From aerial yoga to Pilates, how mum-of-two Debina Bonnerjee went from 75kg to 65kg

From aerial yoga to Pilates, mother of two Devina Bonnerjee’s weight loss journey is truly inspiring. Having lost 75kg to 65kg, Devina has shared her diet plan and consistent training regimen. Her transformation highlights her dedication to fitness and offers insight into the effective exercise routine and nutritional choices that helped her reach her goal.

During my pregnancy with Divisha, I still worked out and didn’t gain much weight. But after giving birth, my body faced a big setback because I had a C-section. Even doctors don’t recommend you to work out for three months. So, those three months were like, heal yourself completely, obviously. Just don’t sit or lie down in one place. I remember three days after giving birth, I had my first job, like it was an event. Now, when I look at the pictures, I feel like I was so bloated and I gained a lot of fluid after giving birth. That motivated me to work and made me happy that I have a job. If you work, you have a job. If you tell yourself that you don’t want to work and just sit at home, you won’t be able to work.

We need to know what to eat and what not to eat. Of course, we know exactly what junk food is, but eliminating it completely will make our journey easier. We should include fruits, good quality proteins, and normal home-cooked food in our diet.

Do exercises that make you feel good. I think I started with freehand exercises. Simple exercises like crawling on the floor. I started with light exercises. That really increased my range of motion. After six months, I felt like moving and rocking healed me from the inside out, because I understood that I was mostly okay on the inside.

After 6 months, I started doing cardio. Cardio helped me get my endurance back. Interestingly, after pregnancy, I felt like I was only doing some things halfway before, so cardio actually helped me build up my endurance. So I stuck with that for 3 months when I was doing sprints. For me it was sprints, but visually it was a little slower than running. I gave it 100% the way I did it. There is no competition. Your competition is you in your own head.

I started Pilates, which is a type of weight training, but you use your own body weight. Pilates is a lying-down exercise that tones your legs, abs, and hands, but there’s no jumping involved, so you don’t have to worry about injury. You don’t have to put weight on your shoulders. After 3-4 months of Pilates, I’ve developed a toned core and a lot of muscle strength.

Then I started doing aerial yoga because I saw a lot of videos of celebrities doing aerial yoga and losing weight. So I thought this would be interesting, and I gave it a try. It was definitely very hard at first. Again, you’re using your core a lot. You’re pulling yourself up from your core strength. As a new mom, you have to make a lot of adjustments.

You know, sometimes when you’re at home, you can’t sleep and you have a lot of thoughts. So, I was not consistent. I continued with yoga for 3-4 months and then I lost motivation. So, I didn’t feel motivated to start yoga again and I thought I would try something else because I thought if there was something new, I would have new energy to do it. For 3-4 months, I was fully focused and continued with yoga quite regularly. I did aerial yoga and after a few days, I saw a big change in my body. My body went over that barrier and I started losing weight. If you look at my aerial yoga journey, you will see that I lost weight quickly and gained a lot of strength during that period.

When I did aerial yoga, my spinal cord stretched really well and my body felt really good. No matter if I was bending, pulling, or whatever, the pain in my body completely disappeared. Then I started my real fitness journey, which is weightlifting. Training is a great combination of weight training and cardio. In weight training, you should give 70% importance and 30% to cardio. I became very regular with weight training. I started weight training 3 days a week. And for cardio, I started playing a sport called tennis. Strength training is very important. If you can’t go to the gym, please do strength training.

I started off at 75 pounds and now I’m around 65. Hopefully I’ll reach my goal of 55. But I don’t really care about weight. Actually I care more about inches. After Divisha was born, I bought a size 44 pair of jeans. A few days later, I bought a size 42. Then I went down to a size 40. And now I’m 38 pounds, a nice medium size. I’m really happy that I’m losing inches. At first, every morning I would get up and step on the scale. And every day I would see that I’d barely lost any weight. So before, I was motivated and I was doing everything. But somewhere in my mind, my body just stops motivating me. One day I picked up the scale, packed it up and put it in the cupboard. I took it out the day before yesterday and I could see a big difference. Also, if you want to lose weight, it’s very important to remember that 70% is diet and 30% is exercise.