Beer To Biceps: How This Mumbai Trainer Went From Fat Kid To Buff Dude

After weighing about 90 kilos a few years ago, Ranveer realised it was time to get rid of all the excess fat and in no time, powerlifting had become a way of life for him and he hasn’t looked back ever since.

At the end of his 12th grade, Ranveer has hit 90 kilos on the weighing scale. A science student, he would often console himself with gulab jamuns at night.

When he was a little older, he got in touch with his coach, Binny Sreedharan initially to just help him cope with his shoulder injuries, but this coach got him heavily into fitness and powerlifting. And thus, he lost weight along the way.

Initially, Ranveer started off with weight training. Not too much cardio, just tried to put on muscle in his first year and he hit about 67 kilos from the 90 kilos he had started at. This happened over a couple of years. And then he decided to bulk back up to 90 kilos because he got into powerlifting. You can lift much more weight if you’re a little chubbier, and he remained on the chubby side till his final year of engineering. In his last semester, he decided to get ripped, and cut back down to 70 kilos.

He worked out diligently under the guidance of his coach. He helped Ranveer fix his injuries and also guided him on his journey. Even today, he still gives Ranveer some inputs for his videos and guides him with his own strength training. You can get in touch with his coach here.

Currently, Ranveer works out at his gymkhana, and does a combination of strength and bodybuilding training called powerbuilding.

He focuses on our three big lifts – deadlift, squat, bench press. He starts the workout with one of these three and then proceeds to do the bodybuilding work – higher repetitions, lighter weights. His typical week looks like this: Back, biceps {day 1}, chest, triceps {day 2}, break {day 3}, deadlift, trapezius, hamstring, forearms {day 4}, shoulder biceps {day 5}, legs, calves {day 6} and finally a break {day 7}.

Ranveer’s diet includes a lot of protein. He has about 150gms of protein – chicken, eggs, seafood and lots of vegetarian food. He eats a lot of wheat-based products and dals, has a big bowl of raw veggies every night, and on most days maintains a clean diet.

Ranveer is a huge foodie and eating out is a big part of his life. In his words, he says, “I don’t care about the abs as much I do about my butter chicken.” He eats out thrice a week at least, but he makes sure he gets rid of all those calories through cardio, either on that day or the next day. So on days he eats out, he makes sure he goes for a run. Ranveer says, “At 23, you can get away with a lot. If you’re a little smart about your caloric intake on your cheat days, that cheat meal won’t do much harm.” However, he makes sure he avoids dessert. His favourites include the Mughlai food at Persian Darbar, pork pizzas at Joey’s in Andheri, and the south Indian delicacies at Cafe Madras in King’s Circle.

Ranveer says you need very very basic equipment to get his kind of results. When he was working with Tanmay Bhat from AIB last year, he was helping him with his weight loss. All he had was a barbell, a few plates for that barbell, and a few dumbbells. Ranveer says people assume that you need very fancy equipment to get your results fast, but its not really needed. Once or twice a week you might find Ranveer at the open air gym in Five Gardens.