Fitness is the ability to do what you want, when you want: Sohrab Khushrushahi

India Today

Fitness coach and Sohfit founder Sohrab Khushrushahi stated that anyone who gives you a hack and gives you a shortcut in fitness is a fraud. He urged people to prioritise consistency over quick fixes, during a session at India Today Conclave.

Transcript

00:00Let's talk about fitness on the whole. I think one thing that comes out very clearly from a story like this

00:06is the fact that fitness does not have a size. There is no size that defines it. Strength defines it.

00:15Fitness does not come in different sort of shapes. It comes in power. It comes in how you build your

00:23life, lift your life as well. So let's talk to, you know, our next guest about that a little bit.

00:28Let me please bring up on stage Saurabh joining us here. Round of applause please, Saurabh.

00:37He's a coach to athletes, to celebrities, to all your everyday warriors. He's the co-founder of SoFit

00:45and he's going to tell us how we can all be fit. Very simple question. Let me first start by asking

00:53you, how do you define fitness? I think in a generation which is so obsessed with Instagram

01:01fitness, with muscles and six-pack abs, into getting that selfie right, where celebrities

01:09define what being fit is all about. In an era of massive, massive miscommunication on health

01:18and fitness, how would you say one look at fitness across ages?

01:25I mean, there are so many ways to look at fitness, right? For me, it's very simple. I like to keep

01:31things simple when it comes to training, when it comes to life. We've got enough issues in our life,

01:36let's not complicate one more thing, right? Let's not add one more thing. So for me, when it comes down

01:40to fitness, and I'm talking purely fitness, I'm talking movement, I'm talking exercise,

01:44exercise, I look at it in a very simple lens. I say it is the ability to do what you want to do,

01:51when you want to do, without second guessing yourself. She just deadlifted 80 kilos.

01:58I would call her fit. On her fasting routine in a saree, she otherwise goes up to 112.

02:04Yeah, so I would call her supremely fit. People look at fitness differently, right? You just said,

02:11the Instagram generation. It's all about looking a certain way. But fitness is not just looking a

02:18certain way. It is looking a certain way, moving a certain way, and performing. That's what you want

02:25to do when you want to call yourself fit. I think people focus so much on looking that they forget

02:31about performance and the way they move. Just because you have a six-pack, and just because you're

02:37at 8% body fat, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will move well. And that doesn't necessarily

02:43mean that you can perform at your sport or at any other activity. So fitness for me is slightly

02:48different from the way it looks.

02:51Yeah. You know, we yesterday were speaking to a couple of doctors here again, and some

02:55longevity experts trying to understand what longevity really means. And they all said the

03:01same thing, that we perhaps, it's different for different people. Health and fitness is

03:06one thing where no one size can fit all. Everybody's genetically designed differently, different things

03:14are to be done for them. What I'm getting at with all of this is that, is it even possible

03:19to prescribe the right kind of fitness to a generation? Is that even possible? Or are we looking at

03:26a time when we should be tracking, checking, and personalizing healthcare?

03:32I mean, that's the million dollar question, right? I look at it differently. I'm okay with

03:39tracking, but there are people who cannot handle data, right? Can you handle the data that you

03:45get? That's, that's an important thing.

03:47Your sleep score making you more sleepless?

03:50Well, causing more stress, right? I'll give you a very simple example. I train someone who's

03:56about 20 years old, 22 years old, gone to the US to college. He called me up. I said,

04:02listen, why don't you wear this tracking device, right? Just wear it and let me track how you're

04:06sleeping, what you're doing from a fitness standpoint, and I will, I will tailor your

04:10workouts accordingly. So he said, okay, fine, I'll wear it. One week into staying in the US,

04:16being in college, first week there, he comes to me and says, so take your device back. I was like,

04:23why? He's like, my mother doesn't tell me to sleep as much as this device tells me to sleep,

04:27right? So it's, it's data. Can you handle that data? Can it, can it, does it make sense to you?

04:32So data in the hands of the wrong people is also not the best thing. So for me, that's important

04:37when it comes to kind of tracking devices, but that's my belief.

04:41When we speak about longevity, I know a couple of things we already know, for example, strength,

04:48your grip, how much of body function can you really do? But the tricky part with fitness,

04:57and which is where I think most people struggle, is the fact that you might look thin, but be very

05:02unfit. You might look big, but be the fittest person in the room, according to what the doctor

05:11will say. A six pack app does not mean that your pancreas and liver is working, you know, at a speed

05:19that it should. So how do we even track it? What is the way to even check?

05:24Let's link. Um, when it comes to fitness, right? For me, strength is paramount, right? There is

05:32cardiovascular health, a hundred percent, but strength is important. And strength is very

05:38important from a longevity perspective as well. Now, when I look at longevity, I look at quality

05:43of life rather than how long I live. So I want quality life, right? I don't want to depend on

05:49someone to take me to the bathroom. I don't want to hold 20 people back when I'm standing in a line.

