Shas­tri Boodan

GML Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

When Dr Rishad Seecher­an walked in­to the Min­istry of Health af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health fol­low­ing the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, he made a per­son­al de­ci­sion that would ul­ti­mate­ly trans­form not on­ly his ap­pear­ance but al­so his out­look on pub­lic health.

One year lat­er, the 47-year-old Ca­roni East MP has shed an as­ton­ish­ing 75 pounds, drop­ping from ap­prox­i­mate­ly 235 pounds to 160 pounds through dis­ci­plined eat­ing habits, reg­u­lar ex­er­cise and sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Stand­ing at six feet one inch tall, Dr Seecher­an says his ap­point­ment to the health port­fo­lio served as the cat­a­lyst for the dra­mat­ic lifestyle change.

“En­ter­ing the Min­istry of Health, I felt the need to pro­mote health and well­ness,” he said.

“As a Ju­nior Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health, I took it up­on my­self to be­come health­i­er and lead by ex­am­ple.”

His trans­for­ma­tion did not come through ex­pen­sive fit­ness pro­grammes or fad di­ets. In­stead, Dr Seecher­an com­mit­ted him­self to a dis­ci­plined rou­tine com­bin­ing in­ter­mit­tent fast­ing, dai­ly ex­er­cise and health­i­er food choic­es.

He trains reg­u­lar­ly at the Min­istry of Health’s gym with a fit­ness in­struc­tor and of­ten joins min­istry staff for work­outs. He al­so in­cor­po­rates car­dio ses­sions by walk­ing around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Un­like con­ven­tion­al di­et plans that rec­om­mend a large break­fast fol­lowed by small­er meals through­out the day, Dr Seecher­an adopt­ed a dif­fer­ent ap­proach.

“I ac­tu­al­ly skipped break­fast com­plete­ly,” he ex­plained.

“I would have fruits for lunch and then one nor­mal meal for din­ner, along with a lot of cof­fee.”

The ad­just­ment was not easy.

“The first cou­ple of months were very dif­fi­cult. I couldn’t al­ways make it to noon with­out eat­ing and would some­times break the fast around ten or 11 am. But over time, my body adapt­ed.”

To­day, his eat­ing sched­ule has be­come rou­tine. He typ­i­cal­ly fasts un­til noon and has his fi­nal meal by six pm.

The ben­e­fits, he said, ex­tend far be­yond the num­ber on the scale.

“It’s much eas­i­er to move around now. Just this morn­ing, I joined a walk­a­bout along Chin Chin Road with of­fi­cers from the Cunu­pia Po­lice Sta­tion. We walked for more than two hours, and I felt noth­ing - no pain in my knees, no dis­com­fort in my an­kles. My en­durance and mo­bil­i­ty have im­proved tremen­dous­ly.”

Dr Seecher­an al­so dis­missed the com­mon be­lief that healthy eat­ing is ex­pen­sive.

“It’s ac­tu­al­ly much cheap­er,” he said.

“Be­fore, I ate a huge break­fast, a huge lunch and a huge din­ner. When you cut out a meal and re­duce your por­tions, you ac­tu­al­ly spend less.”

Work­ing in the Min­istry of Health has al­so giv­en him a first-hand ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the long-term con­se­quences of obe­si­ty and poor lifestyle choic­es.

“Every day we see the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with hy­per­ten­sion, di­a­betes, heart dis­ease, car­diac surgery and dial­y­sis,” he said.

“That gave me the im­pe­tus to re­alise I had to get my own health un­der con­trol.”

He cred­its Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, whom he de­scribes as a “fit­ness junkie”, for pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al mo­ti­va­tion.

“Dr Bo­doe watch­es his di­et close­ly; he’s ex­treme­ly fit, and he even gave me books on fast­ing af­ter I joined the min­istry. He’s al­so lost a sig­nif­i­cant amount of weight him­self.”

For Dr Seecher­an, the lessons learned are sim­ple and ac­ces­si­ble to every­one, re­gard­less of in­come.

“You don’t need an ex­pen­sive gym mem­ber­ship,” he said.

“Take the stairs in­stead of the lift, walk in­stead of dri­ving short dis­tances, use the parks and recre­ation grounds around the coun­try. The im­por­tant thing is sim­ply to keep mov­ing.”

He rec­om­mends re­duc­ing fat­ty and oily foods, lim­it­ing ex­ces­sive car­bo­hy­drates and in­creas­ing pro­tein in­take while in­cor­po­rat­ing dai­ly car­dio­vas­cu­lar ex­er­cise such as walk­ing, cy­cling or jog­ging un­der med­ical su­per­vi­sion.

But per­haps the great­est chal­lenge, he ac­knowl­edged, is men­tal dis­ci­pline.

“The hard­est part is de­vel­op­ing the mind­set and the willpow­er to be­gin and to stay con­sis­tent. Many peo­ple lose a few pounds and then re­turn to their old habits.”

He stressed that healthy liv­ing does not mean elim­i­nat­ing favourite foods en­tire­ly.

“No one is say­ing don’t eat KFC, don’t eat dou­bles or don’t eat an aloo pie,” he laughed.

“Every­thing in mod­er­a­tion—that’s the best way for­ward.”

For lunch, he keeps things sim­ple, choos­ing sea­son­al fruits such as ba­nanas and or­anges, pur­chased dai­ly from a near­by su­per­mar­ket by mem­bers of his staff.

As the Min­istry of Health pre­pares to launch a na­tion­al fit­ness ini­tia­tive aimed at en­cour­ag­ing health­i­er lifestyles, Dr Seecher­an hopes his own ex­pe­ri­ence will in­spire oth­ers to make small but last­ing changes.

His mes­sage is straight­for­ward: im­prov­ing one’s health does not re­quire wealth, on­ly com­mit­ment.

“It’s not a ques­tion of mon­ey,” he said.

“Any­body can start. You just have to make the de­ci­sion to move.”