Today was the first time after three weeks that I managed to clock 10.5 km in a single day. I did a forty minutes walk in the morning and followed it with a two-hour-plus walk in the evening session. It has been tough and tiring but I have managed to be motivated to continue my schedule.

“ You have become like a foreigner they also walk the whole day most of them they come to the city and all they do is walk through the streets. You are becoming like agora sahib .” Tiwari reminded me when I boasted to him about my fitness schedule. I managed my customary four glasses of orange juice and even did some fruit shopping and bought some fresh flowers and essence sticks for my daily Pooja ritual, something that has stayed with me post-Diwali. My weekly distance covers have gone up week on week from 5.2 km to 6.5 km to 7 km for the last three weeks and that has given me satisfaction that I am on track to loose at least 4 kilos this month.

Burning fat is never easy and I am finding that out, lucky for me I have stuck to my diet plan as well that which will help me really achieve my weight loss goals. For me, the transition from fat to fit is happening effortlessly ad that’s what is great about this exercise it is coming from within me and I am doing things in a disciplined manner. As they say “ Discipline se bada koi Guru nahi Hota .” By dividing my day into rituals I keep myself busy and focused on my hourly timetable, plus I loose myself in my head while I walk and that way I loose sense of time, otherwise just walking around the city can get boring.

Overview

Prior to COVID-19, travel and tourism had grown to be one of the most important industries in the global economy, accounting for 10% of global GDP and employing over 320 million people worldwide. In 1950, at the dawn of the jet era, only 25 million people travelled abroad. By 2019, the figure had climbed to billions of dollars. For many economies, the travel and tourist business had grown to almost unfathomable proportions.The global pandemic, the first of its kind in a new era of interconnection, has put 100 million jobs at risk, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Many work in little and medium-sized businesses that employ a large number of women, who make up a large portion of the tourist labour. Tourism-dependent countries are likely to face the brunt of the crisis’s impacts for a much longer period of time than other economies.

Travel between countries 

We can expect an increase in international travel within nations. With manageable and moderate COVID-19 cases and vaccination availability. As long as death and hospitalization rates remain low, these regions are willing to accept rising case levels. A large proportion of the population in numerous European countries and the United States has been immunized. Such people are confident enough to travel both locally and internationally, thanks to the implementation of safety measures such as the EU-issued digital health certificates given to people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Despite variable rates of new caseloads in these places, the vaccine’s efficacy (to reduce the spread of the disease) has been demonstrated thus far.

Bringing back the capacity

The most immediate objective for all enterprises in the travel supply chain is to restore capacity or, at the very least, ensure their ability to do so. Many contracts and temporary workers in the restaurant business who were laid off during the epidemic have found new occupations and are hesitant to return to their previous positions, resulting in a labor shortage. Last year, more than one in every 10 workers in the United Kingdom departed the hotel industry. In the United States, there was still a shortage of about two million leisure and hospitality employment in April, which was significantly worse than before the outbreak.

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Commercial approach

Travel firms may need to reconsider their business strategies. Airline passengers and hotel visitors will have different profiles: more leisure guests, later booking periods, and a greater demand for flexible tickets. Historical booking curves are no longer a reliable predictor of future behavior. To forecast demand and improve pricing, travel businesses must use every source of information available to them. Flexible pricing structures can also alleviate customer anxiety in the face of today’s increased levels of unpredictability. EasyJet, for example, now offers a Protection Promise program that allows travelers to make free adjustments up to two hours before their departure. Hotels will need to find other uses for meeting and conference rooms, which will be more difficult to fill. Airlines must figure out how to fill intercontinental business class, which is most likely to be done through premium leisure promotions. The growth in passenger numbers may be greater than the boom in earnings for all travel companies, as the most profitable corporate business has been late to return.

Well, I started my fitness schedule exactly three weeks back and I weighed 99.5 kgs when I decided to do something about my obesity. I was forty-seven and not getting younger and I had been diagnosed with a fatty liver a few years back, although I had no diabetes, blood pressure or heart problem the fatty liver was not due to drinking whisky it was because I had become obese. This fat and obesity had grown over a decade of neglect and self-indulgence. As long as I was travelling I was active but come to Corona the travelling stopped and I started putting on weight just sitting in my room for months on end. My non-vegetarian diet full of chocolates and sweets did not help either.

