Resolutions...

A Thing Of The Past

Trust in the mundane, the unremarkable, says Anandita De, and stay consistent in your healthy way of life...

After a profound physical transformation, my priorities have shifted. I am no longer chasing change for its own sake. I am building strength – physical strength, yes, but equally inner peace. Calm. A steadiness that does not buckle when life grows loud. That is why Nepal felt like the right place to begin the year – not to reset, but to continue.

I have always found New Year resolutions faintly amateurish. They rely on urgency rather than structure, motivation rather than systems. They arrive noisily in January and disappear quietly by February. At best, they generate brief surges of effort; at worst, they reinforce cycles of guilt, collapse and perpetual restarting.

I do not believe in that model.

What I trust instead is the mundane. The unremarkable. The DEly (yes, a pun on my last name) repetition that rarely photographs well and almost never feels exciting – yet works. Consistency, not novelty, delivers the highest success rate over time. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is dependable.

Most people resist this. Routine is dismissed as dull, monotonous, even joyless. We chase quick wins, visible drama, instant validation. And so many give up early – not because the obstacle is insurmountable, but because the process feels too ordinary.

There is nothing glamorous about showing up again and again. It does not announce itself. It does not reward you immediately. It simply asks that you continue long after enthusiasm has left the room. That is precisely why it works – and why it is so widely abandoned.

For me, consistency was not optional. It was prescribed.

In August 2024, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The diagnosis was clinical, unemotional and definitive. My blood work revealed clear metabolic dysfunction: elevated fasting insulin, HbA1c in the diabetic range, unstable blood-sugar regulation, and confirmed insulin resistance. Fatigue, inflammation and hormonal stress were already present, alongside a trajectory that carried genuine risk if left uncorrected.

This was not a temporary fluctuation. It was a wake-up call.

My parents’ concern had been building long before the diagnosis arrived on paper. It surfaced in fractured conversations, frustration, emotional distance – a worry that did not quite know where to land. When the lab reports finally came in, anxiety sharpened into something unavoidable. This was no longer about habits or appearances. It was about survival.

I was instructed to lose 60 kilos. There was no aesthetic goal, no aspirational timeline, no room for interpretation. What followed was not panic – it was precision.

I did not chase transformation. I committed to repetition.

DEly movement. Strength training.

Walking. Clean, consistent eating.

The same choices, repeated relentlessly, regardless of mood, occasion, or external validation. No detoxes. No resets. No dramatic declarations of “starting again”. Just continuation.
Within two months – by the end of September 2024 – my diabetic markers had reversed. Not masked. Not managed. Reversed. That reversal did not come from intensity. It came from endurance.
Resilience, I have learned, is a state of mind. It is not dictated by the calendar. It is built DEly – in how you show up for yourself, consistently and without negotiation. Because resilience is not activated when things are hard. It is trained when things are ordinary.
Long before my formal wellness journey began, I had already eliminated deep-fried food. That decision was non-negotiable and has remained so – regardless of setting, temptation or celebration. Travel never became an exemption.
I also have not touched a sip of alcohol since October 2024. By then, I had already let go of every other so-called cheat – the foods, the habits, the easy-outs. Alcohol, I realised, had never been about dependence for me. I was a ceremonial drinker. And once the ceremony no longer served the life I was building, I let it go without drama.
What remained was not restriction, but ease. With the noise removed, discipline became quieter – and everything else held.
There were whispers, of course. Speculation. Doubt. At first, it affected me – because I am human. But I did not linger there. There was nothing small about rebuilding trust with my body. Nothing trivial about choosing discipline over noise, DEly, for months on end. So I put my head down and carried on.
Quietly.
Relentlessly.
Without explanation.

By December 2025, the data spoke.

Fasting insulin sat firmly in the optimal range. Blood-sugar markers were fully normalised. There was no insulin resistance. No diabetic physiology. This was not cosmetic weight loss – it was metabolic healing.

Doctors were not struck because the science was mysterious. They were struck because the consistency was rare.

For years, I avoided the weighing scale entirely. During the middle of weight loss, the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction – constant checking, numbers dictating mood. That phase passed too.

Now, I step on the scale twice a day – morning and night. Not from anxiety, but neutrality. It is data. A checkpoint. A tool, not a verdict.

I do not believe in working out for the camera. But I have always worked out in front of it – for accountability and honesty. I shared movement when I was 122 kilos, when nothing looked aspirational, when progress was slow and deeply unpolished. At first, the camera simply bore witness. Over time, it became a record of continuity.

