Let’s be honest, we all crave junk food. It’s the easiest thing to reach for when we’re having a bad day. For most of us, especially those in high-pressure jobs, food eventually stops being about hunger. This is exactly how weight gain happens. It’s quiet, gradual, and almost invisible, until one day, you realize you don’t recognize the person in the mirror.
Like many others, Niraj Jha, founder of ADSMITH, fell into the same trap.
Niraj was a man drowning in the demands of his career as an entrepreneur. Founder’s expectations let his health take a back seat for so long that it eventually fell off entirely. At his heaviest, he hit 144 kilos.
Today, at 52 years old, he weighs 79 kgs. He lost a massive 65 kgs (about 143 pounds) over two years. But he didn’t do it with a magic pill, a celebrity trainer, or some secret surgery. He did it by being more stubborn than his habits.
The reality of living at 144 kilos
When you’re carrying that kind of weight, the world feels different. It feels smaller. For Niraj, the weight gain was a slow crawl. “I didn’t even notice it while it was happening,” he shared with The FinancialExpress.com. He was winning at work, but his body was paying the bill. His sleep was shallow, his energy was non-existent, and he was constantly out of breath.
But the hardest part wasn’t the physical exhaustion, it was the fear.
Niraj had tried to lose weight before. We’ve all been there. You start on a Monday with all the motivation in the world, and by Thursday, life gets in the way. For Niraj, it was even more discouraging. Every time he tried to push himself, his body would react badly. He’d get sick or injured, and he’d have to stop.
Eventually, he started believing a lie that many people tell themselves: “Maybe my body just isn’t built for this. Maybe this is just who I am now.” He began to withdraw. He didn’t stop going out because people were mean; he stopped because of how he felt about himself. He was choosing clothes for coverage, not style. He was avoiding mirrors. He had accepted a version of life that was limited and painful.
The ICU: A Brutal Wake-Up Call
The universe usually tries to whisper to us, but if we don’t listen, it starts throwing bricks. In June 2023, Niraj’s brick arrived. He was hospitalised and moved into the ICU.
“I have been hospitalised many times in my life. In 2023 June I was hospitalised because of acute LRTI (Lower Respiratory Lung Infection),” he shared.
To help him breathe, the doctors had to put him on a BiPAP machine. It was a terrifying moment, but it led to a strange realization.
“For the first time in years, I actually slept through the night,” Niraj said. “Proper sleep brought my clarity back. I realized I hadn’t just been ‘tired’ for years, I had been suffocating,” he further said.
That moment in the hospital wasn’t just about fear. It was about contrast. For the first time, he felt what it was like for his body to actually function.
The ‘anti-expert’ approach
When most people decide to lose 60 kgs, they go out and buy an expensive gym membership, hire a nutritionist who counts every almond, and buy a shelf full of supplements.
Niraj did the exact opposite of what most people expect from a dramatic weight loss journey. He stripped it down to the basics, keeping things so simple that it almost sounded unbelievable. There was no gym membership, no personal trainer pushing him, no supplements promising quick results, and no surgical shortcuts.
All Niraj relied on was consistency, awareness, and the willingness to show up every single day.
“I knew anything rigid wouldn’t last,” he explains. He realized that the ‘all-or-nothing” mentality is what kills most weight loss journeys. Instead, he focused on one mantra, ‘The Calorie Deficit.’ He didn’t try to be a nutritionist. He just started being honest about what he was putting in his mouth.
The eight-minute milestone
On Day One, Niraj couldn’t run a mile. He couldn’t even walk for ten minutes. “I walked for eight minutes. That was it,” he said.
He didn’t set a target to run a marathon. He just made a deal with himself that he would show up every single day for those eight minutes. Even when he didn’t feel like it. Even when it felt like it wasn’t making a difference.
Slowly, those eight minutes became ten. Then fifteen. Then an hour. He wasn’t chasing a number on the scale but only showing up for himself.
Breaking the emotional connection
The biggest hurdle wasn’t walking, it was the ‘Head Game.’ We all know that stress makes us want to eat. Niraj had to unlearn decades of using food as a stress-relief valve. He had to learn that a ‘bad day’ didn’t need to be ‘fixed’ with a pizza.
