We all know that one white It-girlie on every television show: hair tied back into a high pony, face pink, glistening with sweat, sipping water—or better, detox cucumber juice—from a Hydro Flask, enthusiastically recommending her Pilates classes as a cure-all. Think Schitt’s Creek’s beloved Alexis Rose who almost gets recruited into a cult posing as a spin class, or of course the Sex And The City episode where Samantha Jones wants to sleep with her celibate yoga instructor. Despite never having set foot in a gym and having to google exactly what Pilates entails, I have long aspired to achieve the zen and chirpy spirit that seemingly comes with these elaborate wellness routines. To languidly wake up after nine hours of quality sleep, head to spin class in my comfiest sports bra and chill with a smoothie at Boojee Cafe without worrying about work. A chance encounter with a reel and my own curiosity led me to DIY my way into this aspirational cult of fitness by drawing up an elaborate hourly schedule that involved volcanic-ash face masks, yoga, and herb and garlic quinoa. Maybe don’t try this at home.
10 am: Yoga
11 am: Muesli, yogurt and fruit breakfast
11:30 am: Shower and volcanic-ash face mask
12:15 pm: Journalling
12:45 pm: Working
2 pm: Garlic and herb quinoa lunch
3:30 pm: Nap
4 pm: Working
5 pm: Walk with dog
6 pm: Banana snack
7 pm: Stretching
8 pm: Reading
9 pm: Sleep
It takes a village to raise a gym girlie, so I also decided to ask around. Twenty-three-year-old stylist Sanchi Kokra, who first became obsessed with fitness while studying in London, already knew not to exercise without a professional trainer. “I had put on a few kilos and wanted to shed the extra weight,” she admits, “So, I signed up for Barry’s Bootcamp.” When Kokra enjoyed this high-intensity workout class, she went ham, enlisting for all sorts of sessions: barre, mat yoga, circuit workouts, spinning classes, reformer pilates and aerial yoga. She confesses she had an ulterior motive. “Once, after attending a strength-training circuit, I went to shower and saw that they had Aesop bath products, a Dyson hair-drying station, and really cool smoothie and coffee bars,” she giggles, “Everything was super fancy. So, I signed up for a bunch of sessions at the studio and began to skip college just to chill there.”
Now back home in Surat, Kokra “religiously attends” aerial yoga on Mondays and Thursdays, spin classes on Saturdays, and does strength and cardio training every morning. The studios in her hometown aren’t half as fancy as the ones she got used to in London, but after working out she still always treats herself to a leisurely coffee to mark the start of her day.
While my weekdays usually lack both structure and sanity—starting with a hurried shower and a skipped breakfast—I woke up at 10 am on my appointed self-care day, bleary-eyed from having slept at 4 am. Instead of checking Instagram, I changed into a T-shirt and track pants and sat on the cold floor (I do not own a yoga mat) to start my day with some basic asanas. Unfortunately, yoga and I haven’t gotten along since two years ago, when I stretched too far back while doing the Bhujangasana and injured myself.
This time, I was extra cautious—so cautious, in fact, that I stopped as soon as I felt myself getting slightly breathless, and lay down to scroll through Instagram and order some bananas on BlinkIt for my muesli and yogurt breakfast because there were no fruits at home. My sister asked if I could also order a box of Orion’s Choco-Pie, so I added that to my cart, and had two pies as an additional morning dessert.
Obviously, prioritising one’s health does not just mean exercising every day while also eating Choco-Pie for breakfast. On the contrary, it is nearly a full-time job, with workouts often accompanied by a myriad of rituals (and often, supplements). The cult of fitness puts wellness above all else, epitomising slow living, a term popularised and pedestalised in the last few years by people like me who crave a Midsommar-esque connection with nature while stuck in Mumbai’s endless traffic. For Jyoti Kumari, founder of Little Duck Productions, one grounding ritual is making her own hair oil from scratch using a mix of leaves and herbs. After creating the oil, she gives herself an old-school champi. Kumari’s mornings are also for inward reflection, starting with yoga at 7:30 am. “I like to do freestyle writing in the morning,” she shares, “Sometimes it’s about how I’m feeling, what my emotions are. Sometimes, I pick a word—say ‘chaos’—and write about my relationship with it.” At 2 pm, the Pune-based media professional takes Pilates lessons. “A lot of people find it weird and privileged, but it keeps me motivated for the rest of the day right after the post-lunch slump hits.”
