My Story

I was born in Perivale, Greater London in 1977 and brought up in Southall. My parents, of Indian heritage, migrated to England, United Kingdom during the 1960’s from Punjab, India and Nairobi, Kenya. Having lived in England throughout my life, I have had the privilege of being raised on both Western and Eastern values. This perspective on life makes me grateful for my experiences and the opportunities I have had.

Since childhood, I had always dreamed of being strong, powerful and idolised bodybuilding champions and world class footballers. Even when I was watching cartoons as a child, I enjoyed seeing the stories of heroes such as ‘The Incredible Hulk’ and ‘He Man’.

Sports has always been an active and consistent part of my life. I never wanted to just get by and have always had a competitive streak. I began training in football at the age of 8 from community training at a local football club near Southall. I loved it – the highlight for me in the week was playing football and watching football news and matches on a Saturday.

My love for football grew to an ambition to be in the England Under 15 national football team and this led to further community training with the local club. When I was 10, every Tuesday evening I would travel to the sports centre in Acton Vale, West London for further training. After weeks of training, unfortunately I did not make the next level of aspiring young footballers to play at club level for an English league club. Football will always remain a part of me, but I did not pursue it as a career and my passion for sport and fitness soon extended to wrestling and the martial arts.

I always watched British wrestling on Saturdays and when I first watched American wrestling, known then as World Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE), it inspired me to take up physical training to increase my strength. I trained in Goju – Kai Karate from the highly respected Master Sensei Gurmit Singh Ji and at the age of 15, I had progressed to become a junior instructor in karate and would teach students. It was a big learning curve as I now was put in a position to bring about change in someone’s life. Conversations with my instructor, Sensei Gurmit Singh on what I wanted to do when I left school made me realise that there were life changing decisions that I would have to make soon and the path I wanted to choose for myself.

By the time I was 14, I was over 5ft 10 inches. Some months after reaching purple belt in karate, one night I had pain in breathing and over the days noticed the left side of my chest was growing larger than the right side. Days went by where I continued to have sharp pains and after getting an X ray, it was confirmed I had a pneumothorax, my lung was punctured.

Initially my reaction was of surprise and disappointment. I wanted to continue my training in martial arts, which had to stop due to the pneumothorax. My pneumothorax managed to reduce without an operation. Gradually my lungs were functioning normal again and I learned then during that process of recovery, the importance of a positive mindset.

The discipline of martial arts and training the mind and body has had a profound effect on me throughout my life.

I did my Bachelor’s degree in Management Studies from Brunel University and although I was not that consistent with weight training during my university years, I was determined to be more consistent with my fitness after graduation.

I began training at a well-known, old basement type gym in my hometown in Southall. The gym originally known as Dell's gym and now Goe's gym.. had some of the best British bodybuilders training in the 1960s to 1980s. It had a feel that is different to what I have personally experienced to other commercial gyms; it had history, the old equipment, mainly free weights and made me feel I can leave any concerns in life behind when I got in that gym.

One of my first questions to the owner and long-time trainer and coach, Goe was: ‘What type of equipment do you have here?’ to which he replied: ‘Everything to get you to Mr Universe’. I then looked at the wall of fame with all the champions from the 1970’s to 1980’s; I was in awe of those champions and knew I had found the gym I always wanted to train at.

When I first began training at Goe’s gym, I learned a lot through experience and mistakes I made earlier from training. It was an ongoing learning process that I continue to apply today, learning about the human anatomy and how my body responds to training and nutrition programmes.

During my university years, I lacked discipline in being consistent with a balanced diet. I never kept food diaries of my calorie intake and split of macronutrients. My training was not the most effective and hence why I was not getting the gains earlier that I was capable of.

While I loved training at Goe’s gym, like many university graduates, I was looking long and hard for a permanent job and began my corporate sales career at one of the largest global telecom operators in 1999.

Between 1998 and 2001, I had increased muscle mass and strength but there was still body fat I needed to reduce. During 2002, I had vowed to reduce body fat and raise the game in my training. Gradually I made changes in my diet and training to focus on achieving bodyfat reduction and greater muscle tone and definition.

This next bit is not for the squeamish.

