Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And I laugh. I'm like, trust me, you will never
build that much muscle, Like it's so hard, you know,
for an Indian woman in the fifties. I'm telling you,
ethnically speaking, taking all that into consideration, you're lucky to
build a pound of muscle in three to four months. Like, yeah,
I can imagine, but obviously it's a little bit faster.
(00:35):
But I'm like, that should be the last of your concerns.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio, available now on the
free iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So, hello everyone, and welcome to Ruckus Avenue Radio. And
I am your host, Camal Khan for my show Bollywood
to Hollywood, and I'm very inspired and excited to have
Ushaw with us here as well. Usha Patel, right, and Usha,
thank you for being on the show. You are for
(01:26):
everyone who's who's listening in a professional bodybuilder. You're also
on the board at USC and we'll go into that
a little bit as well, but you're also VP of
Sales and Applications at an aerospace company. So there's a
lot going on there that you know you're you're part of.
(01:47):
And congratulations because there's a lot to talk about in
terms of what your goals are and what you've already achieved,
and I think it's particularly inspiring as a professional female
bodybuilder that we first started talking about, amongst other things,
and your routine and so well, first of all, thank
you for being on the show, and thank you for
(02:10):
sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, it's really a pleasure to be here. It's an
honor that you thought of me. There's a lot I do,
but there was kind of like a method to the madness, right.
It seems like we do a lot, but if you
have the disciplined lifestyle, it actually is like brushing your teeth.
(02:36):
It's just something that you don't think about, you just do.
So I do. One of the biggest I guess, if
you can say the waste of time in my daily
routine is my commute. So I actually live in Orange
County and I commute to our factory in Los Angeles
every day, so I spend two and a half to
(02:58):
three hours in the car. That's that's when I learn
about a lot of research. I like, I biohack my
body in certain ways, you know, I look at I
listen to articles on just wellness, longevity and just to
augment my progress every day. So I have that downtime
(03:21):
where I'm just learning in the car. Every now and
then I'll make phone calls, you know, I catch up
with friends. But really that's my time for research. I
wake up. But sometimes when I'm cutting, I wake up
at about three forty five in the morning. At four
in the morning during like the prep stage. And by
(03:41):
prep stage, I mean that's your cutting stage before you
get on get on to compete for show. So you
wake up early in the morning. You do a fasted
cardio for forty five minutes an hour whatever it is.
You don't eat anything. You just do cardio, and then
I prep my meals, you know, I make my my
(04:02):
I have I'm given a diet plan that's extremely specific,
if you know, you don't even change out, like up
to five grams. I have to meet my macros within
five grams. And then so I prep that I leave
at seven thirty in the morning, I drive to LA
I have a full day of work, you know, I
work with my top companies I work with are Boeing, Lockheed, Norfolk,
(04:26):
Thrum and Raytheon, you know, big companies. Our company actually
it's our family business, and we make military electronics for
the US Navy and the Air Force. So it's it's
you know, it's not it's a job that I need
a tremendous amount of focus. I read a lot of
big contracts things like that, and then after my day
(04:47):
is over, I jump in my car. It's about six
thirty seven. I get to the gym at seven PM,
and that's when I do my strength training.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And after a full day of carbs and things like that,
I do my strength training. I'm home by eight thirty,
I eat my dinner, and then I try to hit
bad by about nine thirty. So that's pretty one day.
And I can only do this because all the kids
are out of the house. I'm not having to come
home and make dinner and all of that. You know,
all my meals are prepped for my husband and I
(05:18):
for about four or five days. That's what I did
this Sunday today, this morning, I prepped all my meals.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Well, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And you talked about discipline and you know, having a
method to the madness, and I think you kind of
described a little bit bit that already with what you
just shared that I mean, it's it takes discipline and
routine to kind of keep that going, right, But like
you said, it can become a habit. What I'm curious about,
so the kids are out of the house. I mean
you don't have kids at home.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, my youngest one left exactly three years ago when
I started bodybuilding.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
While you started three years ago.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Hold on, I started three years ago. I had no muscle.
I had like just a regular amount of muscle, like
any Indian girl, you see. And I started this whole
journey when the last kid out of my three left
to college. So, just to give you an idea, my
older one is close to twenty nine. I have a
middle one that's twenty seven. And Sean, my youngest, is
(06:16):
now twenty one. He is off to college. And as
soon as he left, he's actually a competitive powerlifter. So
I make his meals for him and I send it
to USC. Like today, I made his entire all his
beef and rice and all of that for the week,
and I'm sending it over to him. So but as
soon as he left. You know, it's a selfish sport, right.
(06:39):
It's my schedule is really tight. I don't have a
lot of discretionary time. I'll fit in here and there
a couple of social outings, which I don't like to
do during the week anyways, but you know, you have
to accommodate sometimes, and that's that's like my day in
a nutshell.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Well, I mean, it's that's what your focus is, and
I think that that's where you probably spend most of
your time to keep that discipline in order to be
able to compete and perform. If you're a professional athlete,
just like anybody would. I'm assuming and you can correct
me if I'm wrong. Look, if you're a swimmer or
if you're an athlete running, you've got to put in
(07:18):
the hours and you've got to get enough sleep in
order to be able to then perform when.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's crunch time.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
But have you done that prep and just show up
and think, well, actually today I'll just kind of hang
out and go out till two in the.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Morning and then come back and maybe I'll figure this out.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm sure that doesn't quite the other You'll be you know,
the competition will take over like they'll they'll.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Be exactly and you'll you know, you're competing into everybody
that's doing it, and most people actually compete with on stage,
they're in the fitness industry, like they own gyms or
their fitness trainers as their job, right, so they have
a little more flexibility. I just have to be extremely
regimented because I don't have a lot of time. I
(08:01):
have to be extremely efficient. When I'm in the gym,
I'm in there for an hour and ten minutes. I
lift intensely, I you know, lift heavy, and you try
to make the most efficient workout out of the time
you have, and then you have to come home and sleep,
(08:23):
you know, sleeping.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Recovery, especially when you're in your fifties. Recovery is critical.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Absolutely, And that's what I want want to come on
to u Usha is like, listen, we met and I
was saying that you know, there's there's not there's it's
inspiring just somebody in their fifties, a female in their fifties.
But let alone, that's one piece of it. And then
also the fact that you are South Asian Indian background.
I don't see that happened too many of them, not
(08:51):
just women but men. Even it doesn't happen very often.
We you know, we we're we're looking after yourself. Your
body's a typical diet that you have in a South
Asian diet isn't actually conducive to keeping very lean and fit.
Now if you're in Japan, it's a little different story
in certain places where you know, and especially here living
in the US, where people don't walk very much, especially and.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Our genes work against us. Our South Asian gens are
not you know, we're not gifted with that genetic makeup, right.
We have to kind of work a little bit harder
than somebody and other ethnicity, for example, just to be
able to build that muscle. I'm actually raised South Indian,
like Brahmin. I'm South Indian Brahm and rice eating, you know,
(09:39):
and I was plant based till about three years ago
when I realized, oh my gosh, diet is so important.
I won't be able to do the sport being a
plant based. I mean, you have one out of you know,
one or two out of one hundred athletes are gifted
enough and they're general younger to be able to do this.
(10:03):
Like on an Indian diet, you know, there's eating doll
and rice, which is a really good meal. It's nutritious,
but it's not going to get you to change your
phys come. I guarantee you.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
No, especially if you know, because there's that's a lot
of carbs as well as Yeah, that's approtein and dollin, right,
So I mean, that's what I'm saying, like, it's very
rare to be able to have that and post. If
you're younger, you can get away with it, but when
you're older, it's a.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Completely different process.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But I'm curious, let's go back a little bit here,
because you know, fine, you've been doing this for three.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Years and you look amazing.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You know you obviously we can see that from the
people who don't follow you, but it's on your Instagram.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
You can see your pictures and you're sharing that.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But you're inspiring others, hopefully who were then sort of saying, oh, wow,
she can she can do this. I can do it potentially,
and then if she can do it in the fifties,
well maybe I can do it in my fifties. And
maybe now I have the time that I didn't have before,
et cetera, et cetera. And so maybe it is a
time factor, because I do think some of the people
nowadays in general, aside from ethnicities, men or women, you're
(11:09):
starting to see a lot of people now that are
older able to look after themselves a little bit more,
maybe thinking Okay, well I was not as fit in
my twenties even thirties, but guess what now in my
forties fifties, I'm actually able to go to the gym,
and I'm really going to focus on myself, which is,
you know, it's interesting, but I want to know how
you got into it, like what made you like well
(11:29):
to get a.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Fitness another thing to sort of say, I'm going to
be a bodybuilder.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I've always been fascinated with bodybuilders. You know, Arnold's been
my idol since I was eighteen years old, so it's
always something that I admire, right, But I've been a
pretty much an endurance athlete most of my life, So
I I've always been athletic, Okay, from the beginning. I
play a lot of sports and even in college, but
(11:58):
I've been a triathlete for upwards of ten years, and
a skier and all of that, but it's all like endurance.
And in twenty twenty one, I had a really bad
ski accident and where they had to completely reconstruct my
right knee and I pretty much my running days were counted.
So if I kept running on that knee, I'd have
(12:19):
a knee replacement of two or three years because it's
pretty born down. So my surgeon's like, okay, well, you know,
I recommend you don't run anymore. And that's all I knew. Run, swim, bike,
those are the things I did. So I said, maybe
this is the time. So I joined a gym and
I started just weightlecting, no plans at all for competing
(12:41):
or anything like that. So this was I was fifty two,
and this was exactly three years ago. So today I'm
fifty five. So at fifty two I started. I started
with a coach that he's competed in the past. He's
local yor Gonda, and we started training and he goes
six months in the training and he goes, you know,
(13:01):
you kind of have some good genetics or you have
been sticking to my plan. You're fairly disciplined person. Why
don't we try a competition in four months? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
you know that's like too much. As we progressed, he's like,
you should just try it. It's local, you don't have
to travel anywhere. And you know, it wasn't a big league,
(13:22):
it was a small natural league. And I entered the competition,
bought a suit, did all you know, posing practice all
of that, and I go in there just nonchalantly, really
didn't know what I was doing. I started bodybuilding in
March first, and I competed on September thirtieth, and I
won every category. I won fifty plus, I won forty
(13:44):
five plus and I won forty plus and I'm like,
what wait, what is this for real? So he's like, listen,
I told you that's why you should compete. Now get serious.
