From being fat, depressed, suicidal, unattractive, financially broke, constipated and exhausted all the time, I have come to a point I’ve ever felt more mentally and physically healthy in my entire life.
As a kid I was an anemic, underweight sickly child with very poor immunity. I would have frequent sinus infections and skin rashes. I remember suffering from chronic intestinal parasites too as a child.
When I was 15, I had a major accident (which put me in a coma for a day) and I suffered from traumatic brain injury. I was put on anti-epileptic medicines to prevent any possibility of seizures. I didn’t have any seizures for sure, but what I did get instead was severe side effects like migraines, daytime drowsiness, generalized anxiety and depression.
During this time, my family moved to a different city and I was uprooted from my familiar environment which worsened the side effects of the drugs I was on. As a result, I developed severe social anxiety.
To get over my social anxiety and to fit in with my peers, I got addicted to junk food- instant noodles, colas and candy. That was the beginning of my journey into obesity. As I hit puberty, thanks to the antiepileptics and the junk food I was eating I started suffering from severe mood swings ranging from extreme anger episodes to bouts of crying over trivial issues. I was an emotional basket case and I used food as a solution to deal with this. I continued to get obese.
I had a pretty conventional upper middle class upbringing, I was expected to finish college, get married & have children & a sufficiently undemanding career. For 37 years, I went with the flow of what my ideal life was supposed to be, dictated by societal norms.
While I am grateful that even then all my needs were met, life began to feel empty and meaningless. I often felt that the mediocre life I was living was keeping me from reaching my full potential (I had no idea what this was). I accepted all of my emotional issues and my addiction to food as normal. Life went on, and I started experimenting with weight loss diets which ensured my internal health kept worsening.
If this wasn’t enough, pregnancy escalated everything that was going wrong. My weight ballooned, I was diagnosed with depression and I was put on antidepressants after childbirth.
I began earnest attempts to lose weight, from starving myself to keto diets to weight loss shakes to fat burner pills to intense workouts in the gym. None of them gave sustainable results. I stayed fat as ever, becoming more and more hopeless with each failed attempt. The antidepressants led to more weight gain and additional hormonal problems.
The irony of it was that I was a Nutritionist with a Master’s degree in Nutrition and had the worst possible relationship with food.
I would have frequent energy crashes (I didn’t know I was insulin resistant and pre-diabetic). I was already dependent on tea, but with these energy crashes, I got addicted to coffee as well just so that I could get through the day. Along with chronic daytime sleepiness, I now had persistent brain fog that would clear up only temporarily when I had tea or coffee.
One day in mid June 2017, I drank 8 cups of tea and a couple of cups of coffee just to get through the day and I still crashed by 8 pm, I remember my 6.5 yr old daughter shaking me awake so that I could give her dinner. That was the day I realized something was drastically wrong with my health.
I quit all stimulants cold turkey the next day and I couldn’t get out of bed for 2 days. It was the SCARIEST time of my life. That was my rock bottom. I realised my addictions had permitted me to live in denial of my state of poor health and had kept me going. From that day, I sincerely began to work towards improving myself. I got my blood work done to look for answers.
I was swung helplessly between incorrect diagnosis, ineffective treatments and inconsiderate practitioners and I began losing all hope of ever getting back my health.
I spent almost 1.5 lakh INR on tests and doctors, with no answers. Because of my poor health my work took a hit as well and I went completely broke. Thankfully I could rely on friends who bailed me out financially. This was undoubtedly the lowest point of my existence.
That’s when I dove deep into functional nutrition, learnt whatever I could about the root causes of what makes us sick, learnt how to read blood reports and learned that I was suffering from deficiencies, chronic infections, heavy metal toxicity and multiple organ dysfunctions.
I soon realised that a lot of people were going through health issues like I had and no one was addressing this with any care or authenticity. 3 years ago I decided to launch Thrive so that I could offer these simple solutions for permanent good health to anyone who wanted them. With Thrive my toughest moment has been to prove that an effective alternative to the conventional healthcare system exists. My biggest success has been that people believed in my model and started trusting me to take care of their health.
I stumbled upon my connection with the Universe and explored the spiritual aspect of my existence and my experiences. I held this deep belief that the Universe had my back.
All I knew was that my terrible experiences were teaching me something I needed to learn and once I mastered those lessons, there was magic lying in wait for me. This knowledge gave me a sense of security and courage to get through this phase.
I walked out of a marriage that was based on society’s model of relationships (the-so-called-perfect-family image) and in doing so, I had to give up custody of my only daughter as I didn’t have the resources to fight that battle in court.
As I got over that heartbreak, I continued to work on my own self, from joining a cult in pursuit of spiritual knowledge to downsizing my material possessions to just 2 bags weighing 29.8 kgs and traveling to wherever my heart took me as a nomad entrepreneur, from cutting cords with everyone I once knew to regrowing them with love and care, from meditating to find my own sanity, to teaching people how meditation can accomplish mind-body-soul healing. From being completely broke to now being a successful entrepreneur running a funded company it has been quite a journey.
I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything else. The last three years have been the most fulfilling years of my life. I am grateful for the kindness that random strangers and close friends have showered me with during this time, it only makes me want to give back more to this world.
In 2018, after having worked with 100’s of people I began to envision healing 1 Million people, but I knew I couldn’t do it on my own so I asked the Universe for help, and not only did I receive funding but also managed to bring together a brilliant team of nutritionists that are doing a phenomenal job in helping people reverse chronic health conditions. My goal is to position iThrive as the gold standard in healthcare and a trusted brand valued for its radical honesty and deep integrity.
