees. The name and voice seems American but I was expecting an Indian gal.

To pick up my two checking bags, I went to pick a cart which cost $5(250 rupees). I pushed a $5 bill and went to other end to pick the cart. While reaching to other end, I realized that carts were locked again. I tried to find a number to complain malfunction of cart renting but at the end, I realized that I had to take them from the end where I inserted the bill. Again I inserted $5 bill to get the cart (Loss of $5 just after landing in US). I was very upset. I noted down the number and was thinking of calling when I would reach my temporary accommodation.

I was standing outside Gate A of the airport and surprised to see that the girl was American. This was the second time I was talking to an American. While in car, I asked her there were no bikes on the roads. She told me bikes were not allowed on these roads as they are slow. I told myself that I read it that US bikes are best in world. It was little difficult in finding my apartment.

After reaching in my temporary accommodation, I told my friends about bikes. They told me bikes here mean bicycles and Motor bikes mean motorcycles :P