He Lost 12 Kgs Working Night Shifts

Before Covid, Mrityunjaya was lean and active. He was the kind of person who could eat anything and never gain a kilo. Then the world shut down, and everything about his routine changed with it.

Working from home for an MNC, managing a team of twenty people, and grieving the loss of colleagues his own age during the pandemic, his days quietly rearranged themselves around a laptop. There was no commute to break up the hours, no reason to step outside, and a kitchen that sat only a few steps away from his desk.

"My entire physical activity dropped to zero," he recalls. Five kilos crept on, and then another five. His night shifts scrambled his sleep even further. Somewhere in that blur, emotional eating became a habit dressed up as a break, a cup of tea here and some namkeen there, taken not because he was hungry but because a long day at the desk made snacking feel like the only variety left.

The part of his story that stops people is not the number on the scale. It is what he did with his wardrobe.

"I started hiding behind baggy clothes," he shared. Fitted shirts stopped feeling good, so he simply stopped wearing them. Loose t-shirts slowly became the norm. His family noticed the change in clothing, but they assumed it was a style choice, a young man trying out new trends. They did not realise it had quietly become his armour.

Mrityunjaya was no stranger to trying. He would attempt one meal a day, survive on liquids for the rest of it, lose a little weight, and then slide back into his old patterns the moment life got busy again. Lose, regain, and repeat.

What was missing was never knowledge. He had watched enough videos online to understand the theory inside out. What he did not have was a system that could actually live inside his night shifts, his family home, and his real routine, rather than a version of health that assumed a nine to five life he did not lead.

The shift did not come from another video. It came from watching someone he already knew. His coach, Nidhi, had completed her own transformation, and seeing it up close changed something for him. "I thought, let me talk to Nidhi and figure something out," he says. Sometimes the most convincing proof is not a stranger's before and after photo, but someone from your own life who is clearly living differently now.

He joined Kayapalat the same evening he asked his first question.

Mrityunjaya is honest that his first worry was not the plan. It was the logistics. "I sleep at 4 or 4:30 in the morning. How am I supposed to attend an 8 am session?" His coach did not force a rigid mould onto his life. Instead, they adjusted his sleep pattern gradually, half an hour at a time, until his body caught up with a healthier rhythm.

The rest of the structure was refreshingly simple. He was given a clear rule for spacing out his meals, with defined gaps between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He built a proper morning routine that replaced the old habit of eating at random times, which had quietly driven most of his problems. The changes were about small substitutions rather than deprivation, such as buttermilk before lunch, a defined salad routine, and portions based on real hunger. He even built a breakfast habit from scratch, having never eaten breakfast before in his life.

"Kayapalat did not give me a diet plan," he put it. "Kayapalat gave me a direction."

Anyone who has grown up in an Indian household will recognise this part instantly. There was the bigger roti, the extra ghee stirred in before he even noticed, and the gentle concern behind "beta, why are you not eating parathas anymore?" His mother's love showed up exactly where his new habits needed boundaries, and learning to navigate that with patience became a quiet discipline of its own.

Mrityunjaya is clear about why this worked when his solo attempts had not. "One person alone cannot do this. You need community support, whether it is your office, your home, or any goal in life." On the days his motivation was low, someone else's story became the nudge that solo effort never managed to provide, whether it was a coach who had lost 20 kgs herself or a fellow member managing her own health challenge.

Two and a half months in, Mrityunjaya had lost 12 kgs. It happened not through extremes, but through a routine that finally matched the life he was actually living. His mindset changed as much as his body did, with less mindless scrolling, more intention, and a breakfast habit he had never had before.

More than the number, what really changed was that he stopped waiting for a version of health advice built for someone else's schedule, and found one that was built around his own.