So I entered like a large national competition that first year,
and I got humbled, right like IFBB. I entered the NPC,
(14:04):
which is the largest big league of the world, right
the amateur league, and I got creamed because now you're
you know, you're with the big big kids. So then
I spent the next two years just completely stuck to
my plan, super strict with my diet and the one
(14:25):
thing you have to be the most Indian women, I
actually most women are afraid to gain weight, but you
gain you have to gain weight. The process is you
eat a lot in your bulking stage, right which you
call off season, which I'm in right now, you gain
the weight. And I gained seventeen pounds. So I was like, oh, shoot,
(14:50):
like now I'm actually bat How am I going to
lose this? Right? But you got to trust the process,
and you got to follow the process, and you bulk up.
You have to be in a caloric surplus build a muscle,
so you'll build muscle and you'll add some body fat
to you and then you start cutting. And the cutting
(15:10):
stage for me at the time, usually my preps are
about sixteen weeks, so about four months of cutting. If
you do it slowly, you're losing about just a pound
or just under a pound a week consistent, and that
gets you at this point. Now I only have to
lose about eleven pounds within eleven twelve pounds of stage weight,
(15:33):
because now I understand the system. I'm not going to
let my weight go up that high. So you cannot
be afraid to gain weight. And women usually look at
the scale and freak out and do not even realize
that their body composition is changing. So that's one big
part of the most like comments I hear is I
(16:00):
don't want to build muscle too much and look like
a man, And I laugh. I'm like, trust me, you
will never build that much muscle like it's so hard,
you know, for an Indian woman in the fifties, I'm
telling you, ethnically speaking, taking all that into consideration, you're
lucky to build a pound of muscle in three to
(16:22):
four months.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue radio.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Okay, that is obviously it's a little bit faster, But
I'm like, that should be the last of your concerns.
Just eat, like, eat a caloric surplus by two, three,
four hundred calories. You know your coach will give it
to you. And I'm not stappening sugars. I'm talking actual
like protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. You know, you're
(17:17):
eating good food and gain that and then you go
into your cut. And I implemented this earlier this year.
I trained a group of about fifteen local like friends
and acquaintances in the community. My husband was one of
the guinea pigs. He dropped from January seventeenth till now,
(17:38):
he's dropped twenty five pounds of body fat. He is
pretty vascular, shredded, and he's sticking to his diet. He
gets a lot of food, but he's training consistently. He trains.
He doesn't train like me, but he trains about four
times a week. I'm closer to five or six. But
(18:00):
he trains consistently and his entire composition is shredded everywhere
he goes. Now he's getting compliments and he doesn't want
to cheat. He sees the results, he sees the result
of this body, and he doesn't want to cheat.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, no, I get it. How does one need to
train seven days a week?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
No, you never train seven days a week. You need
a minimum of two rest days a week. Okay, And
one of my rest days actually I have a one
complete rest dingy, no cardio, no nothing, and one the
rest day I just do core exercises, you know, playing
things like that. But your body has to recover.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Right, okay, So and on those training days he's described
him and it's great, by the way, you talk about
the story of how to you know, you know, being
pretty strict to the diet and you see the results, right.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Problem is, I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Even myself, I haven't got a clue when I was
training ims and ideas or trainers and you know, people
tell you different things, depends what you read. But you
people don't even talk about the macros that people say
they going to the gym and whatnot. But if you're
not really measuring it, if you're training for something they're
really measuring it, it's really hard to tell, right, and
myself too, and like, well, why haven't I gained weight
or lost weight or cut body fat? What advice do
(19:14):
you have to those who are basically doing that?
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
They're maybe going to the gym, they are doing weights,
like maybe they're doing cardio in the evenings, and you know,
maybe they're doing weights during the morning or whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Maybe they're training five days a week.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
What could they be doing and what do they need
to do about their nutrition to match these things for
the average person?
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Right? And who really wants to cut wants to be leaner?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Okay, So really it's data that you need, right, It's data,
And I operate on data that I'm an engineer. I
love numbers, and I base a lot of you know,
even to pick your macro nutrients, it's all based on data.
So the first thing I told all those fifteen people
that I coached earlier this year, I said, go get
(20:01):
a Dexa scan, which is you know, a Dexa scan
is it's that bone mineral scan. But it's the most
accurate it's even more accurate than a you know the
the question, yes, yes, So you get a DEXA so
(20:22):
you know your body composition. You know kind of like
where your fat is distributed. You know the amount of
visceral fat that you have versus subcutaneous fact. But the
most important measure is your RMR, which is your resting
metabolic rate. Is the number of calories you need to
keep yourself alive. So for most women my age have
(20:44):
moderate amount of activity, it could anywhere. It could be
anywhere from eleven hundred and fifty to mine's a little higher.
I'm closer to fourteen hundred because it's it's a function
of how much lean muscle you have. And this is
just your number that you need to know. What your
number is to stay that's your basic metabolic function. It's
(21:07):
to keep your organs moving and for you to be alive. Okay,
So once you know that number, then you know how
to put yourself in a deficit and in a surplus.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
So just to clarify people listening to it, you need
to get the dock. Someone it which taking order DEXA scan.
It's a scan and they do that in their local gym.
Can they go order an Amazon.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
What do they need to do.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
No, it's it's a company. Uh, just google DEXSA scan
and you'll see a series of companies. Body Spec is
the one I use. It's a van. It's like an
X ray machine. You lay and the extra machine kind
of scans over you and you'll get a full eight
page report breaking down the fat and the muscle you
(21:50):
have on your left arm versus your right arm. I mean,
it's your extremely accurate data. And now you see that.
And most women are that I coached, they saw it
and they're like went into a deep depression. They're like,
oh my god, no, this is not true. These numbers
can't be true. Even men that thought they were ripped
(22:12):
and shredded, they're in the mid twenties, you know, mid
twenty five, twenty six, and they look lean. They look
but the function of the amount of it's a function
about the amount of lean muscle versus your body weight.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Right, So they could be in their twenty percentiles and
stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And my husband Mayan was he measured his decks. He
was at twenty three percent body fat. Today he's about
walking around normally around.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Twelve okay, gotcha. And he looks lean, cut, shredded, wow
like vascular.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And he eats a lot of food. He eats six good,
big meals a day. He's not crazy disciplined like me.
He he goes out, has a couple of drinks. You know,
over the weekends, you know, he will go to a
restaurant and he's not gonna he orders a full meal.
He's he'll take a couple of bites and dessert. So
(23:09):
he's not abstaining himself.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah, and he's still living his life.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
He's living his life, he's enjoying it. But his body
composition has changed.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
He works galories right because he knows probably also what
macro's to take and how he knows his body sort
of well enough and understand this. So for those who
are trying to do this, it's probably better to go
and get that taxa scan. Now, can they go so
you don't have to go? You have to go somewhere
to get this taxa scan.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, usually they come into different gyms. Axiom Fitness locally
here has them come in once a month. But if
you google Dexa Scan and Body spec is the local
company here in Orange County, you can see when they
come in and go get a scan. It is an
accurate scan. Even if you can even just go get
(23:58):
the in body scan, the inbod machines or they're not
as accurate, but you're only looking for a relative measurement.
You don't need an absolutely measurement. You want to see
how you can go up and down, and they have
them at twenty four hour the in body machine where
you hold on you know, you stay so but data
is critical, so you need to know what you're at
(24:18):
so you can change that.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
So for salv Asian people, So just to summarize, you know,
because I mean, you've obviously done this, you're at a
professional level. So let's assume you're in your coaching others,
because people do need that. They need the advice because
you just can go and do the wrong things otherwise.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
So let's assume that they've done all that.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Now at that point, they know they have some data
as to what they are in their current state. Maybe
they're at twenty five percent percentile whatnot. I'm just making
it up. Then what do they need to do next?
How do they figure out their macros?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Are they going to go?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, it's hard for them to start like that, So
you go to a coach, you go to any any
you know, bodybuilder friend or somebody like me, and I
usually take a look at them and I say, what
what is your you know, how strongly are you willing
to commit to this? And then you kind of set
your macros. You don't want to set your crazy macros
(25:08):
that they cannot meet. So you your coach actually shouldn't know, Okay,
I think this person loves loves to drink over the weekends,
you know, loves like so you kind of need to
know what is the most effective strategy for them to
stick to it long term. But I would I have
(25:29):
given a lot of different macros, and about half the
people follow them. Half the people are like, I can't
hit my protein goal. I go, you eat meat?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Sure you can't, right, Okay? So just yeah, And so
that's one piece of it. And then obviously from there
is training and then the balance of that.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
But it's training with intensity. It's training with hypertrophy. Right.
Hypertrophy is when you the muscles fail. It's training with
progressive overload. You're not doing ten pound weights over and
over again. You know, there's a method. Once you hit
(26:08):
that weight, you increase you increase the weight weekly until
you know you get to a certain rep count and
all of that. There's there's a whole training method because
you want to build lean muscle, and you're never going
to build lean muscle if you're lifting the same amount
of weights and doing the same exercises every every time
you go to the gym.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
So and this is great because you know it's true.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I mean people go to the their whether you join
an equinox or you know, high end gym, or whether
you're in LA Fitness or twenty four hour Fitness. There's
going to be various trainers out there, but they will
also do ask what your lifestyles like, and you're right,
you know, if you'd like to go drinking over the weekend,
if you like to go out for meals every day,
maybe you're a salesman who travels every single day'll figure
out what to do. But so moving to yourself, I mean,
(26:54):
I think, let's assume, so you've got fifteen people that
you coach that older I'm assuming diferent goals of their own.
