Weight loss journey: “I lived the first 40 years of my life as a patient,” said 51-year-old Ritesh Bawri, founder of a wellness startup, when Type 2 diabetes came knocking at his door.
Weighing his highest 89 kg, Bawri hadn’t exercised even once in his life. Living life on auto-pilot, his meals were convenient rather than nutritious. Surviving on coffee and a standing sandwich in between a hectic work week, that’s all Ritesh knew, before reality hit him with a diabetes diagnosis.
A stranger to working out and relying on a daily dose of ‘evening anxiety’ to exceed his calorie intake for the day, Ritesh recalled, “Physical activity simply did not exist in my life. I was the brainy one. Brain versus brawn. I chose brains.”
And in the rush of building something of his own, carrying the tag of a fourth-generation ‘entrepreneur’ weighed more heavily on his health than his wallet. Many of us who give preference to our professional objectives
Speaking to Financial Express Online, Bawri shared his weight loss journey, during which he lost nearly 30 kg in four months. Miraculous or unhealthy? Let’s dive in.
25 years of no movement, a processed diet, chronic stress
While the scale might just show 87 kg and the figures flash digits that ring alarms, the mental load of the weight weighs much higher. Expressing the sentiment, Ritesh said, “The weight gain was not dramatic. It was slow. Invisible, almost.” And at 40, came the warning signs, with sirens blaring at Ritesh to take action – with Type 2 Diabetes, hypertension, and asthma.
“During my MBA, I would eat standing in the kitchen to save time. That tells you everything about my relationship with food: speed over nourishment, quantity over quality. All I ate was processed carbohydrates…coffee like water, cup after cup throughout the day,” recalled Ritesh, as he looked back.
But the mental and emotional weight felt heavier. Ritesh shared, “Emotionally, I felt flat and unmotivated. I now know this was partly biological; a processed-carbohydrate diet creates a blood-sugar roller coaster. I had what I called “evening anxiety” around 5 PM every day for years. I assumed it was work stress. It was actually reactive hypoglycemia, a sugar crash. My mood was eroding gradually, and I did not even have the awareness to recognise it.”
Finding ways to blame this crash and other patterns on biology, Ritesh intelluctialised his deteriorating health. It became the only downward tracking event in his otherwise upwardly moving life. At the prime of his entrepreneurial journey, Ritesh Bawri finally realised, “The body does not care about your résumé,” and that it “was sending signals, I was just too busy to listen.”
From where I was vs where I was heading
“I was not overweight because I ate too much. I was overweight because my entire operating system, food, sleep, stress, movement, breathing, was misconfigured,” shared Ritesh.
And, in an attempt to find a fix, Ritesh wanted to approach it from the ground up. “I approached it the way I would approach a business turnaround: understand the root cause, fix the system. The weight is an output, not an input,” he told Financial Express Online. And now, it was time for Ritesh to ditch the shortcuts – “ No fad diets. No miracle supplements,” in his words.
First attempt at losing weight — it took a toxic trainer to wake him up
For Ritesh Bawri, the journey to losing weight and reclaiming his health did not begin in the gym. It began, painfully and honestly, with food, the one “toxic relationship” he realised he had to fix before anything else could change.
“The first change was food. I eliminated inflammation. I stopped eating processed carbohydrates and started eating real food – fruits, vegetables, lentils, and good fats like bilona ghee.”
But food was only the first reckoning. The second habit he confronted was far more ingrained, his dependence on coffee, not merely as a drink, but as a substitute for nourishment and routine.
“The second evil I targeted was my coffee, and not the drink alone, but treating it as a meal, even before you are ready to take on the day. I replaced my coffee-only breakfast with a protein-based meal. The shift was not dramatic in appearance, but it was seismic in impact,” said Ritesh Bawri, who eventually shed nearly 30 kg.
Motivated by early progress and a growing sense of control over his lifestyle, Bawri turned to fitness, hoping structured training would accelerate his transformation. Instead, his first experience in the gym left him defeated.
What should have been a turning point quickly became a moment of quiet discouragement.
“My first trainer asked me to run on a treadmill at seventeen miles per hour — world-class sprinter speed, for a man who had not exercised in twenty-five years. Naturally, I would meander home, hating myself and the exercises.”
The damage was not physical alone. The experience threatened to undo the fragile confidence he had begun to build. For many, that might have been the end of the road.
But Bawri chose differently.
Rather than abandoning the journey, he searched for guidance that saw him not as a template to be pushed, but as a person trying, slowly, imperfectly, to rebuild his life and routine.
That shift in mindset marked the beginning of a far more personal transformation. “I have read over 700 books and 6,000 research papers. I became my own doctor, nutritionist, and coach, not because I distrust professionals, but because no one has a greater stake in your health than you,” expressed Ritesh.
His story is not merely about losing weight. It is about unlearning, rebuilding, and reclaiming agency, one habit, one meal, and one hard lesson at a time.
28 kg in 4 months – But, What Changed?
After a dramatic diagnosis of Diabetes, hypertension, and asthma, Ritesh Bawri bounced back at 40. And these were some of the changes he made.
Food – What changed in phases, he tried elimination over restriction. He replaced carbohydrates, seed oils, and mindless snacking with fibre, protein, and fermented foods. Increasing his fibre intake to 40 gm and vegetarian protein to 100 gm a day, he also replaced his coffee with the ingenious tumeric shot, made of turmeric, ginger, black pepper, and lemon.