But now I have discovered the virus of power walking today was the second day I clocked 9.5 km. Now I walk for half an hour in the morning and try and do about two hours of walking in the evening. My target is to walk for 10 km everyday month on month that over 15,000 steps a day.

I will have to lose nine kilos just so that I can be fit enough to do stomach crunches, dips, squats, sit-ups and other aerobic exercises. That will take me two months, just to burn enough weight so that I can move to more robust and difficult exercises. My diet remains as planned lots of hydrates soups and dals along with digestive biscuits and chicken momo’s, I do mane some idli sambhar, boiled egg, toast for breakfast as well. The trick is to eat slowly and enjoy the food bit by bit, recommend you eat your lunch and dinner in two instalments, eat half the lunch and. Thereat the other half after an hour, do the same for your dinner. You will realise that this way you will be eating six meals a day. Don’t increase the quantity of food you eat but increase the time you take to eat it.

Good ten hours of sleep nine hours of nightly sleep and a one-hour afternoon nap is a must to get that aching body to recuperate and gain strength back so that you can continue with your schedule.

I make sure I keep having juice and coconut water throughout the day and manage to get four hours off writing as well through the day. I have added fifteen minutes of Pooja ritual in the day, I have a Laxmi Ganesh statue in my room and I have been lighting Diya’s in front of it to pray since Diwali time. The Diya, dhoop add a great smell and aura to my room.I have to be patient losing weight is a gradual process and will take time effort and consistency like anything else.

I am glad I ahem taken the first few steps of what promises to be a challenging yet rewarding journey.

Today I had to go through a lot of traffic the city has come to a standstill as the holidays have begun for Diwali Pooja, the whole city is on the streets in the late evenings. The festivities are in full flow as shopkeepers are on the street selling their wears. It was like walking through a meal as people danced on the street and firecrackers were burst on the street.

I had to stop often as the traffic would pile up and clog the Lanka street every ten meters or so and it was very tiresome. But as I reached the campus area my walking speed picked up and I clocked another 8.5 km today as well this included the half an hour walk I do in the morning between 11:00 am to 12:00 noon.

I kept it at my pace and made sure I did sweat a lot otherwise there is no fat burn. I managed to stop at my customary juice center to hydrate myself but the shop was closed so no fruit juice here. I had to keep going till I finally found a shop indie the campus and gulped three glasses of orange juice. Juice breaks are important since I walk about one hour forty minutes in the evening couple of breaks help in catching a breath and can increase the distance covered.

Today I took a hitchhike to the main gate of BHU on the way out, two students passed me on their scooters and asked me to hop on to the gate. I duly obliged I would have done another two kilometers otherwise.

The way back was on an electric rickshaw as again I had to grind through city traffic and bicycles, they’re where pedestrians everywhere and the rickshaw. found it difficult at times to navigate the traffic.

Today was Diwali the festival of light the festival with which India has won the world. The victory of good over evil, as darkness and ignorance is removed with light and truth. I got up early and the noise of crackers bursting outside my hotel window was an indication to me that it was Diwali day. The first thing I did was to get my room cleaned up and had my bed made just as new. I then had a bath and light up three Diya’s in my room one such Diya I put outside my window. I also light up some incense sticks to freshen up the room and give it a spiritual feel.

I felt light and spoke to an old friend after a year, he is my spiritual friend born in New Zealand Geoffrey is a baba and a spiritual guru who spends most of his years in India searching for Indian spirituality and meditation. He has spent years in ashrams on the mountains of Uttarakhand and searched for spiritual gurus in Haridwar. He can speak Hindi and is an ace with astrology charts. That’s how we got friendly I just wanted to know what my future was and will it pan out the way I have anticipated it .” Happy Diwali brother I can feel it you have the blessings of your guru OSHO and Satguru watching over you, you have the grace of these great spiritual masters. Life bodes well for you and so does your future .” Geoffrey told me over the phone, he was more concerned about the negative impact of Corona vaccines in the west and how many more have died in the past few months due to it.

In the afternoon I gave a dewlap bonus to my blog team member Vivek and all the helpers and waiters in the hotel I was staying Rs 500 to each of them after all they have looked after me for months. I walked up to Tiwari Ji’s house and wished him a happy Diwali, even he demanded his Diwali Bonus and rightfully got it another Rs 1500 gone as Diwali bonus.