How did you get into it in terms of like,
you know, what motivated any role as an athlete? And
I get that, get that and an injury and spider
to go in a different direction. But it is, as
you mentioned your routine, it's you've obviously driven by something,
(27:17):
a goal to get somewhere. Was it were you feeling
very proud of being South Asian and being able to
do this? I think Indian people out there are say, hey,
you were in into I know, I'm proud of you too,
Let's do this together.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Or is it like you feel like you're a rarity
out there?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I think you know at the stage of my life
that I'm in, I think I'm more an exception than
a rule. But it shouldn't be that way. I think
today I'm the probably the only Indian lady over the
age of fifty that is an IFBB pro. I don't
know of any.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Other five now as well?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
You mentioned right, sorry, fifty five Now there's maybe a
fifty five plus county.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I don't know if there is, but as there is
fifty five plus, and I will compete in the younger
categories too, So I'll compete in the fifty plus. I'll
compete sometimes if I look at the girls, I might
compete in the forty five plus. You just can't compete higher.
But you can compete all the way lower. So yes,
it is you know it when you really this, this
(28:21):
was my trigger. It's longevity. So forget bodybuilding, but just
weight training is the key to longevity. And there's research
study after research studies showing that the stronger your legs are,
the stronger your glutes, your legs, and your hamstrings are,
(28:43):
the longer you will live. The longer you will live
without ailments and serious mobility issues and things like that.
So you know, you can't control things like cancer or
anything like that. But I see almost every Indian uncle
and auntie, they all have knee replacements. They can barely walk,
(29:04):
They're grossly overweight, they're limping around. It's because they never
wait trained. They just didn't know they needed to do that.
You know, even today, I see almost every one of
my friends and they're all cardio bunnies. That's what I call. Oh,
I worked out today, What did you do? Oh? I
(29:24):
did the StairMaster and I did the elliptical for forty
five minutes. I feel great. Uh, it's got going to
change your body, guarantee you one second, one bit. It's
not going to change you. You're just breaking down muscle
every time you're probably not eating you know how you
should be, but you're not building lean muscle in any
(29:47):
weight by doing the elliptical or anything like that. Cardio
is reserved for when you want to start, you know,
shredding that body fat off you. But everybody should be
weight training, and by weight training, I mean lifting heavy
weights eight to ten reps heavyweights, and that's what's going
(30:09):
to change your body composition. And once you change your
body composition, you will it's like earning your youth back.
You're more youthful. I mean, honestly, I'm stronger today at
fifty five than I was when I was thirty five.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
It's crazy, isn't that recovery?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yes, it takes me longer to recover from workouts and
say it's just but I am stronger today. I can
do an easily a two hundred and eighty pound deadlift easy,
you know I can. I can go up over three
hundred pounds on hip thrust, and I couldn't dream of
(30:46):
doing that in my thirties or forties. So it is.
It doesn't matter your age. If you're consistent, your body
will respond, It adapts, and it's extremely much more resilient
than you think it is.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Yeah, no, that's one hundred percent true.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
And I think that's inspiring for a lot of people
who who are like worried about it, and they're like, yeah,
like you said, they do get on the elliptical or
maybe they were on a I don't know, they're basically
running for a mile or two even on a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
But you know, well, that's great. It's good for your
heart to do cardio.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
When the doctors tell them to go work out three
days a week. But what do you say to those
people who just like, Okay, I did that and you
know it's what I was told to do and it
should make me feel better. Is there a certain amount
of like nutrition that obviously is really important for them
to be able to do because you can't just kind
of stop eating.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
You've also got to recover.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
And so how important would you would you place the
nutrition versus the weight training?
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Was there a sort of ratio there was it? Depending?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Eighty percent of your results are going to come from diet.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Your life is the ocean and your heart is.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
You're listening to Rock this Avenue Radio Avenue available now
on the free iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
App Days I Keep.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
My Sayes forgive me for fee. I mean it's as
hard as it is. You got to have the high
protein diet, you gotta have medium carbs. I mean most
people are like, cut your carbs, too many carbs, too
many carbs. No, there's days I eat three hundred grams
of carbs a day and I don't even gain a pound.
(32:36):
The eating the right carbs is really important because carbs
are needed to build muscle. That's what people don't realize.
They keep cutting the carbs and doing all this keto
diet crap. You know, and keto diet works in a
specific case, right, there's a good use case for it.
(32:56):
But if you want to change your body composition, you
have to eat a good amount of carbs, which is
about you know, one hundred to two hundred grams of
carbs a day. Protein and healthy fats. Fats are important
so that exact macro balance. It's different for every person.
(33:18):
But that's the biggest misconception. I mean everyone's like, oh,
Usha do you You probably don't eat any carbs. I go.
I would die if I didn't need any carbs. I
won't even go exorcise that day. I won't because I
don't have carbs. I don't have anything to push myself.
Where's the energy coming from? Not eat the rice, sweet potatoes,
oats like things I avoid. I avoid any kind of
(33:41):
pastas and gluten. I generally avoid bread and wheat. But
there's such great carbs out there that you can eat,
Like sweet potatoes is a superfood. It's the best thing
you can probably eat.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah, sweet potato rice is okay too.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
White rice is excellent, White jab men rice, bosmati, rice, oats,
oats are phenomenal, right for energy.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Yeah, I think that that's the thing that I think
is a misconception. Uh.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
And I think that you you know, you're clarifying that
all these are things that we just don't know about.
And as part of it is education and so like
you said, you meet those people who are so out theaking.
They absolutely can do it.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I just they just don't know. They're told no carbs.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Are they having some lettuce and whatnot with this, or
just eating protein all day, which then confuses the body
and probably doesn't help them when they're doing And it's.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Hard on your kidneys too, you know, kidneys have to
work so hard, and so there is that right balance.
You do need the carbs. Now, when you're in the
cutting stages, my carbs keep coming down each week. As
I you know, there's a right time to reduce your carbs,
but not not when you're trying to change your entire
body composition. That's not the right time.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
So what do you say to those people? Then?
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Okay, so they're doing all of those things, they're you know,
you're getting them trained, and maybe their goals are just
to be very lean and look lean for not necessarily
compete for something.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
But they.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Tend to cars and they say, look, I don't I
can't run because I don't have bad knees or whatnot.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Is there another way that they can do this? Like
I heard, and I'm just assuming.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
For those people who do it, they're like, just walk
and if you walk, that's fine, you don't have to run.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I'll give you the secret to drop tons of body fat.
And this takes people years, and I'm going to give
you the secret right now. So if you wake up
in the morning, just have your black coffee and get
on a treadmill and walk on the highest incline. So
twelve and a half percent of fifteen percent at three
(35:45):
miles an hour, just walking three miles an hour at
twelve and a half thirteen incline. Don't hold on to
the rails. You will see the fat will just melt away.
You don't need to do high intensity cardio. You don't
need to be sweating like crazy. You want to put
(36:07):
your body in that right heart rate zone that you're
burning fat for energy. Okay, there's a very very specific
method to cardio. If you can do hit the high
intensity cardio. A lot of bodybuilders do. I do it
on occasion, but the best, the best cardio out there,
(36:29):
honestly is walking on an incline, walking uphill.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
So if that's a secret, okay, so there's somebody's I mean,
they said whenever you do it. Obviously, some people can't
do it in the morning. Maybe they're going to work
or whatnot. Maybe they'll have a discipline. They can do
it any time during the day. They can go and
do this. So if they put it on an incline,
it has to be twelve or ten, or it.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Has to be something a little bit.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Strenuous, so and above maybe something like that at least ten.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
At least at ten percent because you're firing your glutes
and you're firing your hamstrings, You're firing the largest muscle
groups in your body. And when you fire those large
muscle groups, your energy expenditure is way higher, right as
opposed to just walking straight. So you are also kind
(37:19):
of conditioning those muscles. You're actually making a response if
you're building more fibers there. So are you target large
muscle groups. If you want to really increase your heart rate,
grab a five pound weight and do bicep pearls. You know,
every five minutes, do twenty thirty bicep pearls while you're
(37:39):
on the treadmill walking. You know, there's a lot of
creative things you can do. Engaging large muscle groups is
the key for energy expenditure, burning calories, and the calories
will be coming from if you're fasted, most of those
calories come from body fat. Store body fat. But you
(37:59):
can do cardios I do when I'm sometimes cutting in
my cut. Sometimes what I do is I do cardio
twice a day. I might do cardio thirty minutes fasted
in the morning, and then I said, oh, I don't
have time to do forty five minutes today. I'll do
twenty to thirty minutes in the morning. And then at night,
(38:20):
you know, I'll watch a TV show on the peloton.
I'll just ride my peloton and watch a thirty minute
episode of something, and you know, so you'll get your
cardio in and you just stay within the right heart
rate that your coach gives you.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
That's a great idea too. I mean, you've basically now
you know, because you're keeping going. But I love the
fasted sort of type of thing because I think when
you're you're already fasted, the only thing you're gonna burn
is fat. You don't have a bunch of massive meal
that you had for dinner.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, you don't have too much glycogen in your blood stream, right,
you don't have a lot of bluecoats. So waking up
and not eating any you know, just drinking a cup
of coffee or whatever, we'll give you that the caffeine
will give you that additional boost. And it is. And
then you know, if you really really want to drop weight,
take some L carnatine. Uh, you can buy L carnatine
(39:14):
and there are pills. You can buy them on Amazon.
