George Eliot had once said: “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”
On a quest to do something for himself, and prove the saying to the world is fitness promoter and influencer Tarun Gill. He is preparing to participate in the Men’s Physique category of fitness and bodybuilding championship Sheru Classic that will be held in Mumbai on December 3. The 39-year-old says, “While most people decide to retire in their late 30s, I want to become an inspiration for the entire country that you can change your body at any level.”
He started preparing for the event a month back, and has taken a 100-day challenge for himself to transform his body, which he is documenting on his YouTube channel. “A month ago, I was about 111kg and now I am close to 92 kilos. I chose this event because I want it to be the best and if you want to be the best, you have to compete with the best and beat the best.
The weight loss is consistent but at the same time you need to pack on a lot of muscle mass so this is what the challenge is about. Men’s physique category is not about who lost the maximum amount of weight or how bulky one looks. One has to have a nice beach body and it is all about how you look and how you present your body. My ultimate goal is to be the best version of myself,” he adds.
There will be over 5,000 male and female candidates competing across seven categories. About preparing for the event, he says that it’s a mindset shift, recalling, “First, I had to be ready. Can I do this? Because when you become an athlete and especially for such a competition, you need to be eating pretty much very low carb meals initially and too much masalas and salt are also a big no.”
“I had to prepare myself whether I can do this for the next six months? Can I train two to three times a day every day? Can I beat the 22-year-old who’s going to be fresh out of college?” he explains. Gill gets up at 7:30 in the morning and does cardio for 45 minutes. “Then, I take two meals and head to the gym where I work out for two-three hours.
The, I create content for my Youtube channels, which takes six-eight hours. After that, I take a meal and train and do cardio. So, I have been training three-four hours a day and I make sure I don’t cheat on my meals,” he adds. When it comes to food, he is on a high-protein diet. Gill says, “Egg whites are pretty much my staple now. I take a very limited amount of salt. I am also relying on protein shakes and drinking eight litres of water a day.”
There is a specific format for the event that participants will have to follow. “We will have to be in bermudas posing on the stage, and from there top 30 will be selected. And within the next two-three hours a winner will be selected on the basis of poses – quarter turn, left and right turn to gauge your best physique,” adds Gill, who is totally focused on the event these days.
Helping the budding talent
Apart from working on himself, he runs an event-based property, TG Connect, which has since recognised 200 athletes from different sports and have connected them with brands. They hold this event in different cities. “We help these bodybuilders with some sponsorship for tickets and supplements that can help them with their daily protein intake. As soon as guidelines ease, we will start doing it again,” mentions Gill.
He also has TG Talks, an interview-based platform, where they interview players about their journeys. Gill concludes, “We’ve interviewed over 500 athletes from different sports. My idea was that bodybuilding is one sport which hasn’t gone mainstream like cricket or football or tennis as such. So, we started finding them and interviewing them.”