The vow I made to myself to get fit

I looked up a variety of diets—Whole 30, Atkin’s, Keto, intermittent fasting. And then I researched some of the most effective workouts in New York City. Strengthen-Lengthen-Tone, or SLT, came up as one of the hardest but most transformative. I mean, Scarlett Johansson and Meghan Markle swore by it. Well, the first thing you need to know is that there’s something called a megaformer, which is like the Ultron of the reformer. An SLT class uses said machine and in a 50-minute span you find yourself doing cardio, strength training, and toning. But I need to take a step back and explain something here. As a young person, I was incredibly athletic, playing everything from soccer, basketball, tennis, badminton to table tennis. When I went to Northwestern University, I wanted to try a new sport—rowing.

After two tough semesters of crew, I spent the next three years of my degree focusing on all the social and political extracurriculars I could, and my various advanced double major-and-a-minor classes. I wasn’t a varsity athlete anymore and I certainly wasn’t going pro. Late-night Papa John’s pizza and breadsticks with garlic sauce eventually became my studying vice. My grades were pretty good, the partying was remarkably active, and my skin, terrible. By senior year, I had developed an eating disorder—bulimia. My close friends and family had a series of interventions.

While I had lost an incredible amount of weight, my acne-free skin (from medications) was sallow and had lost its glow. I had to relearn eating habits, and this became an important mental and personal challenge that took me months to fight through. I did it, with support. After moving to NYC, I dabbled in yoga every now and then and started to play some club sports. When a friend said that his India-based non-profit Magic Bus was organising a NYC Marathon team and that there were spots, I jumped at the opportunity. I then panicked when I actually got placed. I hadn’t run long distance in 14 years, and I was by no means a runner. I was going to do this for charity, and I didn’t mean myself. In the midst of a full-time job at MTV while producing various feature films, I began training. But in the month leading up to the marathon, things got crazy with work. We had gotten into the Venice Film Festival’s Biennale College programme, I got an INK Fellowship, and one of my films was green-lit for production in California.

Marathon day came, rainy and cold. Three miles in, I felt my right knee pinch, a few more miles and soon my left was giving out. Halfway through I couldn’t run anymore. I limped my way through Queens and the Bronx. At the top of Central Park, the final stretch, I thought to myself, I didn’t come here to walk. And so I ran, for the last two miles. I collapsed on the other side of the finish line, and was wheelchaired off to another medical tent with more ice, pain killers, and encouragement. Then, last year, an ongoing ache in my knees, and a recent skiing injury where I hurt my lower back, affected my occasional workout. I had a timeline and extra motivation. My wedding! Granted, we were going to do a small ceremony in the Oslo Town Hall with just our immediate families, but still, I needed an excuse to fit into my Bibhu Mohapatra dress. When I got on that megaformer at SLT, I discovered muscles that I didn’t think I had and none of it was easy. After reluctantly going for three classes during the same week, something shifted. There suddenly was a mental switch that had been hidden in a deep recess. Strength. I was becoming strong. Stronger. There was a change in how I viewed what I was trying to do. While losing weight had been a goal, I now just wanted to feel powerful in my own body. To take control of it, and to know it. I started to combine SLT with yoga and Physique 57. I took a break from carbs and sugar for a few months. My skin, the largest organ in the body, became supple and golden. What I realised a few weeks leading up to our big day was that my wedding wasn’t going to be the full stop in my commitment to myself. Since then, I’ve continued that dedication to my health and wellness—a mix of yoga, Pilates, whatever seems interesting to me in Oslo, and of course SLT when I’m Stateside. I’m now of the mindset that it’s important to have milestones, not as abrupt stops but as continuations of a revolving foundation. I’ve learned to be comfortable with my discomfort—it only implies that I’m growing— either stronger physically or as a person. And there’s always room for growth. Not just for a wedding, but oneself.