Take a couple of L carnatine pills and what it
does is mobilizes fat for energy.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Oh wow, okay, L carnitine quarantine. How do you spill it?
Speaker 1 (39:26):
L dash carnatine?
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Oh okay, okay, all right. So is it like creatine
or no, not really, it's.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's it's you can buy it on Amazon. It's a supplement.
It's kind of like creatine. And I do take creatine.
Creatine is creatine monohydrate or creatine HCl either one. And
I do take creatine, like five five grams of creatine
after post workout. Now it will Creatine makes you hold
(39:53):
on to a little bit of water. It's not that
big of a deal, but your muscles look big and
round because you know you're holding on water. But it helps,
it's a recovery and it's really good for your neural
networks as well, a lot of impact on the brain.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
Okay, cool, Well that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
So so that sounds like there's a lot of people
talk about intimate and fasting.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
Right by the way, do you believe in that?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
I mean, they wait till they're twelve, may till midday,
or they wait till and then they work out because
they've already like they're already fasted, so there is time
to work out.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
But then the intermittent fasting is is you know, you
just have to cycle on and off of it because
your body is too smart. It'll realize your intermittent fasting
and it'll slow down your metabolism so you will not
burn that many calories. So you got to keep intermittent
fast for four weeks and then cycle out of it
so your body doesn't so it'll keep your receptors fresh
(40:47):
or otherwise it'll adapt to intermittent fasting. It'll slow down
your metabolism, it will slow down your caloric burn and
now it's not going to be as effective anymore. That's
the key. You got it. You gotta cycle cycle.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
It so sosh. I mean like when you're in the
gym and you see other people. People come up to
you and say, hey, you know what, how'd you get
this way? And how do you look like this? And
then is that how you get clients or I mean
looking for clients.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
I don't have any clients. Everyone I coached, I just
did it. I just did it as a friend. My
income comes from engineering now, so we have to I
you know, a couple of clients actually seriously asked me
to train them, and I'll consider it, or they really
(41:36):
want to completely change and potentially compete at some point,
and I can help them do that. But right now,
I just train people, you know, people that I know,
and I'm like, here, this is kind of my service
to the community.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, that's part of what we
do on this radio show, on my show as well.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's like it's it's really elevating these voices the people
like yourself. I feel it's a service to community, whether
you're in so I spend a lot of time obviously
with people talking about and entertainment, but it's a costing director,
whether it's directors, and they share their stories and sharing
your story just like you have in terms of hey,
you know, this is how I did it, and this
is how I stayed disciplined. It's really to also inspire
(42:21):
others to say, hey, you know I can do it,
or yes you can, you know, turn around and basically
focus on whatever you really love to do and then
pass it forward and maybe that's that's that's a great
way of doing it, and then highlight yourself somebody who
has done it, you know, because a lot of people
have the intention to, but just like you said, they
just don't know how they've been told the wrong things.
(42:42):
I mean some people are just told, hey, you just
got to cut the cabs and cut the carbs, you'll
be good, you know.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
And so there is there's there is a formula to it.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
There's obviously you can get as granular as you want
with it if you're competing, and the.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Key is trusting the process. People want immediate results, and
you know, changing your body composition is not an immediate thing.
It takes multiple It takes like twenty twenty twenty to
thirty weeks of consistently doing it to really see significant change.
But most people give up. They're like, oh I tried it,
(43:18):
you know, it don't work for me. Right, It's just
there is delayed gratification, but it is very gratifying and
it is addicting. Once you get to that stage, you
don't want to use that.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
How are your parents into this or is this something
that you.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Oh no, definitely not. It's there are your typical Indian parents,
they're you know, rice eating, you know, just like, oh
don't you're it's too heavy, you're taking too much risk. No,
it all it is, and now they see it, they're like, oh,
(43:54):
maybe you don't get so hurt. But you know, they're
just like you know, an uncle and auntie. Oh, don't
lift too heavy. It's not good for you. It's gonna
hurt your joints. And I'm like, mom, the reason why,
like you have so many knee problems is because you
never build your legs.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
To say, well, I mean you told me something today.
I build your legs.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I mean, build your legs. And that's the key to longevity.
And there's like all the big there's a whole series
of bodybuilders that are physicians that I followed. They're mds, right,
and they're in the bodybuilding community. And those are the
guys that I really look to because they know the physiology.
(44:39):
You know, they went to school for it, and they're
doing this crazy sport and every one of them is
the strength of your legs is directly proportional to your wellness.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
No, that's really good that you've shared that for people listening.
And I'm curious from your perspective. I and again it
might be a you know internet thing, grip strength. I
keep hearing grip strength. Is this that's legivity?
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Well?
Speaker 1 (45:10):
There is? You know, they there are tests you can
do right, So a woman my age should be able
to dead hang from a bar for two minutes just
gripping with your fingers alone, and they say, well, that's
a test that now you're you're good. You know you're
in that stage. So there's grip strength is probably something,
(45:34):
but you know, you have to look at the large
muscle groups. The larger the muscle group, the more influence
it has on your body. So grip strength is you know,
all the calisthetic guys love it, but I still think
from a physiological standpoint. I train legs four times a week.
(45:54):
I do upper body only once or twice a week
because and one day a week I only do back
because there's so many there's so much musculature on your back,
they're big, larger groups of muscles. You know, one day
of shoulders and biceps and triceps and things like that.
But doing your legs are really really important. And if
(46:18):
you do your legs consistently, there's no need to train
your core separately, because every time you do a dead lift,
or you do a compound lift or a squad you're
engaging your core every single time. That is what's giving
you the power in supporting you and you'll start getting shredded,
like in your mid section. So there's a lot of
(46:40):
benefit to it because you have to brace yourself right
when you're lifting something, you brace yourself and then you
lift it. And then we always teach do not lift
with your back, do you know, lift like through your legs,
engage your core and lift, and once you get those
habits formed, you'll see your body composition even in your course,
(47:02):
starts changing. Mayan. My husband does not do any APPS
and he actually is walking around every day now with
a six pack, which I'm like, this is just not fair.
After work so hard to get my six pack and
you just get it just what you know, Well, that's
bringing alcohol over the weekends.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Too, right, Well yeah, but I mean but he's engaging
his legs, and that's what it is, engaging his legs.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
If you have a chance to work out, do legs,
lift heavy, heavy legs.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Yeah, that's a good takeaway. So I want to ask
you a final question because it's this. This is really
useful and there's a lot of information here for people listening,
and I think it's I'm very proud of you having
being represented and I'm sure you've probably got a lot
of people who you know, really want to say, hey,
you know, I don't know how you did it and
(47:51):
have questions around this as well, So real opportunity for
them to to get inspired. If you were to basically
go out and have an opportunity to meet somebody who
you could have for dinner, and two people dead or alive,
and you have the opportunity to do that, who would
they be?
Speaker 1 (48:15):
I would I would love to meet Christian Bale, my guy,
because this man is his ability to control his body
and change it from one film to another. Like see
how he looked at in Batman right, Dark Knight Rises
(48:38):
or something. He just was just huge and ripped and
shredded and you could tell that he's just put so
much work into it. And then there's other movies where
he's like the scrawny, really thin guy right, Just so
a guy that can manipulate metabolism and manipulate it's just
(49:03):
an incredible feat. You know, that level of control that
you have over your body, that that impresses me. I
would love to have a conversation with Christian Bale. Actually,
one of my big dreams for many many years was
to meet Arnold, which now I see Arnold at multiple
(49:24):
USC functions because his kids went to USC. And he
is he is the icon. He is the og and
the god of anything bodybuilding. Right, So.
Speaker 4 (49:40):
Did you give you advisor? Does he tell you anything
that inspires you?
Speaker 1 (49:46):
He will tell you the truth. He's not a very
nice man. He'll be like, no, you don't look good. No,
you know, he's just very but he's blunt. But he
will tell you you don't have the look, or you
have the look, or you gotta work on this. You
got to build your upper body, you gotta. So he is,
(50:11):
he is the icon. Right, I've met him a few times. Actually,
I've had that pleasure. So I had to cross him
off the list. But Christian Bale is still one of
those guys that I'm like, how can you just manipulate
yourself from movie to movie these quite and be so
talented at what you do? Right? Right?
Speaker 4 (50:30):
Right? That's that's crazy. Well, this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
I mean, look, so much to talk about with this
topic as well, and I think, yes.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
It's the breadth is incredible. We can just do one
an entire hour just on diet or an entire.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Hour, and I think that that's fantastic actually, and I'm
sure there is. So if everybody wants to reach out
to you and is listening and they're like, hey, you
know what, I've got a question that I really want
to ask.
Speaker 4 (50:56):
They can follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yes, sure, they can DM me through Instagram and you'll
put my handle on it.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, well we'll do that. But look,
absolute pleasure to have you on the show. My pleasure
inspiring not just for me but also for other South
Asian females and males by the way out there as well,
because it's so like you said, contradict you to how
we've grown up, but genetics don't speak to it as
much and stuff, and you look great, You're fantastic. I
(51:22):
think you know in a crowd, you'll stand out. People
will ask and inspires others. That's what it's really about.
It's like, I want to look like that. Well, you
put the work in.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
If there's one the parting words I have for this
audience really is, there's if you if you were daydreaming
through this entire podcast and you were going to take
away one thing here is ladies, even jets, ladies lift
heavy lift, intensely, take short breaks. You will not look
(51:53):
like a man. You will not gain a ton of muscle.
Trust me, is really, really, really difficult to gain muscle.
But lift heavy and lift consistently. That's that's you know.
Forget don't even worry about cardio, forget about all that.
Just lift heavy and you will see in three four
(52:14):
months the results and your body changing.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
Fantastic advice. Pleasure to have you show.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It was really a pleasure.