I walked back towards the Durga Kunda temple and decided to do some Pooja shopping, I bought fruits, nuts, clay idols, clay Diya, red chunni, and agarbatti. The evening was spent making a mini temple in my room where I placed marigold garlands and flowers around the idol of Laxmi and Ganesh and light up three oil diyas. Then with folded hands, I prayed for the health and well beings of my friends and family. I took the time to think about my dead father and mother who is no more and deeply prayed for their soul. It all happened spontaneously it has been years since I celebrated Diwali on my own accord and went through the trouble of performing a full-fledged Pooja that too on my own.

It is strange Varanasi is the city where people come to burn their dead and loom for Moksha or glimpses into the afterlife. I am here in this city the city of death and I am celebrating the festival of lights here in the very city on whose ghats looms death at all times.

On my way back to the hotel a coconut vendor recognized me, I had been buying coconut water from him on route to Tiwari’s house,” you don’t come here to have coconut water nowadays?” The vendor asked politely,” Oh! I am busy walking to the university these days .” I replied and appraised him about my new walking route.

There is no doubt I enjoy staying in Varanasi and Diwali can be very spiritually invigorating in this city. People are simple and the city is cheap, one can live here for peanuts no doubt all the backpackers come here you can live in this city for months on a pittance of a budget. But the real way to enjoy the city is to walk through it as most foreign tourists do.

The loud sound of firecrackers exploding in the air goes on relentlessly and I can hear the  Diwali bombs explode outside my room window coupled with the hissing of the fire rockets and the fizzing of the fire charkha. There are bright flashes of light as one crater after another is lit up by over-enthusiastic children and teenage boys. Even the rickshaw wala was demanding a Diwali bonus. I guess in this ancient Vedic Hindu city on the banks of the Ganges the tradition oF Diwali is celebrated with a lot more zest and a sense of piousness.

My Facebook and WhatsApp were full of happy Diwali messages and messages of Diwali brand promotions. Even my property broker send me a happy Diwali message, I managed to wish my grandmother and was thrilled with my solo effort at organizing my own Pooja the, Prasadam well I ate most of it and gave the rest of the fruits and barfi to the hotel staff who have looked after me well.

As I have been searching the net for motivation and knowledge to help me facilitate my weight loss journey, I have come across many health apps that can be used by others to guide them in their weight loss program. These apps are very helpful as trackers for instance you can input your entire diet plan, lunch dinner, and breakfast and it will give your daily calorie intake. You can set weight loss weekly or monthly goals and track them daily to keep you in check. One can do the same for their exercise plan and schedule. The app will tell you how many calories you have burnt during the exercise.

The tracker keeps count of your weight loss and even helps in tacking your fluid intake and sleep patterns. If you take the premium pack which is around Rs 2000 for three months, you will get a call from a health expert and a dietician. You will get helpful tips from joggers and fitness trainers. One can also enter chat groups and therapy sessions for advice. They are a whole process for tackling mental health issues as well.

Some of the popular fitness and calorie counting apps are HealthyMe App, HealthHub App, DailyBurn App a calorie counting app, Fitter App, LooseIt App. Most of them can be downloaded from the google play store or Apple App Store. They are free at first but then if you want more features you will have to pay for a monthly or quarterly plan. The App acts as an invisible fitness instructor and a motivational guide for your weight loss programs. Some apps routinely throw up diet recipes depending on your food intake and weight loss diet program. Others give advice on vitamin intake and tell you how much fiber there is in a slice of brown bread or in 50 grams of butter.

If you have an iPhone it’s best to use the health tracker to see how many steps you do while your walk. It will give you your step length along with if you are walking correctly or not as well. You can track your sleep also with this app. There are apps that throw in fitness interaction videos to help you to get the right exercise posture and get the maximum out of your routine.

I just git a message from my app that it is time for me to have one glass of water as I am writing this blog, now that’s smart.

Most Apps come with a BMI calculator, one can sign in after answering a few questions slink your age, weight, height, telephone number, questions about your previous health history, age, type of work and profession you are in, and how much weight you want to lose along with the time frame . Once you answer these your profile is captured by the app and it starts to throw up ideas and content to facilitate your individual weight loss journey. Remember everyone has a different body for your weight loss program is unique to only you, do not try to compare with others.

Sure you can get inspired from fat to fit and I lost 24kgs in six months kind of stories that makes you feel that even you can do it, but concentrate on your individual weight loss schedule that suits you. Play around with your diet plan add new healthy food to keep you interested. Do the same for your exercise program if you are bored of doing squats do some skipping or lunges. Down weight yourself too often maybe twice a month is good enough just to make sure you are on track and sync with your weight loss goals. Sure go ahead and use technology to facilitate your weight loss journey it will be of great benefit to you.