Now, when people tell me they return twice a day – not for spectacle, but for proof of follow-through – I receive it with humility. Especially knowing that when this journey began, my body barely permitted movement at all. What once resisted effort now responds to it. That shift is everything.

I have learned to believe in my own narrative, regardless of what others choose to say or do. Not out of defiance, but clarity. My personal truth is already established. Only I know what I endured – every single DEly decision – to stand where I do now.
I had last visited Nepal in 2016. Then, I arrived accompanying my mother – a prolific, pioneering writer whose work has shaped decades of media and literary discourse across South Asia. I was present, observant, moving within the slipstream of an already formed legacy.

Returning nearly a decade later, I arrived on my own terms – invited by Binod Chaudhary, Nepal’s first and only billionaire and chairman of the Chaudhary Group, and his son Rahul Chaudhary, who leads the group’s global hospitality arm, to write; recognised in my own right; shaped not by proximity but by lived discipline.

In January 2026, Nepal did not interrupt my routine. It absorbed it.

Time at Miraaya Wellness and Golf Resort, followed by Meghauli Serai within Chitwan National Park, felt like an extension of lived wellness rather than a break from it.

At altitude, my body responded differently. Where breathlessness once dominated, there was steadiness. DEly walks and runs allowed adaptation without force. Homegrown, local, wholesome food supported recovery. Yoga and meditation integrated naturally – not as escape, but as active recovery.

Movement expanded playfully. Golf. Basketball. Running. Steps accumulated, DEly. In the wild, jungle walks became moving meditation. Pace slowed. Awareness sharpened. Performance dissolved into presence.

At Meghauli Serai, I went on my very first jungle safari with excitement tempered by realism. I knew even before leaving Bombay that spotting a tiger was unlikely. Chitwan offers possibility, not certainty. Safaris trade in patience, not guarantees.
The tiger never appeared.

In that absence, something unexpected happened. I did not feel disappointment. There was no grasping, no sense of loss. The quiet felt complete on its own.

For years, I had lived inside a results-driven mindset – progress needing spectacle, success requiring evidence. But the jungle does not perform. It does not reassure. It simply exists, indifferent to expectation.

The tiger owed me nothing.

What struck me most was how little I missed it. My attention had already shifted – from anticipation to awareness, from outcome to rhythm. The walk itself had become sufficient.

And in that moment, I realised I wanted nothing more than to reunite with Bijou my poochie – immediately.

Later, I understood why.

My life no longer revolves around proving anything. I trust the process even when the outcome remains unseen — in the jungle, as in my body.

Throughout it all was Bijou — not my dog, but my 'dogter'. Bijou is my four-year-old Poodle with impeccable emotional intelligence and no respect for personal space. Once a snack accomplice, now my most loyal walking partner and co-regulator. Time with her is not interchangeable or deferrable. Landscapes can be revisited. Sightings can wait. Presence with those who anchor us cannot be postponed.

And then there were the bananas.

Since the earliest days of my wellness journey, I have carried one everywhere. At first, it was practical – a safety net. Over time, it became symbolic. Preparedness. Continuity. A quiet assurance that I did not outsource my steadiness to circumstance.
On my first night at Miraaya, heavy sounds above my villa disrupted sleep. Morning light revealed the explanation: a mother monkey and her babies had taken up residence on the thatched roof.

At one point, the earnest team gently escalated the situation and asked whether I would like to feed the monkeys bananas. Somewhere between my relentless banana requests and the sudden primate residency, a theory had formed. I laughed until I nearly inhaled my emotional-support banana. For the record, the bananas were not for the monkeys. They were for me.

Today, my parents do not gush about my health. They nod to it – a small, restrained acknowledgement that tells me they see the work. Food is no longer something they fear on my behalf. They ask to taste what I cook. They recognise intention rather than fragility.

There was a time when sleeping alone felt impossible. When my mother travelled, I needed someone nearby – sometimes in the opposite room, sometimes occupying her space – not for conversation, but for the reassurance that another presence existed in the dead of night. That was not weakness. It was simply where my nervous system was then.

Through health, structure, and self-reliance, that dependence softened. I do not sleep perfectly now – but I sleep independently. Even in unfamiliar places. Even in the thick of the jungle. What once required proximity now requires steadiness.

January does not scare me anymore – not because life is easier, but because my foundations are stronger.

I do not start over when things get hard. I continue.

Resilience was never seasonal. It was built – one ordinary, DEly day at a time.