Why I Started | Aditya Parikh

Most people don’t know they are becoming obese until it has already happened.

That was me.

I started gaining weight and didn’t even realise. Slowly, all my clothes were becoming too small. I started buying new ones: XL, then XXL, then XXXL. Each time, the new size fit fine. I stood in front of the mirror and felt okay. There was no one holding up a mirror and saying something was wrong, and I was comfortable. So I kept going.

I never asked why it was happening. The clothes fit. Life continued.

The First Sign

Then one day I noticed something on my neck. Dark patches. I assumed it was sweat, heat, maybe I needed more talcum powder. I ignored it for a while.

Then one evening, while scrolling through my phone, I came across the term Acanthosis nigricans. Dark skin patches caused by insulin resistance. A warning sign that your body is struggling to process sugar properly.

That was the first trigger.

I started evening walks. I kept at it for months. But nothing really changed. My body needed more than a walk. Looking back, I think I knew that, but a walk felt like enough to quieten the guilt.

A Lifetime of Trying

Here is the honest part: I had been overweight or obese for most of my life. I had tried to lose weight many times before. It never worked. After enough failed attempts, something shifts in your mind. You start to believe it simply isn’t going to happen for you. That this is just how your body is.

So I stopped trying.

The Photos That Changed Things

Things changed during my summer vacation in 2025.

For the first time, I stopped liking my photos.

I use Instagram as a personal album rather than social media. A private record of moments in my life. I used to post often. But that summer, looking at photos of myself, something felt different. There was no angle that felt okay. I felt uncomfortable in every frame. I quietly stopped posting.

One day, sitting with that feeling, something clicked.

It’s now or never.

Not at the start of a new year. Not after a holiday. Right then, in the middle of 2025, I decided I was going to fight this. For real, this time.

The Apartment Gym

I knew from experience that motivation alone doesn’t work. I needed commitment, and I had learned a painful lesson about that already.

I had once chosen my apartment specifically because it had a free gym. I remember thinking: a free gym right downstairs, I’ll definitely use it.

I lived there for two and a half years. I never went. Not once.

Free things are easy to ignore. Easy come, easy go. If something costs you nothing, losing it costs you nothing either.

Accountability

So this time I did something different. I bought the most expensive gym subscription available.

People talk a lot about motivation. I have tried motivation. It does not work. You feel it for a few days and then life gets in the way and it quietly disappears.

What actually works is discipline. But here is the thing about discipline: you cannot just decide to have it. It is built slowly, through showing up repeatedly, even when you do not feel like it. And what makes you show up before discipline has formed is accountability.

Accountability comes first. Discipline follows. In that order, every time.

For me, accountability came in the form of money. An expensive gym membership meant every skipped day had a real cost I could feel. That feeling is what kept me consistent in the beginning. And that consistency, over weeks and months, quietly became discipline. By the time discipline had settled in, showing up was no longer a fight. It was just what I did.

If you have tried and failed before, ask yourself one honest question: what is actually holding you accountable? If the answer is nothing, start there.

What Comes Next

This is how my fitness journey started.

In the next post, I will write about my first day at the gym, the sudden changes in my kitchen, and how to convince the people around you when you decide to change.

This is my personal journey. What worked for me may not work for everyone. Bodies, circumstances and contexts are different. I am not a fitness professional, just someone who finally figured out what it took for me to start.