Take care
Speaker 2 (52:48):
The world's most listened to South Asian radio and podcast
network
And I laugh. I'm like, trust me, you will never
build that much muscle, Like it's so hard, you know,
for an Indian woman in the fifties. I'm telling you,
ethnically speaking, taking all that into consideration, you're lucky to
build a pound of muscle in three to four months. Like, yeah,
I can imagine, but obviously it's a little bit faster.
(00:35):
But I'm like, that should be the last of your concerns.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio, available now on the
free iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So, hello everyone, and welcome to Ruckus Avenue Radio. And
I am your host, Camal Khan for my show Bollywood
to Hollywood, and I'm very inspired and excited to have
Ushaw with us here as well. Usha Patel, right, and Usha,
thank you for being on the show. You are for
(01:26):
everyone who's who's listening in a professional bodybuilder. You're also
on the board at USC and we'll go into that
a little bit as well, but you're also VP of
Sales and Applications at an aerospace company. So there's a
lot going on there that you know you're you're part of.
(01:47):
And congratulations because there's a lot to talk about in
terms of what your goals are and what you've already achieved,
and I think it's particularly inspiring as a professional female
bodybuilder that we first started talking about, amongst other things,
and your routine and so well, first of all, thank
you for being on the show, and thank you for
(02:10):
sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, it's really a pleasure to be here. It's an
honor that you thought of me. There's a lot I do,
but there was kind of like a method to the madness, right.
It seems like we do a lot, but if you
have the disciplined lifestyle, it actually is like brushing your teeth.
(02:36):
It's just something that you don't think about, you just do.
So I do. One of the biggest I guess, if
you can say the waste of time in my daily
routine is my commute. So I actually live in Orange
County and I commute to our factory in Los Angeles
every day, so I spend two and a half to
(02:58):
three hours in the car. That's that's when I learn
about a lot of research. I like, I biohack my
body in certain ways, you know, I look at I
listen to articles on just wellness, longevity and just to
augment my progress every day. So I have that downtime
(03:21):
where I'm just learning in the car. Every now and
then I'll make phone calls, you know, I catch up
with friends. But really that's my time for research. I
wake up. But sometimes when I'm cutting, I wake up
at about three forty five in the morning. At four
in the morning during like the prep stage. And by
(03:41):
prep stage, I mean that's your cutting stage before you
get on get on to compete for show. So you
wake up early in the morning. You do a fasted
cardio for forty five minutes an hour whatever it is.
You don't eat anything. You just do cardio, and then
I prep my meals, you know, I make my my
(04:02):
I have I'm given a diet plan that's extremely specific,
if you know, you don't even change out, like up
to five grams. I have to meet my macros within
five grams. And then so I prep that I leave
at seven thirty in the morning, I drive to LA
I have a full day of work, you know, I
work with my top companies I work with are Boeing, Lockheed, Norfolk,
(04:26):
Thrum and Raytheon, you know, big companies. Our company actually
it's our family business, and we make military electronics for
the US Navy and the Air Force. So it's it's
you know, it's not it's a job that I need
a tremendous amount of focus. I read a lot of
big contracts things like that, and then after my day
(04:47):
is over, I jump in my car. It's about six
thirty seven. I get to the gym at seven PM,
and that's when I do my strength training.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And after a full day of carbs and things like that,
I do my strength training. I'm home by eight thirty,
I eat my dinner, and then I try to hit
bad by about nine thirty. So that's pretty one day.
And I can only do this because all the kids
are out of the house. I'm not having to come
home and make dinner and all of that. You know,
all my meals are prepped for my husband and I
(05:18):
for about four or five days. That's what I did
this Sunday today, this morning, I prepped all my meals.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Well, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And you talked about discipline and you know, having a
method to the madness, and I think you kind of
described a little bit bit that already with what you
just shared that I mean, it's it takes discipline and
routine to kind of keep that going, right, But like
you said, it can become a habit. What I'm curious about,
so the kids are out of the house. I mean
you don't have kids at home.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, my youngest one left exactly three years ago when
I started bodybuilding.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
While you started three years ago.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Hold on, I started three years ago. I had no muscle.
I had like just a regular amount of muscle, like
any Indian girl, you see. And I started this whole
journey when the last kid out of my three left
to college. So, just to give you an idea, my
older one is close to twenty nine. I have a
middle one that's twenty seven. And Sean, my youngest, is
(06:16):
now twenty one. He is off to college. And as
soon as he left, he's actually a competitive powerlifter. So
I make his meals for him and I send it
to USC. Like today, I made his entire all his
beef and rice and all of that for the week,
and I'm sending it over to him. So but as
soon as he left. You know, it's a selfish sport, right.
(06:39):
It's my schedule is really tight. I don't have a
lot of discretionary time. I'll fit in here and there
a couple of social outings, which I don't like to
do during the week anyways, but you know, you have
to accommodate sometimes, and that's that's like my day in
a nutshell.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Well, I mean, it's that's what your focus is, and
I think that that's where you probably spend most of
your time to keep that discipline in order to be
able to compete and perform. If you're a professional athlete,
just like anybody would. I'm assuming and you can correct
me if I'm wrong. Look, if you're a swimmer or
if you're an athlete running, you've got to put in
(07:18):
the hours and you've got to get enough sleep in
order to be able to then perform when.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's crunch time.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
But have you done that prep and just show up
and think, well, actually today I'll just kind of hang
out and go out till two in the.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Morning and then come back and maybe I'll figure this out.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm sure that doesn't quite the other You'll be you know,
the competition will take over like they'll they'll.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Be exactly and you'll you know, you're competing into everybody
that's doing it, and most people actually compete with on stage,
they're in the fitness industry, like they own gyms or
their fitness trainers as their job, right, so they have
a little more flexibility. I just have to be extremely
regimented because I don't have a lot of time. I
(08:01):
have to be extremely efficient. When I'm in the gym,
I'm in there for an hour and ten minutes. I
lift intensely, I you know, lift heavy, and you try
to make the most efficient workout out of the time
you have, and then you have to come home and sleep,
(08:23):
you know, sleeping.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Recovery, especially when you're in your fifties. Recovery is critical.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Absolutely, And that's what I want want to come on
to u Usha is like, listen, we met and I
was saying that you know, there's there's not there's it's
inspiring just somebody in their fifties, a female in their fifties.
But let alone, that's one piece of it. And then
also the fact that you are South Asian Indian background.
I don't see that happened too many of them, not
(08:51):
just women but men. Even it doesn't happen very often.
We you know, we we're we're looking after yourself. Your
body's a typical diet that you have in a South
Asian diet isn't actually conducive to keeping very lean and fit.
Now if you're in Japan, it's a little different story
in certain places where you know, and especially here living
in the US, where people don't walk very much, especially and.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Our genes work against us. Our South Asian gens are
not you know, we're not gifted with that genetic makeup, right.
We have to kind of work a little bit harder
than somebody and other ethnicity, for example, just to be
able to build that muscle. I'm actually raised South Indian,
like Brahmin. I'm South Indian Brahm and rice eating, you know,
(09:39):
and I was plant based till about three years ago
when I realized, oh my gosh, diet is so important.
I won't be able to do the sport being a
plant based. I mean, you have one out of you know,
one or two out of one hundred athletes are gifted
enough and they're general younger to be able to do this.
(10:03):
Like on an Indian diet, you know, there's eating doll
and rice, which is a really good meal. It's nutritious,
but it's not going to get you to change your
phys come. I guarantee you.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
No, especially if you know, because there's that's a lot
of carbs as well as Yeah, that's approtein and dollin, right,
So I mean, that's what I'm saying, like, it's very
rare to be able to have that and post. If
you're younger, you can get away with it, but when
you're older, it's a.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Completely different process.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But I'm curious, let's go back a little bit here,
because you know, fine, you've been doing this for three.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Years and you look amazing.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You know you obviously we can see that from the
people who don't follow you, but it's on your Instagram.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
You can see your pictures and you're sharing that.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But you're inspiring others, hopefully who were then sort of saying, oh, wow,
she can she can do this. I can do it potentially,
and then if she can do it in the fifties,
well maybe I can do it in my fifties. And
maybe now I have the time that I didn't have before,
et cetera, et cetera. And so maybe it is a
time factor, because I do think some of the people
nowadays in general, aside from ethnicities, men or women, you're
(11:09):
starting to see a lot of people now that are
older able to look after themselves a little bit more,
maybe thinking Okay, well I was not as fit in
my twenties even thirties, but guess what now in my
forties fifties, I'm actually able to go to the gym,
and I'm really going to focus on myself, which is,
you know, it's interesting, but I want to know how
you got into it, like what made you like well
(11:29):
to get a.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Fitness another thing to sort of say, I'm going to
be a bodybuilder.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I've always been fascinated with bodybuilders. You know, Arnold's been
my idol since I was eighteen years old, so it's
always something that I admire, right, But I've been a
pretty much an endurance athlete most of my life, So
I I've always been athletic, Okay, from the beginning. I
play a lot of sports and even in college, but
(11:58):
I've been a triathlete for upwards of ten years, and
a skier and all of that, but it's all like endurance.
And in twenty twenty one, I had a really bad
ski accident and where they had to completely reconstruct my
right knee and I pretty much my running days were counted.
