How Global Executive and Father of Two Vivek Yalamanchili Rebuilt His Health in His 40s

Vivek Yalamanchili hadn’t worked out in fifteen years.

Not “fallen off track.” Not “used to be fit.” Fifteen years, full stop, while he built a global role managing a solution architect team spread across Asia, travelling two weeks out of most months, and raising two young kids with his wife in Texas.

Start: 12 January 2026 - 71kg

Checkpoint: 1 July 2026 - 59kg

12kg lost (~26.5lbs)

The Excuse He’d Used His Whole Life

Vivek had heard about RNT more than a year before he joined. A group of friends had gone through the programme, one after another, and each time he’d found a reason to wait.

One friend didn’t even tell him he’d signed up. He just started sending progress pictures of his six-pack. Two more friends followed, one of them a woman, which Vivek says mattered to him - proof it wasn’t just something that worked for one type of person.

“Work, kids, the same excuse I’ve kind of used my entire life. It’s just bad habits.”

He traces some of it further back than his own adult life.

“I think it stems from being an immigrant. My parents never had good habits when it came to fitness, diet, and so on. It’s not just fitness and diet, right? It’s being active, it’s sleeping, it’s doing your cardio. I’ve done parts here and there, but I never brought it all together. I never had the foundation to do it either.”

The Trip That Tipped It Over

At the end of 2025, a family vacation became the moment things finally moved. Vivek estimates he gained 7 to 10lbs on that trip alone.

“When I came back, I just wanted to start with a clear slate.”

He’d turned 40 the year before, and was now in his early 40s. His kids, 5 and 8, were only going to get older, and their schedules were only going to get busier. He noticed his own energy sliding.

“I noticed just my overall energy level around the kids, it was starting to slow down. It was a little bit lethargic during the days, just getting tired from work. My kids are only gonna get older. Things aren’t gonna get less busy. So I just wanted to jump into it.”

Even with all of that lined up, what almost kept him from starting wasn’t doubt about the results. It was the scale of the commitment he thought it would take.

“I thought it would be grinding every day to get there, it would take away from my personal life, my work, my kids, my wife. I thought losing 26 pounds would take 2 years.”

He signed up in January 2026 anyway, and asked his coach directly what percentage of people actually make it through the cut phase, and why the others don’t.

“I jumped in headfirst, to be honest. I stuck to the plan about 95% the first 4 or 5 months.”

Building Structure Into a Schedule With No Room For It

Before RNT, Vivek’s day had no shape to it. Meetings from 5:30am, kids up at 6:30, out the door by 7:30, then work until bedtime, then back to work again.

“It didn’t really have too much structure. Didn’t have a nighttime routine either. If I had time to eat meals, I would eat meals. Most often, I would skip meals. Food consumption was not consistent, sleep was not consistent.”

His coach started him on a home workout plan for the first three months, with equipment he bought specifically for it, fitting 30 to 45 minutes in a few times a week around his global meeting schedule. After three months, he moved to a gym membership instead.

“I signed up for a gym membership because I didn’t want to use the home equipment anymore, and I just needed a change of scenery. I need to be around people that are also working out. I wanted to go work out with my friends.”

He walked constantly during calls too, using a walking pad and stepping outside between meetings, averaging 14,000 to 15,000 steps a day without it ever feeling like a separate task.

“I know some of my friends, everyone had different challenges. For me, the eating was super easy. I knew exactly what I have to eat every day. There’s no decision fatigue. The working out for me was the hardest part.”

Breakfast became the same ingredients every day, wherever he was: egg and vegetables. Lunch and dinner followed the same logic, protein and vegetables, no decisions required.

The nutrition rule that made travel manageable was simple: if he couldn’t count macros, the plate had to be half protein, half vegetables.

“Everywhere I went had salads and protein. It was extremely easy for me to stick to in that sense. I didn’t miss anything. I didn’t really have sugar cravings.”

Finding the time itself came down to logistics with his wife as much as anything else.

“If I can’t squeeze in time between my meetings, it’s just coordinating with my wife, who can watch the kids, who’s at home and whatnot.”

Staying on Track Whilst Travelling

Vivek travels roughly two weeks out of every month, sometimes to remote oil and gas or manufacturing sites where food options are limited. His strategy was to plan ahead rather than adapt in the moment - hitting his steps before or after a site visit if he couldn’t get them during, and shifting his lifting sessions earlier or later in the week to protect his weekly minimums.

He also cut out alcohol almost entirely for the first four to five months, despite regular client entertaining.

“I basically did no alcohol for the first 4, 5 months at least. I just had my water. Nobody really asked why I’m not drinking.”

Water itself turned out to be one of the biggest gaps he didn’t know he had. He went from barely drinking any to two to three litres a day.

“There were probably years where I had a glass of water per day. Like I never knew the importance of water. At first it felt like too much water, but it just became natural. I have water everywhere I go now.”

