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Tete-a-Tete with Rujuta Diwekar on
Women and The Weight Loss Tamasha
Sutanuka: To most Rujuta Diwekar is the messiah who knows the secret to turn their not so feel good body to a great body; seeking Rujuta Diwekar's advice is like getting a sip out of the enchanting fountain of youth, rather the fountain of glamor in this case, yet leaving this genie in the bottle image apart, who is Rujuta?
Rujuta Diwekar: First of all thanks, I am extremely flattered. And I am not evolved enough to answer your question, I do believe that labels like messiah or bestselling author etc are distracting at best and image is often a perception of reality which has much more to do with the observer than the observed. So if you see me as all these wonderful things like fountain of glamour / genie/ messiah etc what you are actually seeing is the compassion and wisdom that you have towards your body, that your body loves to be treated with respect, love and dignity. That my readers credit me with bringing this wisdom into their lives is partly their generosity and partly their inability to recognize the body's innate, ever flowing wisdom.
Sutanuka: You come from a family of teachers and engineers, although most of us feel blessed that you are in the profession yet we want to know what made you choose it as a career ?
Rujuta Diwekar: I feel truly blessed on a daily basis to have the opportunity to work in a field that is so fulfilling. My lack of skill, IQ and inability to sit in one place, crack competitive exams etc made me choose it as a career. I was desperate to have a formal education in fitness and nutrition and the PG course in Sports science & Nutrition came my way and sealed the deal for me. I wanted a flexi timings job where I could meet people, chill with them and have chai/coffee and talk about everything under the sun and get paid for it. Now that I have put it in black & white, I like my job 10 times more:)
Sutanuka: They say one can excel in one's work if one enjoys it thoroughly, what is it about your profession that makes you passionate about?
Rujuta Diwekar: I can't separate my work, passion, person and life from each other. For me what I do for a living is an integral part of my life, I don't intellectualize the process or analyze it as my passion that converted itself to a profession. Like a good middle class Maharashtrian and Mumbaikar I wake up each day and tell myself shut up and work and if you just read my earlier answer you know what a dream job it is. Where there is love, one strives for excellence not to get the fruit of success but because thats the only way to do it and you know nothing better.
Sutanuka: Tell us something about the title of the book Women and The Weight Loss Tamasha, how is it that you have thought of the name?
Rujuta Diwekar: Because all around me I saw the most sassily dressed, head on their shoulders, cracking deals worth millions across continents, cleaning up the kitchen and feeding babies with equal ease and gorgeous looking women making weight loss the fulcrum around which they passed judgements or decided how happy they would be with themselves. Also there isn't a body weight that they ever feel proud or comfortable about, they always have at least 2 more kilos to go or jeans they haven't fit into. Its painful to watch intelligent , sensible women forsake their compassion, self esteem and sometimes even life to lose a few kilos on the weighing scale hence the name. After all we need to understand that what we need to battle is the feelings of inadequacy and not our body weight, if nothing else at least we should know who our enemy really is.
Sutanuka: In your book Women and The Weight Loss Tamasha, you have given a very useful comparative study of the daily habits of women, the Do's and Dont's in a very easy to understand and scientific manner. What kind of research went in behind the book?
Rujuta Diwekar: More than research a lot of experience of real women who have been there and done that has gone into this book. Experience as they say is the best teacher and my clients have been kind enough to share all the facts and the trials and tribulations they went through to lose weight while still being working women or wives or mothers or daughters or daughter in laws etc. The journey is colourful and if you start thinking about yourself as a label and not as a human being who has feelings, thoughts, emotions, aspirations and hormones then i must say quite traumatic too.
Sutanuka: I have personally followed certain advices of yours from the book and to my great joy I have found amazing results. I did lose weight but am way better in health than I was before. Your book does not promise of Kareena's lean body but a healthy and fit body. What is it about women today according to you that they are not comfortable about their body, is it more psychological than physical?
Rujuta Diwekar: I am so glad that you enjoy a better sense of health and well being, keep it up:) . The roots are often psychological, they simply manifest themselves in the physical body. See, as babies we are often in awe of our bodies, be it our fingers or even toes, it's only once we reach adolescence that we understand that as women we are secondary citizens, we aren't good enough, we need to look, think, behave, speak even laugh in a certain manner to find acceptability and therefore love or our rightful place under the sun. It's this regressive mentality that we need to battle individually and collectively, as a nutritionist I first ask my clients to assess if what they want out of their body is for the sake of well being or fitting in, if it's the latter it's not worth the effort, time or money.
Sutanuka: Besides Kareena Kapoor, your well associated with names like Anil Ambani's secret to fitness. How has been working with some of the biggest names today, how difficult was it for you to keep them fit keeping their super busy schedule in mind?
Rujuta Diwekar: Anil Ambani and Kareena Kapoor have two things in common - commitment and discipline. Once you have these two nothing can come in your way, the biggest names get big because they are committed, hardworking and organized people. They know how to keep schedules and how to make time for things that are important to them. So they make time to eat right, exercise, go to bed on time. They aren't the sorts who wake up in the morning and feel frustrated that it's another day without getting their dose of exercise, they go to bed knowing the exact hour they need to wake up to be able to workout and have breakfast at peace. So working with big names is really easy and then there is the bonus of getting all the credit for their commitment and discipline :)
Sutanuka: When people hear that it was your diet chart that helped Kareena to attain that much swooned over size zero figure, they rush to get a copy of the book, yet the best part about your book is probably the fact that it doesn't give its readers false promises of unhealthy anorexic bodies, it helps them to realize the value of health. What in your opinion is the reason why more and more young women are fasting themselves sickness to attain a model-like physique and what can be the remedy to this unhealthy life style?
Rujuta Diwekar: The only remedy is to treat oneself right and free oneself from set ideals or current idea of beauty etc. As a nutritionist and as a writer I have the responsibility of ensuring that my clients and readers always get the true complete picture of getting and staying fit, healthy and glowing. And the reality is that your body weight, your waist, your face will always reflect what you are putting it through, treat yourself well it willl show, don't treat yourself well, do all the late nights, binge eating, no exercise routine and it will show itself too. There is no magic in there, what you give is what you get, much like our ancient theory of karma, one bears the fruit of one's action, there's no escaping that.
Sutanuka: What is the best tip that you can give to our readers for a healthy lifestyle?
Rujuta Diwekar: Eat local, think global. Listen to your mom, she knows what to eat and what time you should sleep.
Sutanuka: What is will be the topic of your next book? When can we expect to see the next Rujuta Diwekar book on stands?
Rujuta Diwekar: I am currently writing my 3rd book, it's in the gestation stage. So I am sure it will be out in its due time. The topic would be the myths and facts related to Exercise.
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