SINGAPORE — For Aju Murjani, a typical Sunday morning breakfast used to consist of about 40 crackers, eight pancakes drenched with a generous amount of maple syrup, eggs and a large cup of coffee.

Barely three hours later, he would help himself to a fried snack before having a heavy chicken biryani lunch with his family. He would then nap for two hours, before heading to a nearby McDonald’s, where he would have two burgers, a large portion of fries, a large coke and an apple pie for dinner.

If he felt peckish, he would wolf down three plates of chicken rice in one sitting.

Consuming such a large amount of food was a daily affair for Murjani, who came from a “happy-go-lucky, plus-sized family”.

But Murjani, the youngest of three siblings (he has two older sisters), was pampered by his parents and grandparents, and was the biggest in the family. His enormous appetite, coupled with his sedentary lifestyle, saw the then-18-year-old tipping the scales at a whopping 168kg.

Unsurprisingly, the 1.68m-tall Murjani faced several problems because of his weight.

“For me, the biggest challenge of being that heavy was having to struggle to do simple things,” said Murjani, 37, in an interview with TODAY. “Things like breathing and walking became difficult for me.

“It was also a challenge to be meaningfully included in activities. I was always made to play as a goalkeeper in football because the joke was that I blocked the entire goal.

“After a while, I started to exclude myself from activities because I felt like I wasn’t able to do them. So I went into this mode of playing computer games and hardly doing anything active, and food became a comfort to me.”

NATIONAL SERVICE TRIGGERED A CHANGE

But things came to a head when Murjani went for a medical screening ahead of his enlistment into National Service (NS) in 1998. His obesity led to him being assigned to Physical Employment Status (PES) ‘E’, which meant that he was deemed to be fit only for administrative duties.

Murjani began questioning his purpose in life, and he decided to make losing weight one of his life’s goals.

“I had a conversation with myself and I began asking if eating and playing computer games is all there is to life,” said Murjani. “I didn’t know what my purpose was at that time, and I thought that losing weight would be an important step to finding what that purpose was.”

That marked the start of his remarkable weight loss journey.

While Murjani successfully appealed for a higher PES status and entered NS under the PES BP (Fit for Obese Basic Military Training) classification, the first few weeks were a huge struggle for him.

Even the most basic of exercises was a challenge, as he took 32 minutes to finish a 2.4km walk, and he fell ill eight days after enlisting.

While he considered giving up on BMT, his determination to lose weight ultimately won out and he persevered. He lost 7kg after just two weeks, and at the end of his BMT, had cut his weight down to 130kg.

However, there were temptations aplenty for Murjani to overcome.

“My family, as well as my groups of friends, all love to go out and eat,” recalled Murjani. “So there were many times when we would go out and they’d be eating things like roti prata and drinking sugary drinks, and all I’d be having is a mug of green tea.

“At first, my friends didn’t understand what I was going through and would try to tempt me to eat. But that soon changed after they realised that I was serious. Still, it wasn’t easy for me to resist eating, so I decided to keep my outings few and far between in order to reduce the opportunity for temptation.”

The one time Murjani caved to temptation was immediately after his BMT, when he got “over-excited” and put on 3kg in three days after failing to watch his diet.

However, a passing comment from a friend, who remarked that he appeared to be growing fatter, served as a wake-up call.

He realised that losing weight was a long-term process that required a combination of dieting, exercise and sufficient rest. Determined to keep going, he signed on with a private gym so he could keep training after booking out of camp, and began paying attention to the amount of food he consumed, and the number of hours of sleep he got.

To keep himself motivated, Murjani kept his eye on his weight-loss numbers, noting how much his body and life changed for the better with each kilogramme lost.

“When you begin to lose weight, you get motivated when you look at yourself and see the difference,” explained Murjani. “I felt lighter, managed to breathe easier, and was able to do things like climb stairs much faster.

“As I exercised, I began to learn more about myself and my body. Eventually, I was able to go for runs without hurting my knees. I became more resolute to continue losing weight as I began to reap the benefits of being lighter.”

At the end of his two-year NS stint, Murjani had lost 80kg. He went on to lose another 10kg the next year, bringing his weight down to 78kg. His total weight loss? A whopping 90kg over three years.

LIGHTER BODY, BETTER LIFE

His journey has changed his life for the better, said Murjani. “Confidence came naturally when I lost the weight,” he said. “I began to think more clearly, as my mind doesn’t have to battle with the size of my body. “The other thing that happened when I lost weight was: More opportunities opened up. It’s something people don’t say openly, but it happens. The truth is, if you’re overweight, you generally need to do more, compared with regular-sized people, to make a positive impression.”

More than 10 years since his weight-loss journey, Murjani, who is married with a one-year-old son, now maintains his weight at around 78kg.

He has kept to that weight with regular exercise of at least 45min a day, spending time at the gym or on road runs. He has also tried to keep a balanced diet, compensating for heavy meals by reducing his intake over the next two days.

Nonetheless, keeping a healthy weight is not an easy task for the busy executive — Murjani is managing director of HR outsourcing service provider Excelity Global.

“When you have to juggle various commitments such as work, family and exercise, it becomes tough to maintain your weight,” said Murjani, who is writing a book about his weight-loss journey.

“But if you really want to be healthy, you have to reflect that in your life. You don’t lose weight by following a two to three month programme and forgetting about it after that.

“If you’re serious about being healthy, you have to find the purpose in it, and have to go after it. It’s not just about losing weight — it is about changing your entire lifestyle.”

Aju Murjani’s top 3 tips for weight loss:

1. Have a long-term purpose (avoid starving or “ping pong” diets!) - finding your purpose for losing weight will help youthrough the journey.

2. Eat, sleep and exercise well - effective weight loss requires a change in lifestyle, and these three aspects are crucial to that.

3) Talk and listen to your body - this is the best way to understand what works best for you and your body. Everybody is different. What works for someone might not work for you.