What they said I couldn't do
I want to talk about something I don't see discussed enough in the fitness space.
Not training splits. Not macro ratios. Not which pre-workout is best.
I want to talk about the specific, personal, often deeply cultural doubt that gets planted in you before you even begin. The kind that doesn't show up in any programme or protocol. The kind that lives in the back of your head on the weeks when progress feels slow.
What I was told
Since I was a teenager I heard variations of the same thing.
"You're vegetarian. You can't build a serious physique without meat."
"It's Indian genetics. Your body just isn't built for that kind of conditioning."
"You eat Indian food. That's why you'll never really get lean."
These comments came from acquaintances, friends, people online. Said casually, sometimes even with good intentions. But they land. Whether you want them to or not, they plant something. A small seed of doubt that sits quietly until the moment things get hard, and then it starts to speak up.
I chose not to believe any of it. But choosing not to believe something and actually being free of it are two different things.
Things change when you ignore the noise and focus on the fundamentals. Always filter out noise!
The scale and the mirror
Here is what doubt looks like in practice during a cut.
After the initial glycogen flush in the first couple of weeks, the scale started doing something frustrating. Some days it went up. Some weeks it barely moved at all. And yet the mirror was telling a completely different story. I was visibly leaning out. The definition was coming. The vascularity was increasing. But the number on the scale was not cooperating.
It is a genuinely strange thing to navigate. You want the scale to validate the work you are putting in. It is a clean, objective checkpoint. And yet it is also one of the most misleading single data points you can rely on during a cut. Water retention, sodium intake, sleep quality, stress hormones, the timing of your last meal, all of it moves the scale in ways that have nothing to do with whether you are actually making progress.
What I learned to do was stop treating the scale as the verdict and start treating it as one voice in a larger conversation. The mirror check at the same time every morning. Weekly photos at the same angle, same lighting, same pose. How clothes fit. Strength in the gym holding steady or improving. WHOOP recovery and strain data. External feedback from people who see you regularly.
All of those things together paint a picture the scale alone never could.
The week the scale went up and I wanted to question everything, my weekly photo told me the oblique definition had sharpened. My gym strength had not dropped. My WHOOP recovery was green. The inputs were right. The scale was just being a scale.
That is when I had to make a choice between trusting the noise or trusting the process. I chose the process. Every single time.
Took this after having a lighter breakfast, lower carbs and into week 11. A slightly drier look, but still solidly in shape.
Week 11 Chest day really showed off the pump! Leaning out while holding onto maximum strength as possible has been challenging yet very rewarding.
On Indian food and what nobody says out loud
I want to address the Indian food narrative directly because I think it deserves a proper counter.
Indian food gets dismissed in fitness circles. Too oily. Too heavy. Too many carbs. Not the right macros. I have heard it all and I want to be clear: it is largely nonsense.
Dal is one of the best plant based protein sources available. Paneer is high protein, high fat, incredibly versatile. Lentils and legumes are packed with fibre and micronutrients. Greek yogurt, which I eat with almost every meal, is a protein powerhouse. Roti and rice provide complex carbohydrates that fuel training sessions effectively. The spices used across Indian cooking, turmeric, cumin, coriander, have genuine anti-inflammatory and digestive benefits that are well documented.
The problem with Indian food is not the cuisine. It is the cooking practices. Excessive oil, heavy cream, large portions of ghee, deep frying. These are the things that make Indian food unhealthy, not the food itself. Once you nail down the basics and monitor what actually goes into your meals, Indian food becomes one of the best performance diets you can eat.
90% of my food is Indian. I am 11 weeks into a cut and starting my 12th week, 14-16 lbs down, strength maintained throughout, eating dal and roti and paneer and greek yogurt every single day. Vegetarian. No meat. No exceptions.
The photos are the answer to every comment I was ever told.
What this is really about
Fitness is a surprisingly spiritual practice when you go deep enough into it.
On the surface it is calories and macros and training programmes. But underneath that it is about confronting every limitation that was ever placed on you and deciding whether you believe it. It is about building the kind of self confidence that does not need external validation to keep going. It is about showing up on the weeks where nothing seems to be working and trusting that the inputs are right even when the outputs are not yet visible.
The people who told me what I could not do were never disciplined enough to find out if they were wrong. I was. That is the only difference.
Whatever narrative someone has placed on you, whether it is about your genetics, your diet, your background, your body type, the only real question is whether you are willing to be disciplined enough to find out if they were wrong.
Most people are not. That is why the narrative persists.
Stay locked in.
— Nik