On a business trip to India in October, 2021, Dhruv Agarwala woke up feeling like he was having a heart attack.
“My heart was racing, I had palpitations. I felt I was going to die,” says the 53-year-old, who managed to check himself into a hospital.It turned out to be a case of heartburn, much to his relief.
“I kept thinking ‘One day I will lose weight, one day I will become fit,’ until one day I landed in a hospital emergency room. I remember that moment clearly, lying in the hospital bed, when I resolved to take charge of my health.
“It was the wake-up call that I needed,” says Agarwala, an Indian native who has lived in Singapore for the past seven years. At the time he was obese, having reached his heaviest weight of 151.7 kilograms (334 pounds) in February 2021.
After his emergency hospital visit, he went on to lose 71.1 kilograms, taking his weight down to 80.6 kilograms by February 2023. In the process of shedding nearly half of his body weight, he dropped four T-shirt sizes, from 3XL to M.
Before his transformation he was pre-diabetic, had been taking medications for high cholesterol and high blood pressure for four years, and had developed sleep apnoea.
He also suffered from body-image issues and had low confidence.
“I went off all medication by November 2021. My cholesterol and blood pressure levels are normal now, I am off the sleep apnoea machine and am no longer pre-diabetic,” he says.
Agarwala grew up in Kolkata, the capital of India’s West Bengal state, playing cricket, football, badminton and table tennis. He only started to put on weight after he began his career, developing unhealthy eating habits and not exercising.
“I worked long hours and business was stressful,” says Agarwala, who has an MBA from Harvard Business School and is co-founder and chief executive of real estate technology platform REA India.
His physical transformation began with strength-training sessions three times a week with trainer Ahmad Zaki at fitness company Ultimate Performance.
He took up walking, too, doing 10,000 steps a day at first, and gradually increasing to 12,000.
Clocking the daily steps was a game changer.
“I started by walking along the river and soon I was walking everywhere, from running errands to helping around the house,” says Agarwala, who began hiking as well.
Zaki says Agarwala’s initial goal was to lose only 50kg.
“A fan of Roger Federer, he wanted a physique like his. I planted the seeds in him that he would look fantastic if he reached Federer’s body weight of 80kg.”
At the start, the goal was to elevate Agarwala’s heart rate. To build conditioning and muscle mass, he used a prowler – a push sled with weights.
Trainer Ahmad Zaki convinced Agarwala that he would look fantastic if he reached Roger Federer’s body weight of about 80 kilograms.
Squats and leg and shoulder presses followed, and as he started to lose weight the focus turned to body-composition training to maximise muscle and fat burning.
Agarwala found the exercises tough and there were days when had little motivation to go to the gym.
“On those days I used visualisation to imagine what it would be like to be fit and the positive outcomes it would have on my life. I took my weight loss as a personal challenge and made ‘fixing my health’ my primary goal,” he says.
“Failure was not an option.”
He had sold his company the year before, although he is still its chief executive. His stress levels fell, and his work schedule became more flexible.
The second big change he made was to his diet. From eating without a care – snacking on fried savoury snacks such as samosas, dosas and cheese toast, and eating heavy Indian curries for lunch and dinner – he transitioned to consuming fewer than 1,700 calories a day.
“I was used to eating unhealthy food which was hard to give up. I had tried the Atkins and South Beach diets and intermittent fasting in the past, but did not find them sustainable.
“The ‘Aha!’ moment for me was when I realised that I could eat what I wanted as long as I controlled the portions,” says Agarwala.
He cut out processed and fried food completely, and now consumes at least 120 grams of protein each day and keeps the carbohydrates in check.
Agarwala also skips breakfast and has a protein shake after his gym session. Lunch consists of a 200-300ml portion of dal, 150 to 180 grams of cooked vegetables, and besan roti, a flat Indian bread made of chickpea flour.
He snacks on almonds and walnuts, cucumber, carrots and yogurt. His dinner consists of celery or asparagus soup with grilled chicken or fish.
The third change Agarwala made was to give up alcohol.
“I would have 10 to 12 drinks a week with friends, my drinks of choice being red wine or whisky. I quit alcohol for 18 months,” says Agarwala, who now limits himself to one to two drinks a week.
After four months of exercising, he lost 20kg.
“People could not believe I had lost so much weight. They thought I had undergone bariatric surgery or was on weight-loss diabetic drugs. I started receiving compliments and the more compliments I received, the more it egged me on to stay fit. It was a virtuous feedback loop,” says Agarwala, who was losing one to two kilograms a week.
“I also felt a lot lighter and had a lot more energy. This prompted me to work even harder,” he adds.
In 2023, he took up running and swimming, and alternates doing 5km (3-mile) runs and 30-minute swims three times weekly.
“The best part about losing weight has been changing my wardrobe multiple times and finally being able to wear the clothes that I always wanted to.
“I feel good about myself. I have sustained my weight loss by raising the bar on my fitness levels, never letting myself believe that I have achieved my goals.”
Agarwal's wife, Upasana, was very supportive.
“When we were invited for dinner by friends, she called the hosts in advance to make sure they would have something on the menu that I could eat.”
He says that he now looks fitter than his wife.
His 18-year-old son Viraj lost excess weight also, dropping 40kg from his 130kg frame in the past year.
“My dad has been a role model for me. Maybe the fact that he was overweight and that it did not come in the way of his success subconsciously led me to believe that it was OK to be overweight,” Viraj says.
“Seeing him make this transformation and how much of a positive difference it has made to his life inspired me to make fitness my number-one priority.”
Agarwala’s advice to others who want to lose weight is to ask themselves if they want it badly enough, and to measure the process and the progress.
Good health is the starting point for success in work and life, he says. “You manage what you measure.”
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