Shahid Kapoor may have started his film career as a chocolaty hero but his recent movie like Udta Punjab, Padmavat, Haider shows his perfectly chiseled body with perfect body statistics. Height:172 cm. weight= 154 lbs, chest = 42 inches, biceps=15 inches, waist 30 inches and hip size 34 inches. Looking at his body statistics it already gives us fitness goals.
It’s not an overnight magic:
Shahid has always been consistent when it comes to his diet. He doesn’t follow the typical three major meals for a day type of routine. He slits his diet in 5 to 6 meals divided in a day. He believes that number of meals is directly proportional to the intensity of the workout that’s why eating the right food at the right time is very important and therefore he focuses on the right pre-workout and post-workout meals for an energetic day at the gym.
What Shahid had to say on his diet regimen: “The biggest challenge in front of me was getting a six-pack with a vegetarian diet. You know how it is. For building up muscles, one needs to have enough supplies of protein. Now, my body does not get animal protein so I have to make up for the loss of it.”
After some research on body builders, it is found that 70% of our body weight depends on the food we eat. Therefore to have a well-shaped body it’s really important that we have a well-planned diet. But being a vegetarian gives no restriction to have 6 abs body, apparently it’s just a myth that to have 6 abs you need to switch from vegetarian diet to non-vegetarian diet. The nutrients needed for building six pack abs are proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals which can be easily obtained by having a balanced vegetarian diet.
Shahid follows new diet for Padmavat Movie:
For Padmavat, Shahid had to play a role of 13th century Rajput warrior, Shahid has said to have been through a strict diet of 40 days which included small meals like sweet nuggets made out of coconut milk and bowls of chopped mangoes at regular intervals. He avoided any kind of artificial sugars; He included greens in his diet like broccoli, kale and spinach. Let’s break down Shahid’s diet and see the benefits of each of them
Coconut Milk: Improves heart rate by reducing cholesterol and lowering blood pressure. Builds muscles and helps to lose fat.
Mangoes: Has high levels of fiber, pectin and vitamin C help to lower serum cholesterol levels, specifically Low-Density Lipoprotein basically the bad stuff, The tartaric acid, malic acid, and a trace of citric acid found in the fruit help to maintain the alkali reserve of the body.
Broccoli: It is high in calcium, calcium is said to be essential for suppressing calcitriol – which is a hormone that causes the body to produce fat and inhibit fat breakdown. It helps eliminate free radicals and toxins like uric acid from the body. Being low in card and rich in fiber it is a favorite of body builders and fitness experts.
Kale: Low in calories and high in fiber with zero fats, it has more iron content than beef. Kale is packed with fiber and copper- which one of the rare minerals to be included in otherwise a normal diet, good source of manganese, iron, vitamin C, A and K. It is said to be rich in phytonutrients- it is a substance found in plants which helps to prevent various disease and keeps us healthy. Kale can be used just like spinach or just cut out the rib, chop the rib and enjoy it as a salad.
Spinach: Rich in minerals and loaded with good things for all our parts of the body. Spinach comes in the category of alkaline food. The best part of eating spinach is that it feels the stomach, but it is low in calories (25cal/100g). It’s also high in insoluble fiber which helps indigestion.
Choosing greens: Be wise when you choose your greens, if you want a dose of maximum nutrition from your greens choose darker leaves. Dark green leafy veggies are said to contain folate, which boosts vascular function and blood flow, as well as the antioxidant lutein, found in the retina and helps eyes adjust to bright light and filter out harmful blue rays.
Apparently Shahid had hired a chef from Canada named Kelvin Cheung who is famous for dishing up amazing food even when the healthy food is desired. He ensured that Shahid got all kinds of nutrients and vitamins tailored made for his diet.
