New Delhi, March 14 -- To most people, a pancake breakfast every morning would seem to herald an indulgent marathon. However, for 39-year-old Vijeta Doneria, a banker from Delhi, it turned out to be an unlikely start to a fitness transformation that changed her relationship not just with food and exercise, but also with herself.

"For 40 days in a row, pancakes were what I would eat for breakfast," she says. "To most people, that is probably a cheat-meal streak, but for me it has been full of different things from around the world that I used to eat to make it healthy," she said. "And this was the start of my fitness journey," she said.

These weren't the usual butter-drenched pancakes of weekend indulgence. Instead, she made high-protein...