Unlike Kumari, I can never resist the post-lunch slump. I spent about 40 minutes that day rinsing, then cooking herb and garlic quinoa. At noon, I had journalled for half an hour, eagerly writing how excited I was to cook quinoa for the first time. Unfortunately, the final dish—despite the olive oil and mixed herbs—tasted watery and bland in comparison to the white rice I was used to having. I couldn’t even finish half a bowl before I moved onto my favourite activity of the day: napping.
Goa-based Vandana Verma is more disciplined than I am when it comes to holistic wellness. The 41-year-old, who works in content and communication, takes yoga and aerial movement classes and has been doing functional training for four years. In addition to this, she also maintains a daily gratitude journal and practises EFT, a self-care technique that involves tapping on certain points in the body to relieve stress and anxiety. “The thing about Goa is that nobody actually seems to have a job,” she laughs. “It kind of makes sense, between a population that comes here to vacation or on sabbatical or run their own studios or have sold their startups, but a rager on a Tuesday or a yoga class from 10 am till noon on weekdays is all par for the course.” While Verma enjoys her yoga classes, she avoids conversing with her fellow learners as much as she can. “I find the after-class conversations, shall we say,…challenging,” she confesses, “Having a newly appointed life coach tell me I must do mirror work, or being shepherded to an ecstatic dance or collective cacao ceremony is just not my jam, but power to those who enjoy it.”
I have no doubt I would enjoy an ecstatic dance ceremony, but instead I woke up from my nap to work for an hour, then ate one of the bananas I had ordered that morning on BlinkIt. Unfortunately, not only was this day turning out to be a disappointment, I also had to battle questions from my family about my embarrassing attempts to exercise when I hadn’t since school, and the mess I had made in the kitchen by scattering quinoa everywhere. Still, as work-life boundaries become blurrier, and tone-deaf CEOs push for 70-hour work weeks in a late capitalist hellscape, I could understand the appeal of taking time out for yourself, even if it meant going overboard.
My DIY foray into the cult of fitness was incomplete without an insider look into what the It-girls talk about as they work out. I pictured Alexis Rose planning her next vacation to the Maldives (where she somehow manages to run into a pirate ship) or Samantha Jones describing her sex life in pornographic detail. I did some sleuthing at a bougie cafe (not Boojee Cafe) near my own home. Donning variants of coordinated Nike tracksuits, invariably wearing an AirPod in one ear, the cult of fitness stood out from other customers, ordering avocado bowls and toasts, sometimes a guilty peanut butter cookie. As I bit into my own avocado toast, a woman in her thirties talked to a friend about how her husky puppy refused to drink water that didn’t have yogurt in it. Another young woman conspiratorially told her friend about an influencer who had inspired her to start her mornings with a shot of olive oil.
Hungry for more, I spoke to Pune-based yoga instructor Swati Dubey, who admitted that she has made some of her closest friends while teaching yoga—and things do get quite personal. “The first five to 10 minutes of class always go into catching up,” she shares. “Clients want something more than you just showing up and teaching them; they want to connect with you. I know about all of my clients’ childhoods.” She recalls a particular incident when she was teaching a client an asana where they had to lie down and stretch their legs. “Out of nowhere, she said, ‘My husband just loves this stretch.””
I realised, ultimately, that my lack of discipline was my biggest issue. While my self-care schedule dictated that I sleep at 9 pm, I decided there was only so much I could sacrifice for the sake of wellness. Yoga, stretching, even lunch had been a failure, and now I lay in bed, alternating between Instagram reels and YouTube shorts until the clock struck midnight. Then, I reasoned, the day was technically over, so I could go back to doing whatever I wanted, health be damned. I swiped to the next reel.