Coming back to Shahid’s Diet:
Grains and legumes that are rich in protein was part of his afternoon diet. Legumes are known to be the excellent source of complex carbohydrate which means a relatively low amount of calories legumes make you feel fuller longer and thus prevents from unhealthy snacking. His diet included brown rice and steamed vegetables. He had completely gone off salt and sugar when most of his closer shoots had to be filmed. Going off salt and sugar can actually help to shed the weight immediately and keeps the waistline in check. In daily life we can reduce intake of sugar by taking small steps like checking our food labels, adding a spoon less of sugar in coffee, eating fruits rather juice. Pick up a cereal box which is less sweetened. Our daily intake of salt can also be monitored by eating fresh foods, not squeezing too much amount of condiments serves on the table, adding more spices and herbs can decrease the need of salt, using kosher salt can also be a better than using the processed salt.
Excess salt pulls out the from the cells to the bloodstream then the heart has to work harder to pump the extra amount of water thus the blood pressure increase hence it better to keep the salt in control.
Shahid’s Workout Regime:
Shahid Kapoor’s personal trailer is Abbas Ali, and he makes sure that Shahid works out six days a week to show off such a toned physique as his. Shahid starts his session with cardio and it is advised before workout as it increases the blood flow and then doing weights after that increase in muscle growth. This increases your internal temperature and elevates the metabolic demands placed on your body which ensures your heart rate will remain elevated, and thus overall caloric burn will be increased for the entire workout. Shahid’s pattern of gym involves working on one set of exercises on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The first set involves working on chest, biceps, triceps and abs – the specific exercise are bench press, chin ups, sit ups, Planks, lateral raise, pushups and jumping jacks. The other set is dedicate on legs, calf muscles, back which includes squats, leg curls, calf raises, deadlifts, leg presses, dumbbell presses, overhead presses and barbell rows on the rest of the days.
For muscle flexibility he prefers dancing, running and swimming. Shahid relies more on natural sources of proteins to fulfill the requirement of his body. He also takes whey protein before and after his workout sessions. Whey protein is the protein fraction of whey, which is a liquid that separates from milk during cheese production. It contains all the essential amino acids and it gets absorbed from the gut quickly. It is considered to be highly satiating- it suppresses the craving for food and the desire to eat so there you go if want to reduce your appetite. Whey protein is effective for the prevention of age-related muscle loss, strength and also for good looking physique.
Abbas Ali : The trainer behind Shahid:
Abbas says that they workout for 60 to 90 minutes, on a good day they go on for 2 hours to 2.5 hours and there are days when he literally needs to ask him to leave. Abbas said in an interview that “I started training Shahid during Chup Chup Ke, bollywood movie released in (2006).He was lean and had the perfect chocolate boy look. He wanted to train simply because everybody else was training.”Abbas believes that 6 abs should not be our goal; we should aim at overall fitness. Abbas likes to make notes when training his clients which help him monitor their progress better. In other interview Abbas said that we should not get inspired by the glamour od bollywood stars, anybody who wants to be fit should have their own reason of staying fit and choosing fitness as their lifestyle. Fitness as he believes is not three month fat loss package, we should incorporate fitness as a concept. He says that media and celebs inspire others when it comes to fitness but fitness actually is a science and everybody should do their research before starting a fitness regime or a healthy lifestyle from a fitness expert. Ali says that every client of his has a different purpose for health and fitness and as a coach he shows them the most efficient way to achieve their goals rather than taking extreme steps and using shortcuts.
Abaas says that true success and satisfaction in his career came through his own transformational experience. An eight-month transformation, to be precise, that saw him go from 95 kg to 79 kg. Abbas believes that we can’t just copy people because each person comes from different culture, different lifestyle and most importantly different body types. So he suggests that it’s very important to know our body, know our fitness goals and then after doing enough research consult fitness guide who can guide for health and performance and its not a good idea to follow a celeb just like that. Abbas believes in creating a balanced lifestyle which includes food, sleeping early and waking up early. Keeping hydrates his important as he believes as well as believing on spiritual well being.Abbas Ali –has almost 20 years of experience as a trainer, Abbas has trained a lot of celebrities from the Bollywood and Television Industry. From Shahid Kapoor to Shilpa Shetty, Ashish Chaudry, Anil Ambani, Sonakshi Sinha, Zareen Khan it has taken a lot of unrelenting determination that has helped Abbas take the fitness world by storm an d the vision which he has for his clients that makes Abbas special in his field.