Today was my first day of doing my walking during the morning session as well , along with the one and half hours of walk I do in the evenings I accomplished 8.5 km of power walking in all today that 12500 steps in all , I am happy with this pace and will now continue with my exercise shekel in the morning half of the day as well  . I don’t see myself doing any vigorous exercise until the second month of this schedule till then I will loose my weight through walking as much as I can .

My diet has remained the same for the past two weeks and I am happy that I have stuck to it so far and never had a single cheat day .My goal is to increase my walks to 10km a day that’s more then 15500 steps a day . I will manage that from 11:00 am to 12:00 noon brisk power walk and then from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm . What I feel is that I will need two months to loose enough weight so that then I can do the aerobics and the lunges and stomach crunches along with sit ups and even skipping .But for that to happen I need to loose at least eight kilos and get my waist tucked in otherwise with my sloth hanging out doing strenuous fat during exercises will be very tough and near impossible .

I need to start clocking 10km of brisk walking a day and need to add one hour to my morning schedule to cut through decade long flab if I am to get anywhere .

I do enjoy walking through Lanka Road this is the busy high street that like my hotel in Durga Kunda to the Bananas Hindu University . It is a difficult starch of road with the busy traffic many red lights and jam backed round about . There is a bridge coining towards and then a slope which is about 600 meters one has to navigate .In all its a 2km stretch with busy shops and a bustling market all along the stench . It is calmer form the rush of the maddening crowd that people are out to shop and enjoy the festive season everyone is out for fun and some good times with friends and family . One has to be alert while walking on such busy streets as you get bikes and cars whizzing past you all the time and at times you have to wait for the bottle neck traffic to clear so that you can keep walking .

The Lanka land the BHU campus and the area of Durga Kunda and Kabir Nagar have become my bastion now a days and I manage to walk most of the way .Hope to keep you posted on my weight loss journey and my learnings as I go about it .Till then enjoy the pictures of the bust Lanka Street and its busy markets .

I meet a very interesting man during my power walking session at the BHU, I managed to clock another 7 km today and was brisk. On the way, I saw a very tall but very wiry and thin man walking slowly on the footpath. He was very tall and thin looked more like a tall toothbrush or a pencil with an eraser head. I walked up to him and shook his hand asking him for a selfie and a photo. He turned around and peers at me from above with his huge glasses, he reminded me of a creature right out of the animation film Antz. “ What is your name sir .” I asked the tall thin creature,” Oh! I am Bhola Prasad, I am a student of Hindi and geography at the university. I am a student but my family live in Allahabad .” Bhola went on to strike a conversation with me as I took his photo trying to photograph his lanky frame. Bhola told me he was 6 feet 9 inches tall and weighed just 60 kilo’s.

Dressed in a very modest attire of a purple kurta and blue jeans he looked like a student alright with his canvass shoes, he was busy chatting to his fellow students and friends as I took his pictures. I tried to capture his lanky frame and his funny face especially with his black glasses that really made him look like an ant. The funniest picture is with the two of us straight out of Lambo Motu pr Antz and Obelix they pics are very funny and so was Bhola as he spoke to me when we walked together a few distances.” I will stay here in the university and become a teacher, that’s all I want to do right now I am twenty and there is no need for me to think of marriage,” Bhola went on to share with me his future plans. I enjoyed my brief interlude with a creature from outer space and moved ahead with my walking stopping at the juice stall for some coconut water and orange juice.

I continued my path even today walking through the city traffic to the university campus and making sure I had my mask on. When you are on the street or the market it is a must to have your mask on, I saw so many people coughing, spitting and sneezing on the street as I went on my way, some of them spat right next to me as I passed. The rickshaw drivers have this bad habit, I had to shout at one driver for spitting and even admonished a teenager who kept sneezing as I passed him by . We are not out of Corona so make sure you have your mask on when you step out of your house into the street. It is the festive months and one must not get complacent, it can get difficult to take deep breaths with the mask during power walking but you can lower it a bit after some time, I do that when I get into the BHU campus area.

It is tough as I finish seventeen days of my new diet shekel and power walking plan. I intend to weigh myself in another two weeks to judge the first set of results and if I have lost a significant amount of weight. Till then enjoy some pictures as I meander through the BHU campus every evening for over two hours.