After 40 DIETS and knocking off 40 KILOS (and counting), Kalli Purie tells Bazaar how she lost the weight and REINVENTED HERSELF. By Jhelum Biswas Bose

She is seldom ever late. It’s 10:30A. M., and media professional Kalli Purie gracefully glides in for this interview, on the dot. Her meetings are generally scheduled as early as possible in the morning (this is perhaps a late start)—she likes it that way. That’s clearly the sign of a person who is in absolute control of her life. As I sit across her in the conference room, looking at her glowing skin and prominent cheekbones, I am reminded of her in 2005. She was perhaps at her ‘fattest’ then. I would often see her strolling around a south Delhi market complex with a cold coffee and muffin in hand—a far cry from this fit and active corporate diva sitting in front of me, gingerly sipping plain hot water.

Her serious face instantly breaks into an infectious smile and then a hearty laugh when I remind her of those days. “Oh so you have seen me in that 100-kilo phase!” she cries. Yes, I have. And at the same time I tell her of the Harper’s Bazaar India first anniversary party in 2010, when she rocked the dance floor. I didn’t recognise her then and had addressed her as her sister, Koël Purie Rinchet. Kalli is overjoyed to hear this, “I just love it when people see me now and can’t recognise me,” she says. ‘Transformation’ or ‘change’ are terms that are too easy to ddescribeib theh diffdifference bbetween Kkalli lli then and now. What she has undergone is a ‘metamorphosis’, almost a rebirth of sorts. From an angry, overweight, and bitter introvert who could do only one activity in a day— which was more often than not meeting her friends for coffee; she is now a multitasker— energetic, witty, and juggling home, work, and social life with ease—and even running a mmarathon! Unbelievable, right? But true. Was iit easy? Certainly not. “It’s the hardest thing,” ssays the pro who has been there, done that and hhas put it all down in an unputdownable book, Cconfessions of a Serial Dieter (Harpercollins) llaunching this January.

Speaking of the hard struggle to get her life bback in control, Kalli says, “Like alcoholics or ddrug addicts, being addicted to food is a kind oof habit. Cocaine addicts experience something ccalled ‘recall’ where, if they go back to the same ssurroundings where they had had a cocaine hhigh, they start craving for the drug. It’s the ssame for somebody who’s a chocoholic or a ffoodaholic. You go back into the same space eeither emotionally or physically, and you want tthe same food. It has all the symptoms of drug aaddiction. We don’t realise this, and this aattitude needs to change.” She explains, “We nneed to see this as an addiction, and de-addict oneself. You need a support system; you don’t get out of alcohol or drugs on your own, and you need your family or friends to buy into it. You can’t diet in secret. It never works.” And that’s Kalli’s tip number one: Battle weight as a family.

For Kalli, her family has been a great support system. In fact, her mother, she says, has by far been her strictest dietician and trainer.

Mothers, Kalli quips, have a permanent footin-mouth disease. “They always seem to say the wrong things at the wrong time. Though they may phrase it in a wrong way, they know how to get you. This one-liner for instance, ‘No one likes a fat wife’. In a weightloss journey, it’s really important—you need somebody who is going to get you deep under the many layers of fat.” Therefore, the moral of the story and tip number two is: Mom is always right, so listen to her.

Love can also be a great motivator, says Kalli. After all, she had got to her “thinnest” for her then-boyfriend-now-husband. Therefore, tip number three: Find love.

However, the initiative to actually want to deal with weight has to come from within, explains the pro. It has to be triggered by that one heartbreaking moment. “And every fatty has a heartbreaking moment,” surmises Kalli. “If you are fat and overweight, you basically know it, but you need that one trigger that’s going to make you say, ‘Okay, I’m putting my head down now, and I am going to do this.’ For me, it started off with my children. I went to their school one day, and noticed the other mothers looking pretty and slim in their denims. And here I was, the fat mother balanced on the baby chair looking unattractive and so much older than the others—weight definitely adds years. That was my ‘moment’. I wanted to be the best for my children, and being fat was not helping.” Tip number four: Pray that your heartbreaking moment arrives soon.

But that’s just the trigger. Losing weight is actually not that hard; when you get down to it and start seeing results, it’s very motivating. Clothes start fitting and you are in a great place; then to keep the motivation up is the most difficult part. How do you keep it off? And that’s where you start slipping again. The serial dieter confesses that she has slipped up several times. So how do you guard yourself against that? Unfortunately there is no easy, one-stop solution to that. Keeping a tab on yourself could be a good idea. “Maintain a food diary,” says Kalli. “‘I don’t eat anything, but I put on weight’ is a myth,” she declares. “Make the weighing scale your best friend. Visit it daily. Have an honest chat with it. It’s very hard for friends and family to say ‘I love you, but you’re fat’. The weighing scale doesn’t have those issues.” Tip number five: Be your own police.

Kalli tells me that the joy of being able to fit into high-street brands could be another motivator. “You can go with the excuse that brands like Armani and Bottega Veneta design only for a particular body type, but what excuse can you have for a Mango? So now when I walk into a high-street store and can find my fit in every design, it’s a great high,” she says. Tip number six: Aim for the high street.

This is the first time that she has been slim for more than four years. So what’s her resolution for the New Year? “I hope I’ll be thinner and I wish I won’t struggle so much with food. Especially on holiday,” is her prompt reply. I can see that the question of a resolution has got her motivated already; perhaps I have given her fresh target. So to fuel it further I ask if there is a particular dress she would like to fit into. And that gets her really going. She ponders over the question a while, then says, “I don’t just want to fit into a dress; I want to rock it!” I prod her a little more, and she says that in 2012 she wants to ‘rock’ the ultimate white shirt and jeans. “I still can’t do it. Actually, I can, but I don’t look my best in it. I want to look my best, and that’s my ultimate fantasy. You just get up every morning and put on a white shirt and a pair of jeans, and you still look hot. That’s where I want to be.” Tip number seven: Set yourself a new target.

So the idea is to come to a point where you basically do it for yourself, by competing with yourself. “Now I need to keep the weight off because I’ve written the book. There is no choice. Can’t have my cardboard cut out launch the book!” says Kalli. And for others, perhaps having a book like Confessions of a Serial Dieter at hand can be of help. After all, it has got me—a serial procrastinator— motivated enough to get moving. Tip number eight: Believe in your weightloss effort— everyone has a chance.