05:53So that's longevity. Um, and strength kind of plays a very, very important role. I might be

06:00off, but according to me, the most important organ in your body are your muscles because they

06:05regulate your metabolic health, right? Now, two things that you need to look at, and I don't know

06:11whether it was touched upon, but for me, it's about grip strength. And that has been linked to

06:16dementia as well and leg strength, right? Now I link that physical strength to mental

06:23health as well. And I'll tell you why, right? Hold on, hold on. You're saying grip strength,

06:28grip strength and leg strength. Yeah. That determines even mental health. It will help you from a mental

06:34health perspective. How? Okay. So let's, let's link this, right? Um, you can't carry a bag,

06:40grip strength. You can't carry a bag. You can't walk up a flight of stairs. How likely are you to go out

06:47in public? You'd be worried that I can't walk this flight of stairs. I won't go, right? Or I can't pick

06:54up this bag. So maybe I'll just stay at home. You stay at home. You stay away from society. You become

07:00antisocial in some sense, right? That start affecting your brain because you're like, I'm not confident

07:06to go out anymore. I don't want to go out. So you isolate yourself from society. According to me, um,

07:12the older generation through COVID suffered the most because they just did not have any sort of

07:18contact with the outside world and they were stuck. In fact, my grandmother, I think, aged a lot more

07:24through COVID than she aged when she was out and about going to college every single day, right? So

07:30when you can't do those basic things and you're worried about everybody stopping because of you,

07:35you will stay away. And when you stay away, it starts affecting your mental health. So I link both of

07:41them. That's a good point. But Saurabh, you're somebody who trains celebrities, celebrities who

07:46have to fit the look, celebrities who have to look a particular way. So it's good for you to come here

07:53in the conclave and tell us, no, no, looks don't matter. Fitness, strength and everything. You're doing

07:58the opposite, my friend. I'm not actually what we've tried to do. And when we've trained people

08:04is, is change mindsets, change lifestyles. Who's the one who said that the body has to look a

08:10certain way? It's society. We put that pressure on each other. It's Bollywood. Exactly. We put that

08:17pressure on each other. So don't take it away from them. They work really hard, but they also eat,

08:23they recover, they sleep, they hydrate. There's a lot of things that they do that are right.

08:29Unfortunately, we just look at the final result and say, I want to look like that. But there's

08:34not a work that goes into it. You're telling me that Alia Bhatt is eating carbs

08:37at night? Well, I was training her for the longest period and yes, she was.

08:45I don't know what to say to that. Okay, go on. Listen, I think fitness is, you know, there's

08:50this misconception that you shouldn't eat food. There's a fear of food. I think you should

08:55eat. Because Virat Kohli says that I should be drinking chicken soup and having chicken soup

09:00forever. That's the only thing he eats apparently. That's not what he said. But I mean, listen,

09:05it's again hearsay, right? We don't know how they live their lifestyle. We don't know what

09:10they do. We don't know how they sleep. There's a lot of things they do correctly, but we don't

09:15see it. So we go with what we see on social media, which honestly 99. Okay, I'll ask you

09:20this question. Ask anyone here this question. How much of your real life do you put up on social

09:25media? You don't. You don't. Do you tell people how sad you are every single day? No, there's

09:32only a picture of you in some beach resort smiling. Like I'm not saying you, I'm saying

09:35generally, right? So don't believe everything you hear on social media. Don't believe the

09:40celebrities. Don't believe the Instagram doctors. Don't believe what that person on Instagram

09:46tells you. I lost 60 kgs in, in six months. This is how you can do it too. Who do you believe?

09:52We live in an era where the most abused information is the one on health and wellness.

09:59Agreed. We, there is so much of conflicting information. Should I IVF or should I, should I do

10:03intermittent fasting or not do intermittent fasting? Should I take a GLP one or should I not take a GLP

10:08one? Should I have roti? Should I have rice? We live in an era. We just don't know what is right.

10:14Do you have a hack on tracking or knowing who's the fraud and who's saying the right thing?

10:20Anyone who gives you a hack and gives you a shortcut to me is a fraud because you got

10:26to keep things simple. You got to work. You got to stay consistent. According to me, when

10:30it comes down to training or it comes down to anything, it's consistency that beats everything

10:35else. So keep things simple, stay consistent, and you will be successful. Anyone who tells

10:39you that they're going to make you lose five kilos in a week, don't believe them.

10:43Okay. Okay. I have, time's up already, but last, very quickly, I want to understand from

10:48you. If you had to give us, leave us with five tips on good health at the risk of oversimplifying

10:56it across a room of people which are divided on gender, age, ethnicity, and the whole of

11:00it. Give us five tips.

11:05Strength train two to three times a week. Move as much as possible. I think we're a generation

11:11that sits a lot. We've all sat. I don't know the last time anyone here got up. So move.

11:17Eat whole food. Don't be afraid of food. And that includes your carbs, right? I'm a huge

11:25protein fan. I think protein is very, very important. And people are scared of protein because they

11:29believe it's going to affect their kidneys. It does not. Unless you have an existing,

11:34pre-existing problem, it does not. And one thing that everybody ignores, sleep.

11:41Let that sink in. And here's wishing everybody a very good evening and an even better sleep

11:47tonight. Thank you so much, Sora, for being here and sharing all those tips. And of course,

11:51to Rita G as well for being here earlier. Thank you so much.

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