Kilo Game - Promoting a healthy and sustainable lifestyle   |25 June 2022

Kilo Game is becoming more and more famous among Seychellois and many have experienced positive changes in their lifestyle thanks to being part of it. The main goal of the programme is to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable manner.

Seychelles NATION had a chat with Jean-Michel Vidot, the founder of Kilo Game. He will be 25 years old this year and has been practising judo since the age of 5.

Seychelles NATION: Please introduce the programme for our readers.

Jean-Michel Vidot: As I have been doing judo for so many years, we do quick weight loss training before a fight. That is when I thought it would be nice to try and introduce it to people but through a longer and safer programme. We are yet to introduce more things.

Kilo Game is a programme initiated with the principal idea of helping people to lose weight. However, there is a whole ecosystem of ways that we try to achieve this. For example, we know that not everyone can do it on their own, so the advantage is that you are in a group. In this group, everyone has the same objective: which is to lose weight. At the same time in this process, the people gain fitness and improvement of health since they are doing sports. When you are exercising in general, your health improves. What we try to do is introduce healthy ways of living to our people. The most important thing in this process is your food intake as only 30% of the programme has to do with exercise. So what we do, since it also depends on the people’s diet, we make sure to provide everyone with a meal plan. This will put them in the state which will allow them to lose weight. So on top of exercise, they also get a proper eating plan which directs them. This eating plan is very hard but in the end, most of the people who have used it consistently have been successful.

Seychelles NATION: What is your aim of having this programme?

Jean-Michel Vidot:My initial aim is to ensure that everyone in Seychelles has a fair chance of having a healthy life or gets enough information about exercise in itself and at the same time try to encourage people to exercise. I’m someone who likes sport and I know that not everyone likes sport, but we should at least like to exercise. Research has shown us that most illnesses, for example cardiovascular diseases, type-2 diabetes, and cancer are directly related to lack of exercise and bad health habits. In Seychelles right now, the number one cause of death is cancer or diabetes.So it is very important for people to exercise and this is why this programme was initiated. In the end, it is not only about exercise though. The people who come, find themselves in a group where they treat everyone as family member, so they get a group that’s very motivated. On top of that, we don’t just do exercise, we organise all kinds of activities like fun runs, charities, hikes, and training camps.

Seychelles NATION: Is it a weight-loss programme or keep-fit programme?

Jean-Michel Vidot: My aim is to at least touch the maximum people in the community as possible. To show them that there is nothing good about being overweight. I know there are many diverse opinions about this, but research shows that being overweight does nothing good for our health, so I do not think we should encourage it. That is my opinion because research shows that being overweight brings all sorts of sickness and this is one of the worst issues that Seychelles is tackling right now. Seychelles has been trying to tackle this issue but without success, therefore we have not been able to reduce obesity. In fact, it has become even worse, and I think this has a direct relation with our diets with modernisation in the food industry.

So this is why I think, more than ever, it’s important that we exercise and when you exercise, it’s important that you have a target. There are those who target to gain weight and those who target to become healthier or to become fit. We target, principally, to help people lose weight. We know that there are people who have to lose weight, so we step in to become the bridge to help them do it.

Seychelles NATION: How many groups do you have and what are the schedules?

Jean-Michel Vidot:Currently, we have four groups in Beau Vallon, Anse Royale, Roche Caïman and Perseverance. We also have some police officers who have started their programme at Bois de Rose. These classes are run every day. For example, at Perseverance and Roche Caïman the sessions take place in the morning, but normal classes are from 3.30pm to 4.30pm, and then there is another class from 5pm to 6pm.

Seychelles NATION:Please describe your activities and your future plans.

Jean-Michel Vidot:As there is a demand, we are looking at the possibility of opening a class on Praslin, and in another region here on Mahe, possibly in the west to cater for people from Port Glaud and Grand Anse because there is a big demand. Hopefully we can do this by the end of July. Praslin is definitely in our plans too.

Actually, I was in consultation with Seychelles Investment Board (SIB). I received a lot of help from them and their workers. I even attended a conference that was held in Dubai in regard to sports tourism to try attracting investors to invest in Kilo Game because right now, our exercises are done on the road, but my plan is to have a headquarters because what we do on the road is basically fifty percent of what I’m thinking of achieving for Kilo Game. Our future plan is really huge, but I will do it in phases. In fact,my portfolio of what I really want to achieve is with the SIB. So hopefully we can get a piece of land soon and put something on it where we can see the real Kilo Game and how it’s supposed to work.

If we were to get a piece of land in the near future now, it would basically have an outdoor area that’s covered properly, where you can exercise until 8pm or even 9pm because I know there are people who work and cannot come during normal times. After that, maybe in two or three years, I want a place where people can come and stay. Sort of like a wellness centre, where a person who feels they are struggling with their weight can come to the centre, get their food here and do their exercise two or three times a day. Their weight is monitored daily. What they eat is monitored. They have a sauna area where they can do their sauna after exercising. There will be a doctor or two, or a medical person there to make sure everything is in order.

The future looks bright enough for now and we will see how it goes.

Sylia Ah-Time and Vidya Gappy