Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli is known as one of the fittest athletes globally and he has changed the entire dimension of the national team when it comes to the standard of fitness level with his mantra has been adopted by the entire team and other teams as well.
Kohli is unarguably a fitness icon for the young cricketers. He has set a benchmark for the other players with his disciplined fitness routine and unmatched energy on the field in international cricket. He is now a wonderful fielder apart from a batting giant, thanks to his extreme fitness.
However, the super-fit Indian captain was earlier a very chubby guy, but his poor run in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2012) brought drastic changes in his lifestyle to focus on his fitness and he became a “fitness freak” and an inspiration to several athletes.
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Well, the dashing cricketer’s transformation from being a chubby guy to becoming one of the fittest athletes in the world has been nothing less than extraordinary and recently he opened up about his fitness turnaround while revealing he was used to eating just anything without caring about anything.
Kohli told Dinesh Karthik in an interview for Sky Sports, “I was very chubby… still I’m very fond of food. But luckily I understood exactly what I need to do to stay at this level till the time I play.”
The cricketer further added, “I still miss those days, they’re not out of my memory. I talk to my friends back home, about those days when we used to finish practice and go to this mini Chinese food van and just smash whatever we like without caring about anything. I used to eat everything back then, chicken fried rice was my regular with chilly chicken.”
On what triggered a fitness turnaround, Kohli recalled: “It (the turnaround) happened in 2012. The lead-up to the IPL 2012 was interesting because I had scored my first Test century in Australia, followed by that game against Sri Lanka in Hobart where we chased that total down within 40 overs. That came out of nowhere honestly; I did not believe I could do something like that at the international stage.”
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The India captain continued, “It gave me so much belief. And then I scored 183 against Pakistan in the Asia Cup, on a Sunday when everyone was watching. Things changed so much for me in just six months, but I forgot the basics of the game. I started getting more desperate and went too far ahead of myself. I thought, this IPL I’m going to dominate everyone. But the moment IPL started, a few games didn’t go my way and my mindset completely dropped to the other side.
I was eating anything that came inside. I was finishing candy packets, 40 pieces, three packets a week. I was eating and sleeping horribly, my habits were all over the place. I finished the IPL, I remember I went home, came out of the shower, saw myself in the mirror and I was ashamed.”
He signed off by saying, “Literally, I saw myself and thought I was looking at another human being. Then I told myself, if you want to play cricket at the highest level, this is not the way you can manage. Everything about my diet and training changed from the next day onwards and it became an obsession.”
