Vijaya Tupurani: Fitness Trainer & Dancer

Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You are a wife, mother, homemaker & and instructor holding shows all over the country. How do you balance your personal & professional life?

Ms. Vijaya Tupurani:
I have always believed in the statement that personal and professional life is like parallel railway tracks. It looks very much attached together from a distance but they never are so for me, my professional and personal life is just like those railway tracks with equal distance maintained. So coming to my life, I follow a schedule very religiously where I m giving my 100% to each section, be it my children, my husband, my personal time, or my professional time.

Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You have often mentioned your husband’s role “his constant motivation and support” in your success story. Share his role in your success journey.

Ms. Vijaya Tupurani:
Oh yes, he plays a major role in my life. I can only say that he has always been there for me emotionally whenever I was in need. He was not physically present because of his job as he is an army officer serving the nation. It has been almost 10 years that we have not lived together because I am settled in Hyderabad and he is always on the move because of his posting. Nevertheless, he never made me feel he was not there for me. So for me, nobody comes above him when it comes to any kind of support be it a 5 mins phone call or 30 days of annual leave.

Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Your daily fitness routine? 5 key essentials for optimum fitness?

Ms. Vijaya Tupurani:
For me, there is no other specific fitness routine other than my classes as it keeps me fit and happy. According to me, the 5 key essentials for optimum fitness which actually I follow are:

1. Getting up and sleeping early
2. staying hydrated
3. regular workouts
4. having a balanced diet and
5. most important is keeping myself happy mentally.

Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Share insight into your diet routine. What foods do you prefer to eat & enjoy? What your breakfast would look like?

Ms. Vijaya Tupurani:
I don’t specifically follow any kind of diet chart. I have never been a person who avoids
basic needs in the form of food. I have always been somebody who works out regularly and eats
something which is homemade. I am a south Indian who belongs to Andhra Pradesh and that
makes me a rice eater so I have never tried to quit rice in my life and whatever I eat is in smaller
proportions. My breakfast is generally a south Indian breakfast such as Idli, Dosa, Uthappam,
sometimes poha, and upma. Believe me, I am a completely old-school person who
doesn’t follow any kind of fancy diet.

Ms. Namita Nayyar:
According to you, share 5 myths held by women regarding body weight & fitness. clarify the myths.

Ms. Vijaya Tupurani:
When it comes to weight training, there are 5 general myths:

1. Women bulking up through weight training – which I don’t think is true because the testosterone levels in women are somewhere around 15 to 20 times lesser than men so unless women take a high rate of
   supplements, it’s impossible for women to bulk up.
2. Quitting carbs – I have been eating rice for ages, the only time when I had put on weight was during my pregnancy and post-partum which is not because of carbs. I have been eating carbs since I started my fitness journey and I never felt like quitting it.
3. When it comes to my kind of fitness, people think that dancing cannot make you fit and it is not for everybody. I have trained more than 5000 people to date the majority of them were non-dancers or as they say “I have two left feet” but I managed to break the myth by making them come back to my sessions and dance and also see better results, both physically and mentally.
4. Women get only better results from Cardio – This is another myth that makes many women stick to simple walking and at times running on the treadmill but adding some sort of weight training along with cardio definitely would give you better results. I have done Zumba from the year 2012 to 2017 which was a complete cardiovascular workout but I tried to upgrade myself with my own kind of format where I started using a bit of weight, functionality, and some core workouts to build up strength along with cardio.
5. Women should not workout during periods – this depends on every individual woman and their state during her menstrual cycle but working out during periods definitely reduces bloating, mood swings, irritability, and depression. The only thing women have to keep in mind during this time is not to push themselves doing a hardcore workout but light cardio exercises, general stretching, and strength training using light weights definitely help keep them fit and happy.