Sonali Pradeep was recently crowned Mrs. India Tamil Nadu 2017 at an event held in Pune
Getting obese especially after marriage is very common in India. The story of most of the Indian women, more especially after giving birth to a child, is not something you can write home about. So, the story of Sonali Pradeep, a 36 year old mother of two children draws our attention. She is a motivational speaker and handles personality development soft skill classes for final year students & corporates, who knows what Indian women direly need to do.
She was recently crowned Mrs. India Tamil Nadu 2017 at an event held in Pune, where 3500 women aged between 23 and 40 from all over India applied. Sonali was the only female to participate in the event from the state of Tamil Nadu and, fortunately, she won the award as well.
The fitness freak is also active in the social media motivating people with daily updates about fitness, attitude and time management. She has over 12,500 members in her group named ‘FITnutz Squad’ and the members have all joined it in a short span of two years.
“My husband (Pradeep) is my biggest support. He is the one who inculcated in me the spirit of breaking away from the image of a docile and passive Indian mother. He always wanted me to pursue my interests. Being a martial artist himself, he helped me in every possible way in reducing my weight,” says Sonali about her husband in appreciation. Thanks to him, Sonali never thought about her age being a barrier to break the conventional image of an Indian woman in her mid 30s.
“I gave birth to my second child when I was 30. It was then that I started gaining weight so much that the scale touched 95 kilos and I had all kinds of issues related to obesity. I became depressed and my confidence level was very low,” says Sonali who weighs only 65 kilos now.
She lost 30 kilos in eight months. She achieved this feat with a combination of dieting, walking, jogging, dancing and vigorous workouts in a gym.
The ‘Mrs. India Tamil Nadu’ is not only a fitness freak but also a Black-Belt holder in Karate. She has done a certification course in Zumba dance and has also learnt Bharatanatyam.
“Whatever I feel like doing, I will do it with ease. It is because of the freedom that my husband has allowed me that I pursue my passion without any hesitation. It was after my second child that I learnt Karate and earned Black-Belt. Dance is also something that I have always wanted to learn. So, I began training in earnest to master Zumba dance and Bharatanatyam,” said Sonali who does not want to remain a typical Indian mother staying idle after giving birth, resigning herself to a life of boredom.
“My biggest dream is to motivate as many people, and as long as, I can, because when you are physically fit your mind automatically becomes sharp and tends to give you a lot of confidence in exploring new things. I am experiencing it myself and I wish other Indian women would also come out of their boredom,” said a resolute Sonali who gives motivational speeches at various organizations and associations concerning women’s welfare.
When asked how she finds time to manage her family and pursue her passion, Sonali retorts, “Time is the same for everyone. It does not vary from people to people. The real formula is to identify the use we put it to.”
“Whatever may happen to us, be it finding oneself in a tense situation or in the midst of a calamity, we never stop doing basic things like eating, sleeping, bathing, brushing etc. When you have time to do all these things, why can’t you spare 20-30 minutes every day to keep your body and mind fresh and sharp doing some form of physical workout?” she says.
Sonali is of the view that each and every individual should spend at least half an hour every day in caring for their health, which could also resolve relationship issues and make family life really happy. “Imagine if everyone in this world is fit and healthy, the whole world would turn into peaceful place with everybody minding his own business. But, now with people leading a lethargic life, both mentally and physically, social unrest and disease have spread all around the world’, reckons Sonali.
She is also writing a book titled “Recreate Yourself” that talks about managing attitude. She is planning to publish it soon and hopes that her book would bring about a change among Indian women.
- Tamil Meganathan.