An inspirational story!

In the last few years, I have seen my clients turn their life around by changing their diet and lifestyle. Many of my clients have lost extra weight, reversed their diabetes, got rid of PCOS symptoms, eliminated constipation, brought down their cholesterol and triglycerides, eliminated stress and lowered chronic pain and aches. How did they do it? They did it by taking complete responsibility for their own health and wellness.

Today, I want to share an inspiring story of one such person who changed her life 180 degrees within just few months. This person happens to be my dear sister who is now almost 52 years old - sorry sis for sharing :) and is a grand mother of two lovely children. In the past, she never took good care of her health and (Unhealthy) foods, snacks and sodas (Coke, Pepsi etc.) were her go-to foods. In fact, she ate like this pretty much all of her adult life. When she was in her early 40's, she started developing pain in her knees. She would take some pain killers and the pain would subside. But after a while it would came back again and she would take the medications to deal with it. Soon the pain became so severe that the medications stopped working and she had to resort to cortisone injections. Again, it worked for a while but the pain kept coming back and she had to go for the injections multiple times. While this was going on, she started noticing pain in the back of her neck, followed by blackouts. The pain soon became very strong and she had to go for an X-Ray which showed severe compression in her neck. For this she was given a neck brace, pain killers and muscle relaxants. If that was not enough, she also developed hypothyroidism for which she was prescribed medication. This all happened in the space of just 1 year. In all of her visits to various doctors no one even once asked her about her diet & lifestyle or suggested any changes.

Since she hadn't changed the root cause of her pain i.e. unhealthy diet and lifestyle, her knee and neck pain continued to worsen and eventually became chronic in nature. She couldn't bend her knee or neck and had to wear a brace (for both) many weeks at a time. In this whole process, she also gained weight and developed chronic constipation symptoms which lead to piles. All the pain and suffering that she went through caused extreme stress in her life and unfortunately, unhealthy foods choices became her only stress buster.

Sometime back she came to the United States to visit me and my family. I hadn't seen her for few years and was completely taken a back when I saw her in that condition. Her body looked inflamed and she had put on excess weight. Since she was here on vacation and wanted to enjoy her time with me and my family, I didn't push her much. However, after observing her eating habits for few days, I couldn't take it anymore and the health coach in me came out :)

I sat her down and explained how her kidneys and liver are in grave danger. I also told her that how the unhealthy food is causing her to gain weight and that it will hasten her march towards developing diabetes and high blood pressure. I made her see "Forks Over Knives" documentary to inspire her and also made her an anti inflammatory weight loss plan. My wife who is great at cooking healthy meals taught her how to prepare healthy whole foods plant-based meals which taste great as well. Since she had become clearly deficient in some key nutrients I suggested some supplements to improve her overall health. While she was with me, I also convinced her to learn and practice "SKY Breathing" for stress reduction because I knew stress causes her to crave for unhealthy foods. I also enrolled her on a twice a week Yoga class with my amazing certified Yoga teacher (Milauni Nagar). She took her under her wings and and taught her yoga asanas (poses) that greatly improved her flexibility and opened her tight joints.

Thankfully, the little pep talk that I had made her realize that she has to take charge of her own health if she wants to live a healthy life going forward. While she was with us she enthusiastically ate all the super healthy meals that my wife prepared for her and also cut down on her snacking as well. As a result she started feeling a lot better and ended up loosing about 8 pounds as a result.

She went back after spending few weeks with us but since than she has continued to follow the anti-inflammatory diet that I had recommended along with practicing SKY breathing exercise and Yoga daily. Even though it was a challenging for her in the beginning to prepare healthy meals for herself, she continued to put in the required effort to learn more about nutrition. She started seeing more improvements in her health which inspired her to continue on her health journey. Fast forward to now and she is at a weight that is perfect for her height. She is easily able to maintain it with healthy diet and lifestyle habits. Even though she does indulge once a while, she has become much more conscious of her food choices. Now she has much more energy and spends a lot of time playing with her grand kids. Her chronic knee and neck pain have disappeared and she can walk for miles. She doesn't need any medications for her knee or neck pain. Her thyroid has also improved significantly and her digestive health is better than what it was few years back. She feels at least 10 years younger.

The left most picture is when she came to see me few months back and the middle and right one are the latest ones. You can see how she is rolling back her age by simply following a health promoting diet and a healthy lifestyle.