Story 3: Deepti Akki – MD F45 Nungambakkam, Chennai

Hello Beautiful people!

I am Deepti Akki and I believe I am blessed to be a woman because it takes one to understand how strong she is mentally, emotionally and physically. A woman is way more evolved and it’s reassuring how she is the chosen one to bring life onto this planet.

A combination of beauty and strength, she can’t be termed anything but “powerful”. That is what I would like to call myself and every woman reading this at the moment. There is no better introduction I can make rather than simply saying I am a “woman” first, and then a “mother”.

I am extremely happy to share my fitness journey here today, with all of you for the first time ever. As a curious teenager, I was always kicked about trying different forms of workouts and enrolling myself in various gyms in town. My first workout was in December 2002, when my mom enrolled me in a local gym clubbed with personal training; I was an obese child. The moment I realized it wasn’t really difficult to shed weight (close to 14 kgs then) and look good, there was no looking back.

I innovated myself through my body, I explored my mental abilities with motivation and I cultivated a lot of self-learning to push myself harder, every time I trained. When I saw that this was inspiring a lot of people around me, I knew that this was my calling and passion in life. Moving forward, no matter what education I pursued (I am a Mechatronics Engineer and a gold-medalist in MBA, Finance), I never found reasons/excuses to give up fitness at any point.

I started pursuing fitness as a career in 2006, as a dance instructor at Dinaz’s Aerobics Studios in Hyderabad. I tried a lot of alternate fitness courses and workouts until 2016, until I finally realized that my main interest vested in high intense interval and circuit training that involved explosive cardio and strength training movements.

Exactly about 2 years before I first stepped into an F45 Training studio in Hyderabad, I was experiencing terrible lows in life in terms of fitness as I put on 24 kilos during my entire pregnancy, mainly due to complications associated it which didn’t let me have an active and a fit lifestyle (though I did Pre-natal yoga and went on my 45 minute evening walks as everyday rituals). I opted for a completely natural delivery, free of epidural/painkillers and the moment Arihan was born, I decided to shed my pregnancy weight as soon as possible, come what may.

I started walking/slow jogging from the 20th day post-delivery; 40th day onwards I started my high intense kickboxing training with Jackson master. Two hours of high intense kickboxing everyday helped me lose 24 kilos in less than 6 months. Then I added strength training to alternate between the two.

Two years passed and I decided to take my fitness to the next level to inspire more mothers and women to take up fitness as a part of their lifestyle. Opportunity knocked my door and I did my functional training certification with F45 Training in Hyderabad under F45 India Master trainer Albert Potestas. Albert played an important role during my learning journey as an F45 Coach.

Not too long before I decided to partner with Adith Eswaran to launch our own F45 Training studios in Chennai. We currently run and operate two F45 studios in Chennai with plans to start one more this year (2018).

Functional training is all about developing your lacking Gross Motor Skills (GMR) and strengthen the necessary functional muscles of our system. Gross Motor Skills are large muscle movements and develop from childhood from a head to toe fashion. when we observe infants, they start moving their neck, wiggling their hands and then try to kick their legs. these are our basic movements that require strengthening if weak and developing if negligible. In this process strength automatically starts building as a byproduct of repeated movement and flex/ release of muscles. so, how does one access which motor skills need to be worked on and what are the muscle groups that a particular lifestyle or a profession needs strengthening?

One of the most advanced and fool proof Functional training at F45 Training, is a specially designed series of workout that moves through a circuit. The workouts are designed by a team of specialized trainers, physicians, doctors and athletes at their HQ in Australia. Through the course of the workout the weaker muscles automatically start signally you by not being able to do a certain movement or being tender when a workout starts pushing it out of its comfort zone. As the training progresses, it tends to start developing its strength and mobility resulting in easier access to everyday mobility and functionalities. It will be an understatement to say that functional fitness is taking over the fitness world by a storm and is the way moving forward.

We also launched a corporate fitness program “HIITRACK” through which we are helping corporates achieve efficiency at work by including fitness as a part of their lives. Apart from running successful corporate fitness holidays, fitness events, handling online and personal trainings, we also have a vision to start our own chain of fitness studios (complete with nutrition), targeting a holistic fitness development program.

Ask me what I really think about fitness and I’ll tell you that it is all about striking a balance between mental and physical health. Unless your mind and body work in correlation with each other, your body will not render the results you aspire.

My best tips would be:

Set specific fitness goals and be PERSISTENT. For instance, “I aspire to lose 3% body fat in 8 weeks.”
The best nutrition advice would be to eat consciously by being fully aware with both your mind and body. Always manage your input and output.
There is no such thing as excess protein consumption in this world (most women think so). Including maximum protein rich foods in your diet is important, infact in every single meal. Right amount of protein will give one maximum muscle strength and recovery. Extreme consumption of protein is again just too much intake and thus will covert into fat. So watch out!

Last but not the least, I’m going to sign off saying that “If I can do it, you can too.”

Every woman is precious because every woman is a “Superwoman”.

More Power to you!

Deepti Akki

Deepti is someone who truly personifies mental and physical strength. Deepthi runs one of the highly successfully F45 franchises in India in Chennai. She has a tremendous following, both online and offline, and I hope this post inspired many more!

You can follow Deepti on Instagram for workout videos and motivation: deeptiakki

https://www.instagram.com/deeptiakki/

Happy Women’s Day! More power to you all.