“Bad days still happened,” he says. “I just didn’t let them derail everything anymore.” He stopped aiming for perfection and started aiming for recovery. If he messed up one meal, he didn’t throw away the whole week. He just made a better choice at the next meal.
The plateau eventually broke, and it taught him the most important lesson of the journey: Setbacks aren’t failures; they are feedback.
The ultimate test of discipline
Around the 120-kg mark, something happened that makes most people quit: The Plateau. For five months, Niraj did everything right, and the scale didn’t move an inch. It was brutal. It was the ultimate test of his discipline.
Instead of giving up, he leaned into science. He realized that as he was getting in shape, his body needed different fuel. He shifted to a high-protein, low-carb lifestyle and cut out sugar completely. He stopped focusing on quantity and started focusing on quality.
“I was on a high protein, low carb diet. Focused on eggs, chicken, fish, paneer, Greek yoghurt etc. and lots of veggies. Reduced my refined carb intake to just 2 phulkas (rotis) a day. No bakery items like bread, biscuits etc,” he shared.
Even fruits were restricted to one or two a week. “Fruits have a lot of sugar,” he explains. Plant-based proteins like chana and rajma were reduced as well because of their carbohydrate load. Refined sugar was cut out completely. Alcohol? Gone for 18 straight months.
With the diet he also started walking for an hour along with 20-25 mins of basic strength training 3 times a week. However, this was achieved over a period of time. Initially he could barely walk for 10 mins.
Reclaiming the life he lost
When Niraj finally hit 79 kgs, the feeling wasn’t a loud celebration. It was a quiet, deep sense of peace.
He could move effortlessly. He woke up with energy. He could look in the mirror and recognize the man looking back. People treated him differently, sure, but that wasn’t the win. The win was that he trusted himself again. He had kept the promises he made to himself.
The transformation went far beyond physical weight loss and quietly reshaped the direction of his life’s work. Having lived through the trap of shortcuts and false promises himself, Niraj founded 3E Fitness with a clear purpose which was to help others avoid the same cycle. Instead of selling quick fixes, he built a wellness platform rooted in the three principles that genuinely changed his life. The 3 E’s – eating right, exercising regularly, and evolving mentally.
What a nutrition expert says about Niraj Jha’s weight-loss journey
To understand whether Niraj Jha’s weight-loss journey was actually safe and sustainable, I spoke to Dt Prachi Jain, Senior Manager and HOD, Nutrition & Dietetics at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali. According to her, the way Niraj approached his transformation is far closer to what nutrition science recommends than quick, aggressive fixes. She explains that slow, steady weight loss allows the body to adapt better at a metabolic and hormonal level, helps retain muscle mass, and greatly reduces the chances of regaining lost weight. More importantly, it makes lifestyle changes realistic and maintainable over time which is something Niraj clearly prioritised.
She points out that building everyday habits, instead of following rigid workout plans, often leads to better long-term outcomes. When movement becomes part of daily life, through walking or light activity, people are far more likely to stay consistent without feeling mentally burdened by the idea of ‘exercise.’ For people carrying significant excess weight, she says a high-protein, lower-carbohydrate diet is commonly advised, as it helps with satiety, blood sugar control, and muscle preservation. That said, she explains that balance, portion control, and sustainability matter more than extreme food restrictions.
Starting small with walking and gradually increasing duration is also considered a safe way to improve fitness, especially for beginners, as it protects joints while strengthening the heart. In the initial phase, consistency outweighs intensity. Adding basic strength training later, as Niraj did, further supports long-term health by boosting metabolism and maintaining lean muscle mass.
Niraj’s advice for everyone trying to transform themselves
If you’re reading this and you’re at your heaviest, if you’re hiding your scale or feeling like it’s too late to change, Niraj has some very simple advice for you. “Don’t aim for transformation. That’s too big. It’s too scary. Just aim for consistency,” he shared.
Start small. Walk for eight minutes. Drink an extra glass of water. Skip the sugar in your coffee. Don’t worry about next month or next year. Just worry about today.
You don’t need to be a hero to lose weight. You just need to be someone who refuses to quit on themselves.
Niraj Jha is proof that at 52, you’re not stuck. You’re just one ‘eight-minute walk’ away from a completely different life.