Movement – Going from 0 steps a day to having a workout routine for 4-5 times a week is an inspirational journey. For Ritesh, it didn’t come easy. He started with walking, moved on to cycling, and gradually included weight training. He hit the gym again and now, he can squat, do deadlifts, weighted-presses, and even pull-ups.
Sleep – A key component for recovery, sleep was his biggest enemy, as he once related it to laziness. Finding it the second-hardest thing to change after his morning coffee, he ditched the four-hour sleep routine for a healthier one.
Ritesh Bawri also acknowledged that weight loss did not magically cure one’s mental health and schemas. “ I carried a schema: I am not enough. That belief does not disappear with weight loss. It finds new material,” he shared. However, he also found that emotional eating came from a biological perspective, given his evening anxiety explained by disruptive blood sugar levels.
“On days I wanted to quit – and there were many – what kept me going was not motivation. Motivation is unreliable. What kept me going was showing up. I did not miss a single day of exercise last year. Some days were five minutes. Another three hours. Consistency is the medicine. Not intensity,” Ritesh told Financial Express Online.
A celebratory relapse wasn’t Ritesh’s biggest setback
Ritesh’s weight-loss journey was never smooth. The battles were not just physical or emotional, they tested his judgement and resolve. Months after reaching his goal, complacency crept in.
“After one health event I had championed, I attended the after-party. They had amazing pizza. I ate a ton. I was ‘done,’ after all. It took nearly two months to pull back from that one evening,” Ritesh emphasised.
Then came another setback. Last year, a back injury followed by dengue forced him into immobility, dragging him back towards old patterns. Yet his focus remained clear: return to the routine he had fought to build.
“But the goal is not perfection. It is narrowing the divergence from baseline. Get back quickly. Do not let a week become a month,” Bawri shared.
From long hours of inactivity to treating health as non-negotiable, Ritesh has travelled a hard road. Turning his life around at 40, with diabetes as the wake-up call, he knew time was no longer on his side.
Numbers that matter – more than the scale
While weight loss was a gradual process, silent but effective like a seismic wave, Ritesh shared that after losing over 28 kg, his Type 2 diabetes was finally in remission. He has now been asthma free for over 11 years, and maintains a blood pressure of 110 over 70. His VO2 max has gone from 27 to 49. With a zero calcium score, his resting heart rate is now in the low forties and nine years of consistently normal health reports.
“What changed most was not how people treated me — it was how I treated myself. I moved from living as a patient to living on the other side of the table,” Ritesh expressed.
We asked a nutritionist and clinical dietician – Here’s what they think
Dropping 28 kg in four months at age 40, especially after a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, is significant, but not automatically unsafe if done correctly, say experts.
Dr Prachi Jain, Senior Manager & HOD – Nutrition & Dietetics, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali, notes that Ritesh’s pace of dropping kilos is at the “safe upper limit,” pointing that it particularly occurs with people who are obese and have insulin resistance. They tend to see faster early results after lifestyle changes.
“Changes in blood sugar levels, improved insulin sensitivity, and a decrease in liver fat can occur relatively quickly,” she explains. However, she cautions that rapid weight loss without professional guidance can trigger muscle loss, nutrient deficiencies, gallstones, and hormonal imbalance.
Jain emphasises that the method matters: structured plans combining resistance training, yoga, adequate protein, and hydration help preserve lean mass and support metabolic health. Diets rich in protein, fibre, Omega-3 fats, fermented foods, and low-glycaemic whole grains like millet, oats, and quinoa are key to sustainable progress.
From a clinical lens, Mrs. Malvika A. Karkare, Clinical Dietician, Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital, Deccan Gymkhana, Pune, calls the transformation “significant” and says it must be evaluated carefully. While the typical safe rate is 0.5–1 kg per week, she notes that faster initial loss can occur with controlled carbs, calorie deficit, increased activity, and improved insulin sensitivity.
Her key reminder remains, “What we truly aim for is fat loss, not merely a lower number on a weighing scale.” Rapid drops can look impressive but may backfire if muscle mass and nutrition are compromised. She highlights strength training as particularly valuable in diabetes because muscle tissue enhances glucose uptake, while yoga and meditation help regulate stress hormones that affect blood sugar.
Sometimes, hitting the gym is not enough, and that’s when true lifestyle changes ‘walk in’. Ritesh started to prioritise movement, and took standing calls, walking meetings, and taking the stairs. He also practiced mindful and sustainable practices like resonance breathing every morning, and maintained breath awareness throughout the day. Not going for extreme cold plunges, he tried cold exposure and ended his showers with cold water, for at least 60-90 seconds.
A piece of advice Ritesh shared, “Do not start with the finish line. Start with one meal. Make it real food. Do that for a week. Then add a walk. Then fix sleep. The body is a self-regulating miracle.”
He added, “The biggest lesson: health is not about appearance. It is about agency — the ability to choose how you respond to life rather than living at the mercy of a breaking body. I changed my life at forty. Not because I am extraordinary. Because science works. You just have to begin.”
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. While the author has incorporated expert medical guidance while producing the story and ensured full authentic information is provided to the reader, you should always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider regarding a medical condition or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read here.