Ahmed Elbahy never knew the feeling of being fit and healthy.
“I was always fat and almost my whole family was overweight," the 27-year-old engineer said.
"We all like to eat a lot; it is in our genes.
“Being fit was not our focus, I wasn’t raised to be like that.”
He weighed 150kg when he reached a turning point in his life in August 2019.
With a height of 175cm, the Abu Dhabi-born Egyptian said he was “over-obese”.
“I was suddenly fed up with the way I looked and the way people looked at me as a fat person; I couldn’t even be in a relationship,” Mr Elbahy said.
So he made “a final decision” to lose weight.
“Since August 2019 I have lost 62kg. It feels like I dropped another person from my body. Now I am 88kg.”
He started with a strict diet that was limited to liquids and chicken soup.
“I lost a lot of weight during the first month and that was a booster for me to do more,” Mr Elbahy said.
“I decided to join group exercises, so I’ll be encouraged by other people to stay fit.”
He said the group classes helped him to continue “and not get bored”.
Sharing the benefits of losing weight
Mr Elbahy not only became a regular gym-goer, he decided to become a certified instructor.
“One of the exercises that I used to love was body pump, and it made me fall in love with workout because I enjoyed doing it,” he said.
“So I decided to become a certified body-pump instructor to keep doing it and to help motivate other people like me to reach their target.”
He started the certification process with Les Mills Middle East three months ago and passed the course with the help of instructors at his local gym – Gym Nation.
“Before applying for the certification process, I tried to get to know the instructors well and to make myself known to the group classes’ management,” he said.
Fellow gym members helped Mr Elhaby record a video of him teaching a real class that was required to complete the certification process.
Since receiving his certification on May 29, Mr Elhaby has been teaching three body pump classes every week at Gym Nation.
“The number of attendance varies between 20 to 30 people.”
The aspiring coach said he was eager to share the benefits of his transformation with others.
“Losing weight helped me a lot, not only on the fitness level, but also with my personality,” he said.
“I used to be very shy and isolated and hardly communicated with the people around me.
“So it made me gain confidence and become friendly with people.”
Inspired family to become healthier
Mr Elbahy now trains up to five hours a day.
“In the beginning, I could barely endure 30 minutes or an hour a day,” he said.
“Now I train in the morning for about two hours and I come back in the evening for about the same time.
“But I have some resting days of course, the body and muscles need [time] to recover.”
Mr Elbahy said he also inspired his parents to become healthier.
“Their eating habits changed a lot," he said.
"We are using less oil to cook and less fried food. Even the type of food has changed.
“My mother cooks with less salt and sugar now.”
He said he was also persuading them to move more and “start doing some type of exercise at home, step by step”.
Mr Elbahy’s journey had some bumps as well. During quarantine he said he had a slight relapse.
“When we had the lockdown and no gyms were open, I gained a little bit more weight by sitting at home and doing less exercise,” he said.
Mr Elbahy tried to train at home to keep moving, but found it hard to maintain.
“After a while I realised that I started to gain weight again, so I started running everyday down the street, despite the hot weather.”
While Mr Elbahy said he has come a long way since he took the decision to shed the pounds, he would never say that he has reached his ideal weight and insists that his fitness mission is never over.
“One should never say I am satisfied with my weight. I consider fitness a lifestyle now, you don’t reach a certain weight and shape and stop.
“You continue working out to get better endurance and gain more muscles – I will never stop."
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
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Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Fringe@Four Line-up
October 1 - Phil Nichol (stand-up comedy)
October 29 - Mandy Knight (stand-up comedy)
November 5 - Sinatra Raw (Fringe theatre)
November 8 - Imah Dumagay & Sundeep Fernandes (stand-up comedy)
November 13 - Gordon Southern (stand-up comedy)
November 22 - In Loyal Company (Fringe theatre)
November 29 - Peter Searles (comedy / theatre)
December 5 - Sinatra’s Christmas Under The Stars (music / dinner show)
ADCC AFC Women’s Champions League Group A fixtures
October 3: v Wuhan Jiangda Women’s FC
October 6: v Hyundai Steel Red Angels Women’s FC
October 9: v Sabah FA
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week
Types of fraud
Phishing: Fraudsters send an unsolicited email that appears to be from a financial institution or online retailer. The hoax email requests that you provide sensitive information, often by clicking on to a link leading to a fake website.
Smishing: The SMS equivalent of phishing. Fraudsters falsify the telephone number through “text spoofing,” so that it appears to be a genuine text from the bank.
Vishing: The telephone equivalent of phishing and smishing. Fraudsters may pose as bank staff, police or government officials. They may persuade the consumer to transfer money or divulge personal information.
SIM swap: Fraudsters duplicate the SIM of your mobile number without your knowledge or authorisation, allowing them to conduct financial transactions with your bank.
Identity theft: Someone illegally obtains your confidential information, through various ways, such as theft of your wallet, bank and utility bill statements, computer intrusion and social networks.
Prize scams: Fraudsters claiming to be authorised representatives from well-known organisations (such as Etisalat, du, Dubai Shopping Festival, Expo2020, Lulu Hypermarket etc) contact victims to tell them they have won a cash prize and request them to share confidential banking details to transfer the prize money.
* Nada El Sawy
The biog:
Languages: Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, basic Russian
Favourite food: Pizza
Best food on the road: rice
Favourite colour: silver
Favourite bike: Gold Wing, Honda
Favourite biking destination: Canada
The biog
Favourite hobby: taking his rescue dog, Sally, for long walks.
Favourite book: anything by Stephen King, although he said the films rarely match the quality of the books
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption stands out as his favourite movie, a classic King novella
Favourite music: “I have a wide and varied music taste, so it would be unfair to pick a single song from blues to rock as a favourite"
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Company%20Profile
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