Iron and Illness: My Gym Journey So Far
From barely surviving cardio in 2022 to squatting 120 kg — and then getting knocked flat by typhoid. Starting over, one 2.5 kg plate at a time.
I started going to the gym in October 2022. COVID had kept me home for a while, and somewhere between the lockdowns and the work-from-home routine, I had quietly let myself go. Not dramatically — no montage-worthy before photo — but enough that when I walked into that gym for the first time, even the idea of running felt ambitious.
The gym was a proper one. Not a fancy boutique place, but solid — real equipment, enough space, and trainers who actually gave a damn. That last part mattered more than I expected.
Week One: Just Survive
The trainers took one look at me and put me on cardio. Just cardio. For an entire week.
I wasn’t offended. I was grateful. My lungs had clearly forgotten what effort felt like. I wheezed through those early morning sessions and dragged myself back home exhausted. But something shifted by the end of that first week — a small, stubborn thing. I started to feel like I could do more.
So I did.
Building the Base, the Slow Way
Once I had some basic stamina, I moved to the weights. Small ones. No heroics. I wasn’t chasing a physique or a number — I just wanted to not feel like I was falling apart. And I stuck to it. No supplements, no protein shakes, just home-cooked food and whatever I could squeeze out of my body three to four times a week.
Looking back, that first year was the most honest phase of my training. No shortcuts, no external boost. Just showing up, lifting what I could, and going home. The gains were slow. But they were mine.
Consistency, as it turns out, is its own kind of supplement.
Enter: Whey and Creatine
After about a year, I started on whey protein and creatine. And things changed fast.
I had read about creatine for a while before trying it — it has probably the most robust body of evidence of any supplement in fitness — but I’d been hesitant for no real reason other than vague caution. Once I started, the difference was noticeable within weeks. I was recovering faster, lifting heavier, and hitting numbers I hadn’t expected to reach for months.
Strength is a funny thing. It compounds. The stronger you get, the easier it is to get stronger.
Bangalore, Chicken, and Actually Getting Somewhere
In early 2024, the work-from-home era officially ended for me. I moved to Bangalore to work from the office, found a local gym near where I was staying, and kept going.
The shift to office life came with one unexpected upgrade: chicken. Back home, my parents both have high BP, so out of respect we kept it off the menu most days — I’d have it occasionally, but it was never a staple. In Bangalore though, my office provides free lunch every day, and dinner too if I stay late. They serve chicken daily, and also have boiled eggs on offer. I didn’t go overboard — chicken maybe three times a week, eggs whenever I wanted — but compared to back home, that was a significant protein upgrade. Combined with consistent training, the results were hard to ignore. I put on weight — real weight, sitting around 65 kg — and my muscles finally started looking like muscles and not just suggestions.
By the time I was deep into that Bangalore chapter, I could squat around 120 kg for a max and bench around 80 kg. Not elite numbers by any measure, but my numbers. Numbers I had built up from those first breathless cardio sessions.
I never did deadlifts, though. I kept meaning to. The form scared me — I’d read enough about lower back injuries to stay cautious. Maybe that was an excuse. Maybe it was wisdom. I still haven’t decided.
The Part That Undid Everything
January 2026. I went back home to Assam for Magh Bihu and New Year’s — the kind of trip that’s supposed to be warm and festive and full of good food.
I came back with typhoid.
Severe typhoid. The kind that hospitalises you and leaves you staring at the ceiling wondering what you ate and when things went wrong. Even after being discharged, eating anything substantial felt like a battle. My body — which had spent three-plus years being slowly, deliberately built up — started quietly dismantling itself. Muscle loss is fast when you can’t eat and can’t move. Frighteningly fast.
By the time I was well enough to think about the gym again, I knew I’d lost a significant amount of what I’d built.
Starting Over (Kind Of)
I moved back to Bangalore at the end of April 2026 and joined a new gym near where I’m staying now.
The trainer assessed me and put me on a beginner programme. Technically correct. Also a little humbling. I’m pushing weights I last touched in 2022, and my muscles ache in ways I’d forgotten about. The kind of ache that used to mean progress, and now mostly means your body is reminding you it exists.
But here’s the thing — and this is what I keep coming back to when the 2.5 kg plates feel embarrassing — the muscles are still there. Underneath everything. Dormant, maybe. Atrophied, certainly. But the scaffolding didn’t disappear. Muscle memory is a real phenomenon; the body remembers what it once knew how to do.
Rebuilding after a setback isn’t the same as building from scratch. It’s faster, the neurological pathways are already laid, and the knowledge of what’s possible is already in you. I’ve done this before. I know the path.
I just have to walk it again.
I don’t have a tidy ending for this one. I’m still in the middle of it — still sore, still starting from the beginning, still being handed a programme designed for someone who’s never lifted before. But I’m back in the gym, which is the only prerequisite for the rest of it.
Maybe this time I’ll finally learn to deadlift.