# How I Lost 40kg, Built 4 Gyms in 10 Years, Then Exited at 47

*The full operator-to-investor playbook from an Indian-Australian who didn't have one.*

---

I came to Australia from India in the late 1990s as an international student. By the time I was 25, I weighed 110 kilograms. By 47, I had lost 40kg, written a book about it, opened four gyms across two continents, exited them, and started running ultramarathons.

This is what happened in between — and what I'd tell anyone standing where I stood.

## The 110kg cubicle

I got into IT. Built a career. Stopped moving. The body became the engine I never serviced. Long hours, sedentary work, late dinners, no exercise. The weight didn't arrive in one year — it arrived in five. By the time I noticed, I was 40 kilograms heavier than I should have been.

The transformation took two years. Not three months. Not "lose 30 pounds in 30 days." Two years of structured training, deliberate nutrition changes, and showing up when I didn't want to. I lost the 40kg.

People kept asking me how. So in 2017 I wrote *The New You: 10 proven strategies for weight loss and better health.* It was officially launched by the Hon. Heidi Victoria, former Victorian Minister, in Melbourne. SBS Hindi ran the story twice that year on the national broadcast.

## The decade of gyms

I quit IT in 2016 and opened Keystone Fitness Club in Upper Ferntree Gully. Then Craigieburn in 2017. Then a franchise in Ghaziabad, India, in 2018. Then Truganina in 2025.

Four gyms in two countries over ten years.

Here's what nobody tells you about scaling a brick-and-mortar fitness business: the unit economics are brutal. Equipment depreciates. Membership churns. Staff turnover is the single biggest cost most operators underestimate.

I sold Truganina in March 2026. Craigieburn wound down in December 2025. The operator chapter closed cleanly. Ten years, four locations, plenty of scars.

## What I'm doing next

I'm not running another gym. Here's why.

The body of work I built in fitness was about *transformation* — getting one person from where they were to where they wanted to be. The skills that drove that — building systems, managing teams, reading P&Ls, marketing to a specific demographic, surviving the slow-paid months — those skills transfer.

They transfer to industrial property (Fairmont Property Group). They transfer to AI ops infrastructure for small business (HelloReception). They transfer to mentoring founders who are about to make the mistakes I already made.

## What the receipts taught me

Every business is a body. You can't fake the work. You can't outsource the transformation. The numbers don't lie — when revenue is flat for six months, something is broken upstream of the P&L. Usually you.

I'm 47. I've got three kids. I'm running ultramarathons (Comrades 89km, Everest Marathon at 5,364m altitude). The body is finally moving in the direction it should have been moving the whole time.

If you're 35-55 and carrying weight you can't shake — physical or otherwise — the playbook works. It's slower than you want. It's harder than the influencers say. But it works.

The book is free at [mannyadhana.com/the-new-you](https://mannyadhana.com/the-new-you/). The four ways to work with me are at [mannyadhana.com/work-with-manny](https://mannyadhana.com/work-with-manny/).

I'm still moving.

---

*Manny Adhana is an Indian-Australian author, ultrarunner, and operator-turned-investor based in Melbourne. He runs [mannyadhana.com](https://mannyadhana.com/). Follow him on Instagram [@mannysinghadhana](https://www.instagram.com/mannysinghadhana/).*