Earlier this month, actor Richa Chadha stunned everyone with her weight loss transformation. Taking to social media, she shared a series of photos where she is seen donning a black shimmer gown and flaunting her toned body. Quiz her about what made her want to take on this journey of physical transformation and she says, “I was quite happy with the size I was at. I wanted to become healthier overall. I wanted the quality of my sleep, movement, exercise and mobility to improve.” 

Calling herself “a victim of trying to work out too much”, Chadha realised that it had far-reaching consequences on her body. “Too much exercise can damage your insides and be counter-productive to your effort. Rest is very important but underrated,” she says, adding, “To deal with the things that aren’t in our control, we’ve got to follow a few basic rules for our health so that we can be prepared for those times when you’ve got to push it in high-stress work environments.” 

The Candy actor, who spoke about not succumbing to the unrealistic standards of beauty and how filmmakers asked her to lose weight in the past, asserts that her weight loss isn’t in conflict with her previous statements. 

“If I continue to remain 15-20 kg heavier in order to justify what I had once said, then that’s wrong. If you feel you need to get healthier and live better but someone misconstrues it as you finally giving in to societal pressure, it’s not done!” she sighs. 

But the 36-year-old lauds the shift in the narrative about body positivity. “Hats off to influencers who’re consistently talking about body image issues like Toshada (Uma)! I really feel that the youth of today has better people to look up to. People have to go through their own journeys till they arrive at their own place of balance,” Chadha ends.

One of Richa Chadha's earliest memories of wonderland is of a male colleague pointing out to the film's director that she was too skinny and he should “pad her up a bit“. Immediately, the young girl who had sailed through her school and college days believing she was a “smasher“ began to do a million squats, determined to put on a few kilos and once she did, did a million more in order to lose them.

“There is a lot of pressure because everyone is judging you on the basis of how you look. On screen your face is magnified so people are pointing to your nose, eyes, jawline, smile and even your eyelashes,“ grouses the actress who last year was juggling between two drastically different films and characters, the Sarabjit biopic in which she played a hardy Punjabi woman and the musical, Cabaret, in which she was doing songs for the first. And it left her nervous, vulnerable and struggling with an eating disorder.

It wasn't a classic case of bulimia because Richa wasn't given to binge-eating. Rather she was going through long hours of fasting, munching on protein bars and Red Bulls, and feeling guilty every time she felt hungry. Then, last December, en route to the Marrakech Film Festival as a jury member, she happened to see Asif Kapadia's Oscar winning documentary, Amy, on singer Amy Winehouse who along with drugs, alcohol addiction and relationship problems was also fighting bulimia which eventually led to self destruction. “It was a nine-hour flight. I saw the film in the first two hours and spent the remainder of the flight weeping, landing with red, swollen eyes. But being away from people helped and I decided to take control of my life and body,“ she reminisces.

It took two months and several conversations with her parents who were flabbergasted that a Punjabi girl was off food and two close friends before she got in touch with a naturopath, Dr Chintu, and nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar. For the first two weeks Rujuta encouraged her to eat all the food she had grown up with which she had been denying herself, from rajma-chawal to dosas, parathas and salads, healthy food every two hours without a thought for bad fats, carbs and proteins which had been demonising her and draining her body of essential nutrients, followed by regular workouts. Soon her skin was glowing and today, she can confidently say that in the next month she will be in her best shape ever.

“The reason I am talking about it is because I know not just actors but housewives and teenagers who're struggling with this poor little rich girl problem. At a time when the West is celebrating curves, we are ordering fat-melting medicines and living on supplements which can mess up a woman's hormones and child-bearing ability and lead to sperm and hair loss in men,“ she reasons.

Body-shaming, she says, is a new phenomenon and we don't need it. “I saw how viciously Aishwarya (Rai Bachchan) was attacked after she had her baby by jobless people. All I can say is that my grandmother who is 87 still has a small but healthy dinner every day of rice, chapati, sabzi and never misses her dessert. She laughs when I run away from ice cream and she's as slim and beautiful as she was when she was young. I'd like to tell people to love themselves the way they are without bothering about popular perception,“ Richa signs off.