So if I kept running on that knee, I'd have
(12:19):
a knee replacement of two or three years because it's
pretty born down. So my surgeon's like, okay, well, you know,
I recommend you don't run anymore. And that's all I knew. Run, swim, bike,
those are the things I did. So I said, maybe
this is the time. So I joined a gym and
I started just weightlecting, no plans at all for competing
(12:41):
or anything like that. So this was I was fifty two,
and this was exactly three years ago. So today I'm
fifty five. So at fifty two I started. I started
with a coach that he's competed in the past. He's
local yor Gonda, and we started training and he goes
six months in the training and he goes, you know,
(13:01):
you kind of have some good genetics or you have
been sticking to my plan. You're fairly disciplined person. Why
don't we try a competition in four months? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
you know that's like too much. As we progressed, he's like,
you should just try it. It's local, you don't have
to travel anywhere. And you know, it wasn't a big league,
(13:22):
it was a small natural league. And I entered the competition,
bought a suit, did all you know, posing practice all
of that, and I go in there just nonchalantly, really
didn't know what I was doing. I started bodybuilding in
March first, and I competed on September thirtieth, and I
won every category. I won fifty plus, I won forty
(13:44):
five plus and I won forty plus and I'm like,
what wait, what is this for real? So he's like, listen,
I told you that's why you should compete. Now get serious.
So I entered like a large national competition that first year,
and I got humbled, right like IFBB. I entered the NPC,
(14:04):
which is the largest big league of the world, right
the amateur league, and I got creamed because now you're
you know, you're with the big big kids. So then
I spent the next two years just completely stuck to
my plan, super strict with my diet and the one
(14:25):
thing you have to be the most Indian women, I
actually most women are afraid to gain weight, but you
gain you have to gain weight. The process is you
eat a lot in your bulking stage, right which you
call off season, which I'm in right now, you gain
the weight. And I gained seventeen pounds. So I was like, oh, shoot,
(14:50):
like now I'm actually bat How am I going to
lose this? Right? But you got to trust the process,
and you got to follow the process, and you bulk up.
You have to be in a caloric surplus build a muscle,
so you'll build muscle and you'll add some body fat
to you and then you start cutting. And the cutting
(15:10):
stage for me at the time, usually my preps are
about sixteen weeks, so about four months of cutting. If
you do it slowly, you're losing about just a pound
or just under a pound a week consistent, and that
gets you at this point. Now I only have to
lose about eleven pounds within eleven twelve pounds of stage weight,
(15:33):
because now I understand the system. I'm not going to
let my weight go up that high. So you cannot
be afraid to gain weight. And women usually look at
the scale and freak out and do not even realize
that their body composition is changing. So that's one big
part of the most like comments I hear is I
(16:00):
don't want to build muscle too much and look like
a man, And I laugh. I'm like, trust me, you
will never build that much muscle like it's so hard,
you know, for an Indian woman in the fifties, I'm
telling you, ethnically speaking, taking all that into consideration, you're
lucky to build a pound of muscle in three to
(16:22):
four months.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue radio.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Okay, that is obviously it's a little bit faster, But
I'm like, that should be the last of your concerns.
Just eat, like, eat a caloric surplus by two, three,
four hundred calories. You know your coach will give it
to you. And I'm not stappening sugars. I'm talking actual
like protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. You know, you're
(17:17):
eating good food and gain that and then you go
into your cut. And I implemented this earlier this year.
I trained a group of about fifteen local like friends
and acquaintances in the community. My husband was one of
the guinea pigs. He dropped from January seventeenth till now,
(17:38):
he's dropped twenty five pounds of body fat. He is
pretty vascular, shredded, and he's sticking to his diet. He
gets a lot of food, but he's training consistently. He trains.
He doesn't train like me, but he trains about four
times a week. I'm closer to five or six. But
(18:00):
he trains consistently and his entire composition is shredded everywhere
he goes. Now he's getting compliments and he doesn't want
to cheat. He sees the results, he sees the result
of this body, and he doesn't want to cheat.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, no, I get it. How does one need to
train seven days a week?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
No, you never train seven days a week. You need
a minimum of two rest days a week. Okay, And
one of my rest days actually I have a one
complete rest dingy, no cardio, no nothing, and one the
rest day I just do core exercises, you know, playing
things like that. But your body has to recover.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Right, okay, So and on those training days he's described
him and it's great, by the way, you talk about
the story of how to you know, you know, being
pretty strict to the diet and you see the results, right.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Problem is, I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Even myself, I haven't got a clue when I was
training ims and ideas or trainers and you know, people
tell you different things, depends what you read. But you
people don't even talk about the macros that people say
they going to the gym and whatnot. But if you're
not really measuring it, if you're training for something they're
really measuring it, it's really hard to tell, right, and
myself too, and like, well, why haven't I gained weight
or lost weight or cut body fat? What advice do
(19:14):
you have to those who are basically doing that?
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
They're maybe going to the gym, they are doing weights,
like maybe they're doing cardio in the evenings, and you know,
maybe they're doing weights during the morning or whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Maybe they're training five days a week.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
What could they be doing and what do they need
to do about their nutrition to match these things for
the average person?
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Right? And who really wants to cut wants to be leaner?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Okay, So really it's data that you need, right, It's data,
And I operate on data that I'm an engineer. I
love numbers, and I base a lot of you know,
even to pick your macro nutrients, it's all based on data.
So the first thing I told all those fifteen people
that I coached earlier this year, I said, go get
(20:01):
a Dexa scan, which is you know, a Dexa scan
is it's that bone mineral scan. But it's the most
accurate it's even more accurate than a you know the
the question, yes, yes, So you get a DEXA so
(20:22):
you know your body composition. You know kind of like
where your fat is distributed. You know the amount of
visceral fat that you have versus subcutaneous fact. But the
most important measure is your RMR, which is your resting
metabolic rate. Is the number of calories you need to
keep yourself alive. So for most women my age have
(20:44):
moderate amount of activity, it could anywhere. It could be
anywhere from eleven hundred and fifty to mine's a little higher.
I'm closer to fourteen hundred because it's it's a function
of how much lean muscle you have. And this is
just your number that you need to know. What your
number is to stay that's your basic metabolic function. It's
(21:07):
to keep your organs moving and for you to be alive. Okay,
So once you know that number, then you know how
to put yourself in a deficit and in a surplus.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
So just to clarify people listening to it, you need
to get the dock. Someone it which taking order DEXA scan.
It's a scan and they do that in their local gym.
Can they go order an Amazon.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
What do they need to do.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
No, it's it's a company. Uh, just google DEXSA scan
and you'll see a series of companies. Body Spec is
the one I use. It's a van. It's like an
X ray machine. You lay and the extra machine kind
of scans over you and you'll get a full eight
page report breaking down the fat and the muscle you
(21:50):
have on your left arm versus your right arm. I mean,
it's your extremely accurate data. And now you see that.
And most women are that I coached, they saw it
and they're like went into a deep depression. They're like,
oh my god, no, this is not true. These numbers
can't be true. Even men that thought they were ripped
(22:12):
and shredded, they're in the mid twenties, you know, mid
twenty five, twenty six, and they look lean. They look
but the function of the amount of it's a function
about the amount of lean muscle versus your body weight.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Right, So they could be in their twenty percentiles and
stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And my husband Mayan was he measured his decks. He
was at twenty three percent body fat. Today he's about
walking around normally around.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Twelve okay, gotcha. And he looks lean, cut, shredded, wow
like vascular.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And he eats a lot of food. He eats six good,
big meals a day. He's not crazy disciplined like me.
He he goes out, has a couple of drinks. You know,
over the weekends, you know, he will go to a
restaurant and he's not gonna he orders a full meal.
He's he'll take a couple of bites and dessert. So
(23:09):
he's not abstaining himself.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah, and he's still living his life.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
He's living his life, he's enjoying it. But his body
composition has changed.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
He works galories right because he knows probably also what
macro's to take and how he knows his body sort
of well enough and understand this. So for those who
are trying to do this, it's probably better to go
and get that taxa scan. Now, can they go so
you don't have to go? You have to go somewhere
to get this taxa scan.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, usually they come into different gyms. Axiom Fitness locally
here has them come in once a month. But if
you google Dexa Scan and Body spec is the local
company here in Orange County, you can see when they
come in and go get a scan. It is an
accurate scan. Even if you can even just go get
(23:58):
the in body scan, the inbod machines or they're not
as accurate, but you're only looking for a relative measurement.
You don't need an absolutely measurement. You want to see
how you can go up and down, and they have
them at twenty four hour the in body machine where
you hold on you know, you stay so but data
is critical, so you need to know what you're at
(24:18):
so you can change that.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
So for salv Asian people, So just to summarize, you know,
because I mean, you've obviously done this, you're at a
professional level. So let's assume you're in your coaching others,
because people do need that. They need the advice because
you just can go and do the wrong things otherwise.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
So let's assume that they've done all that.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Now at that point, they know they have some data
as to what they are in their current state. Maybe
they're at twenty five percent percentile whatnot. I'm just making
it up. Then what do they need to do next?
How do they figure out their macros?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Are they going to go?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, it's hard for them to start like that, So
you go to a coach, you go to any any
you know, bodybuilder friend or somebody like me, and I
usually take a look at them and I say, what
what is your you know, how strongly are you willing
to commit to this? And then you kind of set
your macros. You don't want to set your crazy macros
(25:08):
that they cannot meet. So you your coach actually shouldn't know, Okay,
I think this person loves loves to drink over the weekends,
you know, loves like so you kind of need to
know what is the most effective strategy for them to
stick to it long term. But I would I have
(25:29):
given a lot of different macros, and about half the
people follow them. Half the people are like, I can't
hit my protein goal. I go, you eat meat?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Sure you can't, right, Okay? So just yeah, And so
that's one piece of it. And then obviously from there
is training and then the balance of that.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
But it's training with intensity. It's training with hypertrophy. Right.
Hypertrophy is when you the muscles fail. It's training with
progressive overload. You're not doing ten pound weights over and
over again. You know, there's a method. Once you hit
(26:08):
that weight, you increase you increase the weight weekly until
you know you get to a certain rep count and
all of that. There's there's a whole training method because
you want to build lean muscle, and you're never going
to build lean muscle if you're lifting the same amount
of weights and doing the same exercises every every time
you go to the gym.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
So and this is great because you know it's true.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I mean people go to the their whether you join
an equinox or you know, high end gym, or whether
you're in LA Fitness or twenty four hour Fitness. There's
going to be various trainers out there, but they will
also do ask what your lifestyles like, and you're right,
you know, if you'd like to go drinking over the weekend,
if you like to go out for meals every day,
maybe you're a salesman who travels every single day'll figure
out what to do. But so moving to yourself, I mean,
(26:54):
I think, let's assume, so you've got fifteen people that
you coach that older I'm assuming diferent goals of their own.
