Gym boot camps for Mumbai’s to-be-weds

Besides wedding trousseaus, invitation cards and elaborate menus, squats, crunches and bicep curls have entered the pre-nuptial universe of the city’s brides-and grooms-to-be. Lina Choudhury reports.

Besides wedding trousseaus, invitation cards and elaborate menus, squats, crunches and bicep curls have entered the pre-nuptial universe of the city’s brides-and grooms-to-be.

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With the wedding season around the corner, they are signing up in droves for programmes that gyms and fitness instructors have created especially for them.

“When the celebrations leading up to the wedding have begun, a bride-to-be is prone to adding on calories,” said Leena Mogre. “We started our ‘Bridal Boot Camp’ to make brides and grooms look their best on their wedding day without having to go on crash diets.”

Namita Jain, a fitness instructor in Colaba, has at least three brides working out at her studio at any given time.
She said that a bride-to-be should ideally approach a trainer three months before her wedding.

“I enrolled in the boot camp to tone my waistline and paunch so that I could fit in to my chaniya choli,” said Sonali Mehta, who is getting married soon.

Fitness expert Hemal Shah, who has helped several brides get in to shape, said that working out also helped lower brides’ stress levels.

Grooms are also sweating it out. Rajiv Gupta, one of the seven grooms who has enrolled in the camp, said he started feeling the change within just a week of training.

“Most grooms sign up to get rid of their double chins and extra kilos,” said Dr Uma Jha, a doctor at VLCC, a beauty and fitness chain.