The hardest part wasn’t the food or the travel. It was staying consistent once results started showing.

“I noticed if I deviated off track, it was hard for me to get back on track. So I just didn’t want to deviate off track. That was the hardest part.”

At one point his sleep suffered badly due to work pressure. Rather than trying to hold everything at once, he and his coach made a call.

“We kind of made my sleep a priority over diet, lifting, walking.”

The trade-off wasn’t small. Once his kids went to bed, the evening had always been his and his wife’s time together, TV, conversation, the only real space to themselves in the day. Protecting sleep meant giving some of that up.

“After my kids went to bed, I would enjoy my alone time with my wife before the day is over. But it was just a non-negotiable factor for me, where once the kids went to bed, I made a point to sleep 30 minutes later. I didn’t want to screw around with it.”

He landed on a sustainable bedtime of 10pm, which also closed off a habit he hadn’t fully named before.

“I definitely used to snack quite a bit at night while watching TV or just hanging out or talking to friends. Just going to bed early eliminates quite a bit of that.”

The mindset shift ran deeper than any single habit.

“I never really thought about what I’m consuming. If I was hungry, I ate. Now, before I eat anything or drink anything, it’s the first thing I think about. It’s a complete shift in the way I think.”

Hitting The Checkpoint

“It felt like an achievement. Everyone says, oh, I didn’t think you had that much weight to lose. That’s one of the things I learned, everyone has a lot more weight to lose than they think from their starting point.”

One of the smaller wins came from something he’d never learned how to do before: properly flexing his abs.

“I didn’t know how to flex my abs. So Coach taught me how to flex my abs. It’s like the first thing I check in the morning, if I flex my abs, if they’re somewhat visible, I feel ok.”

Coach sent him guides and videos to learn the technique properly, since the instinct to suck in is the opposite of what actually works.

“You gotta push them out. So that’s why I didn’t know.”

He’s since found a rough number that works for him, close to 130lbs at 5’8”, as a marker for where he wants to stay.

“135 seems to be around that range. I never want to go to a point where I don’t have abs anymore. If I stray away from it, I notice right away.”

The change reached further than his own health. His kids noticed he’d stopped drinking soda entirely.

“My kids always tell me, ‘you haven’t had soda in the past year.’ A lot of it is through osmosis. I never told them they had to do what I’m doing, but they enjoy eating salads now.”

They’ve also started taking his weekly check-in photos themselves, something Vivek finds equal parts touching and mortifying.

“It’s kind of embarrassing, cause when we’re around other family members or my friends, they’re always saying their dad is jacked, their dad is ripped, their dad drinks, eats a lot of protein. I’m like, no, don’t say things like that, there’s always someone bigger and stronger. But it’s been nice.”

Looking back at everything that had to come together, Vivek is clear it was never any single change that did it.

“A lot of these basic principles that build the foundation, I never had. I went into it thinking, work as hard as possible at the gym, run as much as I can. But it’s all these other factors that bring in the transformation, like being consistent with sleep, being consistent with water, being consistent with your steps. For me, I need to find a way to not just do one, two, or three of those things, but kind of do all five together going forward.”

At work, the shift showed up as steadier energy through the day.

“A lot more energy, a lot more focus. I’m able to power through the day pretty easily now. Before, my energy levels were kind of up and down.”

Sleep remains the one piece he’s still working on, as his work moves through busier and quieter cycles.

“I have a good grasp on eating, drinking water, walking. But the sleep has been one internal challenge I really need to grapple with for the rest of the process.”

What’s Next

Vivek isn’t chasing a leaner number so much as a maintainable one. Visible abs, not a full six-pack, with the option to tighten up quickly if he needs to.

“If I do need to cut, being able to cut in two weeks and get down to a really performance level is what I want to be at.”

He’s heading into an investment phase next, building on the foundation rather than chasing another number down.

What He’d Tell Other Dads Turning 40

Asked what he’d say to a busy professional in his old position, still putting off the decision, Vivek doesn’t hesitate.

“Just jump in, trust your coach, and seriously, the weight falls off. I never thought I was obese or had a lot of fat to lose. I certainly didn’t think I had that much to lose. But you’ll see the results within a month, and the results will keep motivating you to keep going.”

He thought the process would take years and cost him time with his family. It didn’t.

“I thought it would be grinding every day to get there, it would take away from my personal life, my work, my kids, my wife. But you really can incorporate this and get results really quickly. That’ll be the first thing I’d tell anyone I’d recommend, you can do this, keep your lifestyle, and coming out the other end, just learn more about your body, especially what goes in.”

His final word on the process was simple.

“Trust the process and stay as consistent as you can. Keep communication with your coach. Do your daily updates on the app and the results speak for themselves.”

Want results like Vivek’s? Book a call with our team to start your journey.