How did you get into it in terms of like,
you know, what motivated any role as an athlete? And
I get that, get that and an injury and spider
to go in a different direction. But it is, as
you mentioned your routine, it's you've obviously driven by something,
(27:17):
a goal to get somewhere. Was it were you feeling
very proud of being South Asian and being able to
do this? I think Indian people out there are say, hey,
you were in into I know, I'm proud of you too,
Let's do this together.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Or is it like you feel like you're a rarity
out there?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I think you know at the stage of my life
that I'm in, I think I'm more an exception than
a rule. But it shouldn't be that way. I think
today I'm the probably the only Indian lady over the
age of fifty that is an IFBB pro. I don't
know of any.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Other five now as well?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
You mentioned right, sorry, fifty five Now there's maybe a
fifty five plus county.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I don't know if there is, but as there is
fifty five plus, and I will compete in the younger
categories too, So I'll compete in the fifty plus. I'll
compete sometimes if I look at the girls, I might
compete in the forty five plus. You just can't compete higher.
But you can compete all the way lower. So yes,
it is you know it when you really this, this
(28:21):
was my trigger. It's longevity. So forget bodybuilding, but just
weight training is the key to longevity. And there's research
study after research studies showing that the stronger your legs are,
the stronger your glutes, your legs, and your hamstrings are,
(28:43):
the longer you will live. The longer you will live
without ailments and serious mobility issues and things like that.
So you know, you can't control things like cancer or
anything like that. But I see almost every Indian uncle
and auntie, they all have knee replacements. They can barely walk,
(29:04):
They're grossly overweight, they're limping around. It's because they never
wait trained. They just didn't know they needed to do that.
You know, even today, I see almost every one of
my friends and they're all cardio bunnies. That's what I call. Oh,
I worked out today, What did you do? Oh? I
(29:24):
did the StairMaster and I did the elliptical for forty
five minutes. I feel great. Uh, it's got going to
change your body, guarantee you one second, one bit. It's
not going to change you. You're just breaking down muscle
every time you're probably not eating you know how you
should be, but you're not building lean muscle in any
(29:47):
weight by doing the elliptical or anything like that. Cardio
is reserved for when you want to start, you know,
shredding that body fat off you. But everybody should be
weight training, and by weight training, I mean lifting heavy
weights eight to ten reps heavyweights, and that's what's going
(30:09):
to change your body composition. And once you change your
body composition, you will it's like earning your youth back.
You're more youthful. I mean, honestly, I'm stronger today at
fifty five than I was when I was thirty five.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
It's crazy, isn't that recovery?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yes, it takes me longer to recover from workouts and
say it's just but I am stronger today. I can
do an easily a two hundred and eighty pound deadlift easy,
you know I can. I can go up over three
hundred pounds on hip thrust, and I couldn't dream of
(30:46):
doing that in my thirties or forties. So it is.
It doesn't matter your age. If you're consistent, your body
will respond, It adapts, and it's extremely much more resilient
than you think it is.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Yeah, no, that's one hundred percent true.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
And I think that's inspiring for a lot of people
who who are like worried about it, and they're like, yeah,
like you said, they do get on the elliptical or
maybe they were on a I don't know, they're basically
running for a mile or two even on a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
But you know, well, that's great. It's good for your
heart to do cardio.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
When the doctors tell them to go work out three
days a week. But what do you say to those
people who just like, Okay, I did that and you
know it's what I was told to do and it
should make me feel better. Is there a certain amount
of like nutrition that obviously is really important for them
to be able to do because you can't just kind
of stop eating.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
You've also got to recover.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
And so how important would you would you place the
nutrition versus the weight training?
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Was there a sort of ratio there was it? Depending?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Eighty percent of your results are going to come from diet.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Your life is the ocean and your heart is.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
You're listening to Rock this Avenue Radio Avenue available now
on the free iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
App Days I Keep.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
My Sayes forgive me for fee. I mean it's as
hard as it is. You got to have the high
protein diet, you gotta have medium carbs. I mean most
people are like, cut your carbs, too many carbs, too
many carbs. No, there's days I eat three hundred grams
of carbs a day and I don't even gain a pound.
(32:36):
The eating the right carbs is really important because carbs
are needed to build muscle. That's what people don't realize.
They keep cutting the carbs and doing all this keto
diet crap. You know, and keto diet works in a
specific case, right, there's a good use case for it.
(32:56):
But if you want to change your body composition, you
have to eat a good amount of carbs, which is
about you know, one hundred to two hundred grams of
carbs a day. Protein and healthy fats. Fats are important
so that exact macro balance. It's different for every person.
(33:18):
But that's the biggest misconception. I mean everyone's like, oh,
Usha do you You probably don't eat any carbs. I go.
I would die if I didn't need any carbs. I
won't even go exorcise that day. I won't because I
don't have carbs. I don't have anything to push myself.
Where's the energy coming from? Not eat the rice, sweet potatoes,
oats like things I avoid. I avoid any kind of
(33:41):
pastas and gluten. I generally avoid bread and wheat. But
there's such great carbs out there that you can eat,
Like sweet potatoes is a superfood. It's the best thing
you can probably eat.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah, sweet potato rice is okay too.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
White rice is excellent, White jab men rice, bosmati, rice, oats,
oats are phenomenal, right for energy.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Yeah, I think that that's the thing that I think
is a misconception. Uh.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
And I think that you you know, you're clarifying that
all these are things that we just don't know about.
And as part of it is education and so like
you said, you meet those people who are so out theaking.
They absolutely can do it.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I just they just don't know. They're told no carbs.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Are they having some lettuce and whatnot with this, or
just eating protein all day, which then confuses the body
and probably doesn't help them when they're doing And it's.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Hard on your kidneys too, you know, kidneys have to
work so hard, and so there is that right balance.
You do need the carbs. Now, when you're in the
cutting stages, my carbs keep coming down each week. As
I you know, there's a right time to reduce your carbs,
but not not when you're trying to change your entire
body composition. That's not the right time.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
So what do you say to those people? Then?
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Okay, so they're doing all of those things, they're you know,
you're getting them trained, and maybe their goals are just
to be very lean and look lean for not necessarily
compete for something.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
But they.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Tend to cars and they say, look, I don't I
can't run because I don't have bad knees or whatnot.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Is there another way that they can do this? Like
I heard, and I'm just assuming.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
For those people who do it, they're like, just walk
and if you walk, that's fine, you don't have to run.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I'll give you the secret to drop tons of body fat.
And this takes people years, and I'm going to give
you the secret right now. So if you wake up
in the morning, just have your black coffee and get
on a treadmill and walk on the highest incline. So
twelve and a half percent of fifteen percent at three
(35:45):
miles an hour, just walking three miles an hour at
twelve and a half thirteen incline. Don't hold on to
the rails. You will see the fat will just melt away.
You don't need to do high intensity cardio. You don't
need to be sweating like crazy. You want to put
(36:07):
your body in that right heart rate zone that you're
burning fat for energy. Okay, there's a very very specific
method to cardio. If you can do hit the high
intensity cardio. A lot of bodybuilders do. I do it
on occasion, but the best, the best cardio out there,
(36:29):
honestly is walking on an incline, walking uphill.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
So if that's a secret, okay, so there's somebody's I mean,
they said whenever you do it. Obviously, some people can't
do it in the morning. Maybe they're going to work
or whatnot. Maybe they'll have a discipline. They can do
it any time during the day. They can go and
do this. So if they put it on an incline,
it has to be twelve or ten, or it.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Has to be something a little bit.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Strenuous, so and above maybe something like that at least ten.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
At least at ten percent because you're firing your glutes
and you're firing your hamstrings, You're firing the largest muscle
groups in your body. And when you fire those large
muscle groups, your energy expenditure is way higher, right as
opposed to just walking straight. So you are also kind
(37:19):
of conditioning those muscles. You're actually making a response if
you're building more fibers there. So are you target large
muscle groups. If you want to really increase your heart rate,
grab a five pound weight and do bicep pearls. You know,
every five minutes, do twenty thirty bicep pearls while you're
(37:39):
on the treadmill walking. You know, there's a lot of
creative things you can do. Engaging large muscle groups is
the key for energy expenditure, burning calories, and the calories
will be coming from if you're fasted, most of those
calories come from body fat. Store body fat. But you
(37:59):
can do cardios I do when I'm sometimes cutting in
my cut. Sometimes what I do is I do cardio
twice a day. I might do cardio thirty minutes fasted
in the morning, and then I said, oh, I don't
have time to do forty five minutes today. I'll do
twenty to thirty minutes in the morning. And then at night,
(38:20):
you know, I'll watch a TV show on the peloton.
I'll just ride my peloton and watch a thirty minute
episode of something, and you know, so you'll get your
cardio in and you just stay within the right heart
rate that your coach gives you.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
That's a great idea too. I mean, you've basically now
you know, because you're keeping going. But I love the
fasted sort of type of thing because I think when
you're you're already fasted, the only thing you're gonna burn
is fat. You don't have a bunch of massive meal
that you had for dinner.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, you don't have too much glycogen in your blood stream, right,
you don't have a lot of bluecoats. So waking up
and not eating any you know, just drinking a cup
of coffee or whatever, we'll give you that the caffeine
will give you that additional boost. And it is. And
then you know, if you really really want to drop weight,
take some L carnatine. Uh, you can buy L carnatine
(39:14):
and there are pills. You can buy them on Amazon.
