Virat Kohli Reveals The Story Behind His Transformation From A 'Mad Eater' To A 'Fitness Freak'

Virat Kohli has impinged himself as one of the greatest-ever players that this beautiful game has ever seen. And, he has achieved that through sheer hard, grit, character and the will and desire to be the best version of himself. One of the major reasons behind Kohli’s success has been his drive and passion for fitness.

The Indian captain has set lofty standards as far as fitness is concerned and he is by far the fittest cricketer going around in world cricket today. But, Kohli was not always a fitness freak. Hailing from Delhi, Kohli loves his ‘Chola bhaturas’ and other North Indian dishes. That all changed after the 2012 edition of the IPL after Kohli was admittedly ‘disgusted’ at what he saw in the mirror.

Another reason behind the transformation was that Kohli felt that cricket around his was changing rapidly. Teams around the world were more focussed on fitness as compared to Team India and that is something he wanted to change.

“Had to do with the game completely. 2012 IPL I came back home, saw myself, I was disgusted and I wanted to change myself and also to do with the fact that I saw how the dynamics of cricket around the world were changing rapidly. I felt we were far behind in terms of being at the same intensity level as other teams, they were moving far ahead of us in terms of fitness levels,” Virat Kohli told Mayank Agarwal in a chat on his show ‘Open Nets with Mayank’

“The ability to bring that intensity in every session, every spell, every hour of batting, even in fielding sessions, stoping that one run or having that magical run-out. They were just able to do it with so much regularity that we were not able to keep up with that,” Virat Kohli added.

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‘I was eating like a mad person’- Virat Kohli on his diet during the 2012 IPL

The inflection point as far as fitness is concerned came for Virat Kohli after the 2012 IPL, where he struggled to emulate his past feats, managing just 364 runs across 12 games. Kohli revealed how he used to finish a pack full of candies in a mere 4-5 days and how he slept like a ‘mad person’

‘So that really bothered me what can we do to change that particular process and it had to start at an individual level first. And that realization came to me after IPL 2012 when I was eating like anything in front of me. ITC Gardenia where we used to stay, they had a packet of eclairs toffees and they would refill the mini-bar every time and I would finish a pack in say 4-5 days time. That was a pack of 40 toffees so that was my diet at the time,” said

‘I was eating like a mad person because that phase happened when I got success and everything happened well and I got into IPL saying I am going to dominate. Things did not turn out that way so I didn’t process that well. So again things happened, I didn’t appreciate and respect it immediately, I was thrown back down then I went back home realised that I need to change everything about the way I am preparing. Changed it from the next day onwards and from then on my whole outlook how I want to prepare has changed,” he added.

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