In 2002, one evening, I experienced my first rectal prolapse. For anyone not aware, this is a medical problem which occurs when part of the rectum (last part of the bowel) sticks out of the anus (back passage) and thus creates a lump. It is a very painful and frightful experience. I could not sit and had fainted. Eventually, I was treated, and part of my rectum was put back in my back passage. That same night, I stayed in hospital for over a week as an in-patient where there were more occurrences of a rectal prolapse. However, without surgery the problem was resolved and learnt over the years this was resolved on a temporary basis.

During that week, I had many thoughts around ‘what if?’.

‘What changes do I have to make in my life to stop this from happening again?’

‘What if this prolapse happens to me while I am training in the gym’?

‘Will I still be able to work intensely in my corporate career?’

It was natural for family and friends visiting me to express their concern and they had asked me to balance my life and work as I had always been competitive.

In that week of recovery, I had discovered the power of positive thought and positive speech to deal with the rectal prolapse. One of my first questions to the doctors was: ‘When I leave hospital, when I can start going back to the gym?’. Naturally, my family and friends wanted me to take some time off all exercise due to the prolapse and after some weeks passed after leaving hospital, I had returned back to Geo's gym.

When I returned to the gym, my coach Goe said to me: ‘When you aim for goals in anything in life, there will be obstacles. You must overcome them and stay positive’. It was the positive support from my family, gym trainer, and my employer which helped me get back to my normal routine at work and in fitness.

The rectal prolapse led me to study and learn more on the functioning of the body; I had become more focused on nutrition and anatomy.  I started focusing on exercise to improve the pelvic floor muscles and core strength, the role of hormones and nutrition to yield better results from exercise.

I gradually continued to reduce my carbohydrate intake on weight training days down to 150g per day and the days I did not train, it reduced further.

By October 2002, I had reduced my bodyfat and got the lean, defined physique I had visualised. I had maintained this low carb diet for a further two months as I wanted to stay lean for my photo shoot in January 2003.

I trained my mind and body to get me the results I visualised.

Although I do not have pictures of my physique in 2002 before I began changing my diet and training, everyone witnessed the transformation and change in my physique. It resulted in being asked by senior management and colleagues at my corporate sales career to also extend my skills to become a personal fitness trainer. This made me feel empowered and reinforced my belief I have the skill and experience to create change and help people improve their health.

In January 2003, I had my photo shoot and after that, I had set a goal of training for increased muscle mass and strength. This meant I gradually increased my carb intake to over 200g daily and changed my training system. After the photo shoot, some members of the gym were encouraging me regularly to compete in natural bodybuilding.

At that time, competing in bodybuilding competitions was not my intention, even though I love training and the whole fitness lifestyle. Therefore I had continued to maintain regular training and wanted to keep track of how my physique was changing. Three years later, in September 2006 I started a cycle of training for reduced body fat and increased muscle tone and definition. Therefore, my daily calorie intake reduced and so did the ratio of macro nutrients. Thus, I gradually reduced my carb intake to 120g - 150g daily on training days and further reduced on non-training days.

Although I got leaner and more defined, reduced bodyfat by December, I had my photo shoot done in January 2007. It was four years since I last had my 2003 pictures taken so was excited to see the results.



I kept getting asked why I was not competing professionally, and my response was, ‘I will always train to be the best athlete I can be. Going on the bodybuilding stage is not my intention. However, I will always train for life, this is a lifestyle and I love it’.

From 2007 onwards, I maintained regular training each year and it was using the same principles.

Health Challenges - the return of the rectal prolapse

After my first rectal prolapse in 2002, it occurred again in December 2010 just after Christmas. Fortunately it was resolved in hospital that same evening without surgery. However, when I was in Mumbai during January 2011, alone in my apartment I had another rectal prolapse. This experience was more frightening in that I was alone and fortunately my friend in Mumbai had taken me to hospital.

Like all previous incidents of the prolapse, the doctors in Mumbai manually resolved the problem by putting the part of the rectum which stuck out back in.

After having the experience of rectal prolapse in previous years, I decided to get this problem fixed once and for all. So in January 2011, I had rectal prolapse surgery in the UK. After that, I did not exercise for weeks during the recovery.

While I was recovering, I visualised returning to training and gaining strength and muscle.