Take a couple of L carnatine pills and what it
does is mobilizes fat for energy.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Oh wow, okay, L carnitine quarantine. How do you spill it?
Speaker 1 (39:26):
L dash carnatine?
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Oh okay, okay, all right. So is it like creatine
or no, not really, it's.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's it's you can buy it on Amazon. It's a supplement.
It's kind of like creatine. And I do take creatine.
Creatine is creatine monohydrate or creatine HCl either one. And
I do take creatine, like five five grams of creatine
after post workout. Now it will Creatine makes you hold
(39:53):
on to a little bit of water. It's not that
big of a deal, but your muscles look big and
round because you know you're holding on water. But it helps,
it's a recovery and it's really good for your neural
networks as well, a lot of impact on the brain.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
Okay, cool, Well that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
So so that sounds like there's a lot of people
talk about intimate and fasting.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
Right by the way, do you believe in that?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
I mean, they wait till they're twelve, may till midday,
or they wait till and then they work out because
they've already like they're already fasted, so there is time
to work out.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
But then the intermittent fasting is is you know, you
just have to cycle on and off of it because
your body is too smart. It'll realize your intermittent fasting
and it'll slow down your metabolism so you will not
burn that many calories. So you got to keep intermittent
fast for four weeks and then cycle out of it
so your body doesn't so it'll keep your receptors fresh
(40:47):
or otherwise it'll adapt to intermittent fasting. It'll slow down
your metabolism, it will slow down your caloric burn and
now it's not going to be as effective anymore. That's
the key. You got it. You gotta cycle cycle.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
It so sosh. I mean like when you're in the
gym and you see other people. People come up to
you and say, hey, you know what, how'd you get
this way? And how do you look like this? And
then is that how you get clients or I mean
looking for clients.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
I don't have any clients. Everyone I coached, I just
did it. I just did it as a friend. My
income comes from engineering now, so we have to I
you know, a couple of clients actually seriously asked me
to train them, and I'll consider it, or they really
(41:36):
want to completely change and potentially compete at some point,
and I can help them do that. But right now,
I just train people, you know, people that I know,
and I'm like, here, this is kind of my service
to the community.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, that's part of what we
do on this radio show, on my show as well.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's like it's it's really elevating these voices the people
like yourself. I feel it's a service to community, whether
you're in so I spend a lot of time obviously
with people talking about and entertainment, but it's a costing director,
whether it's directors, and they share their stories and sharing
your story just like you have in terms of hey,
you know, this is how I did it, and this
is how I stayed disciplined. It's really to also inspire
(42:21):
others to say, hey, you know I can do it,
or yes you can, you know, turn around and basically
focus on whatever you really love to do and then
pass it forward and maybe that's that's that's a great
way of doing it, and then highlight yourself somebody who
has done it, you know, because a lot of people
have the intention to, but just like you said, they
just don't know how they've been told the wrong things.
(42:42):
I mean some people are just told, hey, you just
got to cut the cabs and cut the carbs, you'll
be good, you know.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
And so there is there's there is a formula to it.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
There's obviously you can get as granular as you want
with it if you're competing, and the.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Key is trusting the process. People want immediate results, and
you know, changing your body composition is not an immediate thing.
It takes multiple It takes like twenty twenty twenty to
thirty weeks of consistently doing it to really see significant change.
But most people give up. They're like, oh I tried it,
(43:18):
you know, it don't work for me. Right, It's just
there is delayed gratification, but it is very gratifying and
it is addicting. Once you get to that stage, you
don't want to use that.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
How are your parents into this or is this something
that you.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Oh no, definitely not. It's there are your typical Indian parents,
they're you know, rice eating, you know, just like, oh
don't you're it's too heavy, you're taking too much risk. No,
it all it is, and now they see it, they're like, oh,
(43:54):
maybe you don't get so hurt. But you know, they're
just like you know, an uncle and auntie. Oh, don't
lift too heavy. It's not good for you. It's gonna
hurt your joints. And I'm like, mom, the reason why,
like you have so many knee problems is because you
never build your legs.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
To say, well, I mean you told me something today.
I build your legs.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I mean, build your legs. And that's the key to longevity.
And there's like all the big there's a whole series
of bodybuilders that are physicians that I followed. They're mds, right,
and they're in the bodybuilding community. And those are the
guys that I really look to because they know the physiology.
(44:39):
You know, they went to school for it, and they're
doing this crazy sport and every one of them is
the strength of your legs is directly proportional to your wellness.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
No, that's really good that you've shared that for people listening.
And I'm curious from your perspective. I and again it
might be a you know internet thing, grip strength. I
keep hearing grip strength. Is this that's legivity?
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Well?
Speaker 1 (45:10):
There is? You know, they there are tests you can
do right, So a woman my age should be able
to dead hang from a bar for two minutes just
gripping with your fingers alone, and they say, well, that's
a test that now you're you're good. You know you're
in that stage. So there's grip strength is probably something,
(45:34):
but you know, you have to look at the large
muscle groups. The larger the muscle group, the more influence
it has on your body. So grip strength is you know,
all the calisthetic guys love it, but I still think
from a physiological standpoint. I train legs four times a week.
(45:54):
I do upper body only once or twice a week
because and one day a week I only do back
because there's so many there's so much musculature on your back,
they're big, larger groups of muscles. You know, one day
of shoulders and biceps and triceps and things like that.
But doing your legs are really really important. And if
(46:18):
you do your legs consistently, there's no need to train
your core separately, because every time you do a dead lift,
or you do a compound lift or a squad you're
engaging your core every single time. That is what's giving
you the power in supporting you and you'll start getting shredded,
like in your mid section. So there's a lot of
(46:40):
benefit to it because you have to brace yourself right
when you're lifting something, you brace yourself and then you
lift it. And then we always teach do not lift
with your back, do you know, lift like through your legs,
engage your core and lift, and once you get those
habits formed, you'll see your body composition even in your course,
(47:02):
starts changing. Mayan. My husband does not do any APPS
and he actually is walking around every day now with
a six pack, which I'm like, this is just not fair.
After work so hard to get my six pack and
you just get it just what you know, Well, that's
bringing alcohol over the weekends.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Too, right, Well yeah, but I mean but he's engaging
his legs, and that's what it is, engaging his legs.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
If you have a chance to work out, do legs,
lift heavy, heavy legs.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Yeah, that's a good takeaway. So I want to ask
you a final question because it's this. This is really
useful and there's a lot of information here for people listening,
and I think it's I'm very proud of you having
being represented and I'm sure you've probably got a lot
of people who you know, really want to say, hey,
you know, I don't know how you did it and
(47:51):
have questions around this as well, So real opportunity for
them to to get inspired. If you were to basically
go out and have an opportunity to meet somebody who
you could have for dinner, and two people dead or alive,
and you have the opportunity to do that, who would
they be?
Speaker 1 (48:15):
I would I would love to meet Christian Bale, my guy,
because this man is his ability to control his body
and change it from one film to another. Like see
how he looked at in Batman right, Dark Knight Rises
(48:38):
or something. He just was just huge and ripped and
shredded and you could tell that he's just put so
much work into it. And then there's other movies where
he's like the scrawny, really thin guy right, Just so
a guy that can manipulate metabolism and manipulate it's just
(49:03):
an incredible feat. You know, that level of control that
you have over your body, that that impresses me. I
would love to have a conversation with Christian Bale. Actually,
one of my big dreams for many many years was
to meet Arnold, which now I see Arnold at multiple
(49:24):
USC functions because his kids went to USC. And he
is he is the icon. He is the og and
the god of anything bodybuilding. Right, So.
Speaker 4 (49:40):
Did you give you advisor? Does he tell you anything
that inspires you?
Speaker 1 (49:46):
He will tell you the truth. He's not a very
nice man. He'll be like, no, you don't look good. No,
you know, he's just very but he's blunt. But he
will tell you you don't have the look, or you
have the look, or you gotta work on this. You
got to build your upper body, you gotta. So he is,
(50:11):
he is the icon. Right, I've met him a few times. Actually,
I've had that pleasure. So I had to cross him
off the list. But Christian Bale is still one of
those guys that I'm like, how can you just manipulate
yourself from movie to movie these quite and be so
talented at what you do? Right? Right?
Speaker 4 (50:30):
Right? That's that's crazy. Well, this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
I mean, look, so much to talk about with this
topic as well, and I think, yes.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
It's the breadth is incredible. We can just do one
an entire hour just on diet or an entire.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Hour, and I think that that's fantastic actually, and I'm
sure there is. So if everybody wants to reach out
to you and is listening and they're like, hey, you
know what, I've got a question that I really want
to ask.
Speaker 4 (50:56):
They can follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yes, sure, they can DM me through Instagram and you'll
put my handle on it.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, well we'll do that. But look,
absolute pleasure to have you on the show. My pleasure
inspiring not just for me but also for other South
Asian females and males by the way out there as well,
because it's so like you said, contradict you to how
we've grown up, but genetics don't speak to it as
much and stuff, and you look great, You're fantastic. I
(51:22):
think you know in a crowd, you'll stand out. People
will ask and inspires others. That's what it's really about.
It's like, I want to look like that. Well, you
put the work in.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
If there's one the parting words I have for this
audience really is, there's if you if you were daydreaming
through this entire podcast and you were going to take
away one thing here is ladies, even jets, ladies lift
heavy lift, intensely, take short breaks. You will not look
(51:53):
like a man. You will not gain a ton of muscle.
Trust me, is really, really, really difficult to gain muscle.
But lift heavy and lift consistently. That's that's you know.
Forget don't even worry about cardio, forget about all that.
Just lift heavy and you will see in three four
(52:14):
months the results and your body changing.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
Fantastic advice. Pleasure to have you show.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It was really a pleasure.
Take care
Speaker 2 (52:48):
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