According to you, what are the main causes for weight gain among actors?
There are many reasons why actors put on weight. First, they don’t shoot near their homes, so they end up eating food from outside and so they put on weight. Second, the timings of shootings are erratic. Sometimes they shoot throughout the night, sometimes in the scorching sun, sometimes in the early morning. Third, their sleep patterns get disturbed, thus affecting digestion of food. So they put on weight. Fourth, they miss out on exercise because of their schedules. One ends up being lazy after shooting for 14 hours at a stretch and they tend to skip work-out on that day.

Is yoga not very time-consuming? How does it work for actors who are in a hurry to lose weight?
Yes, traditional yoga is a time-consuming process but my brand of yoga, Artistic Yoga, has been designed in such a way that one can lose weight very fast. The reasons being that we target all aspect of fitness like strength, endurance, flexibility, agility and co-ordination while traditional yoga concentrates more onflexibility training so the other elements are not being used to achieve quick fitness levels.

Second, we have got a system of diet in place and we suggest our clients to eat four to 5 times a day so that their metabolic rate is good and its easier for them to reduce weight faster.

What is special about the Bharat Thakur brand of yoga as opposed to the traditional form or others like Bikram Yoga?
My brand of Artistic Yoga is completely based on ancient yogic techniques. I have changed it because I have done my post-graduation in sports physiology and sports medicine. So, as per the law of both sports physiology and sports medicine, if we don’t incorporate five elements into our training methods – intensity, density, duration, volume and frequency–it won’t affect weight or work so fast.

Bikram Yoga is practised under extremelly hot temperatures, which are very bad for the body as you tend to dehydrate. Artistic Yoga class has a warm-up session so we don’t risk wear-and-tear of the body when we start our workout. This is followed by an intense workout drawn from thousands of different postures. In other schools, like Bikram Yoga they just do the same 25 to 30 postures, but it’s the first law of sports training is that any workout done with intensity gets adapted by the body. So you have to keep varying your intensity to achieve super results, keep varying the load that is used for exercise. In Artistic Yoga, we practice contraction, toning and stretching in an ideal combination so that an individual can look and feel younger day-by-day.

What sort of diet pattern does one need to follow while practising yoga?
There is nothing called an ideal diet for anybody. There are different body-types and so in accordance to your body-type, a diet pattern can be followed. In general, one can eat more fibrous foods and fruits, less of carbohydrates. Drink lots of water and eat more protein but not only protein, as that will give you major diseases. Carbohydrates are as important but yes, the amount should be a little less than your protein intake. Our Indian diet of dal, chawal and vegetables is the best if you follow a proper workout routine.

How much weight loss can one expect in a year by practising yoga and what is the duration to be followed?
If practising in my school of Artistic Yoga, I can definitely promise 15-20 kilos of weight loss in a year but they need to work out five days a week.

Who are your favourite students?
Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Neha Dupia, Gul Panag, Salman Khan, Bobby Deol, Subroto Roy (Sahara Group), Sunil Mittal (Airtel), Venkatesh and a few others.

Describe an Artistic Yoga regimen.
Following a 30 minute walk - 15 minutes of breathing exercises. Then practise jalandhar bandh, uddiyan bandh and moolabandh. Every third day, do one of the cleansing kriyas: jal neti, sutra neti, kapalbhatti, agnisar kriya, vatsara dhauti, tratak and then practise 40 to 50 rounds of suryanamaskar (sun salutation) depending on your capacity. Work out on two body parts every day for 20 minutes and two days just take up walking followed by 10 minutes of shavasana.