The importance of customized diet:
Everybody is different hence how each body reacts to different food is also different, in a research done by Segal and Elinav, they have found an computer algorithm which can predict how individual body reacts to certain foods thus creating tailored meal plan for each of different guts. According to their explanation our gut converts the food we eat into sugars which are released into the bloodstreams from there they are converted to energy or stored away as fat, this is part of the point of nutrition guidelines, to recommend the foods least likely to cause this spike in blood glucose. Segal and Elinav in their research found that different people respond to food differently “Some people, you give them sugar and they have a very faint response — even to pure sugar. Whereas others, they have a huge response. And this holds for basically every food that we examined.” And there were more surprises. “Some individuals, they eat whole-wheat rice and their blood-sugar levels remain low, and when they eat ice cream they spike,” Segal said. But for others the results showed just the opposite. So definitely food recommended for our friends and body builders might not be the right choice for us, only our own gut bacteria’s are the judge to find that out. This study is further validated by Nielson which says that each gut ecosystem and gut bacteria responds differently to the food we eat and later it can be used to group the individuals on the basis of similar response and thus their diet can be designed accordingly.
Shahid’s has a team to customize his meals from breakfast to dinner according to his goals and bodily requirements. He has a special 6–pack meal which is tailor made as per his requirements. 6 pack meal is a service co founded by Marika Johansson an IFBB pro athlete and nutrionist and Nigel Jairaj.
Marika Johannson’s 6Pack Meals!
6Pack Meals is a healthy, organic food service which delivers fresh food right at the door step and as the name implies it delivers 6 meals which are designed by team of chefs Michelin starred restaurants and are led by Marika Johansson IFBB pro athlete, celebrity fitness trainer, nutritionist, fitness consultant and Hrithik Roshan’s nutritionist along with fitness expert Nigel Jairaj. They are available in different cuisines — Japanese, Classic American Chinese, Mexican, Thai and of course Indian food. 6Pack Meals caters to several Bollywood celebrities including Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Sidhharth Malhotra, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and more. Apart from the mainstream food they offer protein muffins,
Marika and Nigel are now focusing only on the premium customers and later they plan to expand to clients in gyms, offices and other places with more economic spaces. Their most famous dish so far is Mush which is invented by Marika Johanssom during her professional bodybuilding competitive years in USA. It is a breakfast dish that comes with different fruit and nut topping for the sweet loving breakfast eater. It contains a good balance of oats and egg whites but cooked in a way to make it taste like a dessert more than a breakfast.
Shahid as an inspiration:
Shahid has always been very consistent when it comes to his physique, he is passionate about his fitness regime and that definitely reflects on his chiseled body. His food and physical training tells a lot about how we need to balance our body and food so that we can achieve the desired fitness. Shahid suggest that “Merely following a strict workout routine will not help you in gaining muscle mass. You should wisely choose nutrient-rich foods and include them in your diet. Initially, do not aim for a six or eight pack. Focus on building up your strength and endurance”, That’s so true because when an actor or celebrity daunts a look they do it different purpose and their food or fitness regime is tailored as per their requirement, and it cannot be followed blindly.
When everything works together nobody can stop you from achieving your dreams and that hold very true for Shahid Kapoor as for his commitment and passion he has come a long in Bollywood and is now one of the fittest guy in Bollywood. With his passion for staying fit, he combines the excellent combination of much planned vegetarian diet and that is topped with a very devoted fitness guru Abbas Ali.
References:
Personalized nutrition by prediction of glycemic responses. Cell, 2015
Quantifying Diet-Induced Metabolic Changes of the Human Gut Microbiome. Cell, 2015
Note: Shahid’s diet information has been researched from various online resources
