After being diagnosed with Chron's disease 3 years ago, Nisha started researching ways to control her condition. She shares her journey to healing and how TNC's complementary approach of diet and lifestyle has worked wonders for her.
How did you find out about functional nutrition and helped you make the leap?
"I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease (which is an autoimmune condition) 3 years back and I had constipation and diarrhea alternatively and lost a lot of weight.
One of my biggest issues was that I was losing weight and my body wasn't absorbing what I ate since my gut was inflamed. I was constantly fatigued to the point that my body was only functioning in survival mode.
2 years back, I started meditation on the advice of a relative and felt better. At that time, with a positive mindset I started researching for ways to take control of the condition of my autoimmune conditions and about gut health - that's how I chanced upon functional nutrition.
I followed some of the advices of the experts in the field of functional medicine and saw benefits in terms of exercise and mindset - but try I did, I wasn't able to adjust my diet.
Food tracking and finding alternatives were not easy, and in many cases, needs to be personalised to the person's biochemistry. For example, one food that my body can breakdown and absorb, another person may not be able to tolerate.
I decided I needed help in that and was excited to find TNC. Throughout the process, I worked closely with the team. Pooja (Functional Nutritionist) understood the kind of food I ate and helped build the diet around food and ingredients that were familiar and suited my tastes.
That said, any kind of diet change requires committment from both parties, I was also committed to adjust a little in terms of taking non-vegetarian supplements because I was not ok with taking meat.
Were the dietary changes easy to adopt for you? What kind of support helped you most?
Dietary changes are difficult, yes. But when I started, I was determined to do this for sure - it was sort of a last resort for me. A variety of things made it doable for me:
1. Pooja's willingness to work around the things I normally eat. For eg, I had to take a high protein diet and was vegetarian - so she suggested green moong dal and hummus.
2. Both Pooja and Bonnie provided a lot of recipes that could replicate dishes I normally ate, as well never push me to try newer things. They took it slow.
3. The biggest support was helping me understand my trigger for wanting certain foods - and rewiring how I can think about it, and also finding alternatives for the same.
4. Bonnie (wellness coach) gave me practical ways to meal prep as my meals were different from what I cooked for the family.
People often say that it’s hard to have a social life when you’re on a diet. Bonnie helped me tackle my mindset around keeping up with my diet while socialising with friends and family so that I can still enjoy being social.
A complete support system
Starting with all the tests and Pooja carved out a diet plan for me. It was gratifying to see her take our preferences in consideration and find recipes and options from foods we normally eat. The monthly calls with Bonnie helped me mentally cope with the diet change and healing process.
As with any condition, the right mindset is key to healing. Bonnie is wonderful at guiding me through gratitude practices and journaling as means to understand my own mentality.
They both are also very receptive to discuss any other roadblocks we may have in our healing journey and propose solutions to achieve the full effect of the treatment because functional medicine is all about looking at our body in it's entirety and not just as a condition.
Nisha started creating art as part of her healing journey
How are you maintaining your health post membership?
After 1 year of the membership, I am continuing most of the diet changes because cutting down on dairy, gluten and sugar is a win for me.
I am more aware of my body and know when to rest. I don't always eat clean, but that's okay because you understand the rhythm of your body, and you know how to recouperate.
Most of all, I make sure to keep my mindset around healing positive, I give myself grace and maintain discipline in putting my healing first.
Pooja and Bonnie basically give you the keys to heal yourself and the wisdom for when to ask for help.
After 1 year, I have healthily gained 8 kgs and no longer have a 'eat to survive' mentality.
I genuinely feel the complementary approach of handling any condition physically (through medicines, supplements, diet changes) and mentally (through support on mindset change, encouragement and accountability) worked wonders for me. Highly recommend Pooja and Bonnie for their calm and intuitive healing 'leadership' for any condition one has!
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