My mind was constantly being trained and I had vowed to return stronger and achieve my goals.

2019 - The year of significant change

With each year passing in my corporate career, in March 2019 I decided to leave my full-time corporate sales job in the Business Intelligence and Analytics industry to pursue a career providing consulting to help organisations with strategy and sales enablement.

The year 2019 was a year of significant change for me, which has had a lasting positive impact on my life. After leaving my corporate job in March, I visited a long-time friend Naeem Qureshi, owner of Olympian Fitness gym and the supplement brand Stay Lean. We discussed my passion for training, health and he like many had asked me why I was not competing.

Naeem encouraged me to enter the natural bodybuilding and fitness modelling competition in July 2019 at the FMC federation – fitness & bodybuilding on one stage (www.FMCofficial.com).

Naeem’s view was shared in previous years by my coach at Goe’s gym and by others who were training consistently for years.

In May 2019, I decided that I was going to compete in the July 2019 FMC federation competition. My reasons were to fulfil my physical potential, create new opportunities for me in the health industry and continue my mission to be the best athlete I can be. Of course I wanted to win the categories I entered which were:

• Beginner male fitness model
• Over 35 male model
• First time men’s physique

Training for the competition

Before I did specific training and dieting for the competition, I had mentally prepared myself and did daily affirmations. Training the mind is crucial and the body follows the mind. There were challenging thoughts in my head all the time:

‘At age 42, how will I compete against younger competitors?’

‘What happens if I do not get a placing in the categories?’



‘What will happen to my career options after the competition?’

I had the opportunity to compete in 2003, 2007 when I had my photo shoots and many years later I strongly believed it was not too late to compete.

Whenever I had these ‘What If’ thoughts, I reminded myself from the personal development training I have undertaken from Nya Ledarskapet or The New Leadership to not allow ‘What If’ thinking to lead to a negative thought pattern.

It is natural to be resistant to change and yet we have the choice on how to deal with it. My decision was to embrace change and not be afraid of failure and to not be afraid of taking risks.

I knew that my framework helped me transform my physique earlier in my years and would deliver results again. This time it was not about just losing bodyfat and getting more lean muscle, it was about going on stage and letting the world know who you are.

To find out more about the specific training system and diet I followed for the competition, book in a personal consultation.

It was an enjoyable process and I remain grateful to family and friends for their support. My results were:

• achieving second place in the Beginner Male Fitness Category.

• placing third in the Over-35 male model category.

I also achieved Professional Elite Athlete status with FMC and when I got that status, it led to more opportunities being created for me in the health and wellness industry.



The experience of competing has reinforced my belief that change is possible and it is not too late to achieve your goals.

While I was training for my competition, in June 2019, I met Mamta Gera, UK CEO of Nya Ledarskapet or The New Leadership to work with them independently as a consultant.

The New Leadership enables people and organisations to achieve positive, sustainable results through a unique, hands on, action oriented programme, working with people on all levels (from CEOs, team leaders, functional directors and employees). With its training, over 95% of all customers are satisfied or very satisfied and on average, they experience a 20% improvement on their leadership skills and overall wellbeing.

The New Leadership has also provided training for over 300 companies, including senior management and employees from some of the largest global audit firms and system integrators.

I decided to work with them as it provided me the opportunity to deliver change management consulting and enable individuals in organisations to develop themselves.

While I was developing my change management consulting career in 2019, I felt often that it was the right time to use my skills in change management and also become a personal fitness trainer. After meeting Focus Fitness UK and enrolling on their course in January 2020, by February I had qualified as a professional Level 3 Fitness Instructor and Personal Trainer (accredited by Active IQ).

I am delighted to have the opportunity to help people improve their health, develop the physique they want and fulfil their potential.

My life has had its challenges and we will always face barriers to success. However, we have a choice and the will on the decisions we make and the action we take.

The personal values I follow have been key to change my life and health. These are:

• Integrity and Compassion
• Trust and Self Belief
• To Transform and Empower
• Visualise Goals and Achieve
• Work Hard and Maintain Discipline

Looking back at my life, I remain grateful to my family and friends who have always stood by my side and supported me through the worst of times and all challenges I have had to deal with.

Whatever goals you set, you must make it happen.