Actor Sonakshi Sinha has come a long way. The 26-year-old, who is the daughter of actors Poonam and Shatrughan Sinha, admits that achieving the slim and trim look wasn’t easy for somebody like her who hates the gym. Sinha, whose weight has been a cause for concern for many in the entertainment industry, is happy with her makeover.
Sinha, who graces the cover of Women’s Health magazine this month, speaks about her weight-loss journey, and how it has changed her for the better. Before following in her parents footsteps in 2010, Sonakshi had to shed quite the number of extra kilos to get into shape. She lost almost 30 kilos before signing her debut film Dabangg (2010) opposite Salman Khan, which went onto become the highest grossing Bollywood film of the year.
“It was not easy at all for somebody like me. I am the kind of person who hates the gym. I am allergic to the gym. I want to run away from it,” Sonakshi said. “But I think once I put my mind to something, I go out and achieve it, and I guess I did that,” she added. “If it hadn’t come from within, I wouldn’t have done it,” Sonakshi said.
The 26-year-old emphasised that her determination and hard work yielded the results she was hoping for. “I decided I want to do it (shed weight) and I took steps in order to achieve that… I tried to achieve my goal, rather than being pressurised by people, who were quick to criticse, saying ‘Oh look at her, she is so fat, she is this…she is that.’”
Sinha strongly believes she has succeeded in silencing her critics after her weight loss, and shared her experiences of growing up as a rotund teenager.
“I was over-confident while growing up. I think when you look a certain way; you try and overcompensate for it with something else. For me, it was confidence. I was always a strong child, was always confident, but looks never mattered to me,” said Sinha.
“Looks were not that important to me back then, as there were a lot of other things going on, like I used to play a lot of sports…and did a lot of other stuff,” she added.
For Sinha, “Self-esteem was not a problem at all” and she added: “I consider myself to be one of the few lucky ones, because I have had friends who have self-esteem problems. Even though they are not really fat, they still put themselves down for other reasons.”
Sonakshi Sinha serves as an inspiration for all those looking to lose weight and developing healthy lifestyles.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 6th, 2014.
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