I Reversed My Age With Rachna

“Reverse ageing with Rachna helped me lose weight and knock off years.”

– S. Sivakumar, Group Head – Agri & IT Businesses at ITC Limited

When Shiv (S. Sivakumar, Group Head – Agri & IT Businesses at ITC Limited) came to me, his body language was closed. He had some health issues, some reports were out of range, he had severe knee pain, hypertension and was 40 kg overweight. At the age of 57, 114 kilos, his work meant 20 days of travel every month. As group head of Agri businesses and IT at ITC, he is leading a large team and a lot of responsibility was on his shoulders.

It was not that he was unaware of his health issues and had not tried earlier. But lack of time and a packed schedule along with travel always affected the consistency of input. He and his colleague and buddy Nazeeb Arif, Head of Corporate Affairs, ITC, decided to get healthier together in 2017. They would check into a health centre for a week, lose weight, go on with life as normal and gain it right back. This pattern continued for almost 2 years till Shiv began to get chronic knee pain and realised that his travel would be affected and hence, his work output would suffer. When Nazeeb reached out to me, he urged Shiv to do the same.

So here we were, in my clinic on a cool December afternoon in Bandra West, Mumbai. I had to step out for an emergency and Shiv had to wait, and he was not used to waiting. We sat and discussed for 40 minutes on what my program would target and how it would systematically help him with his various issues which were attributed to accelerated ageing and high stress levels due to his work. We would reduce inflammation and by the virtue of reducing inflammation, knee pain would reduce, the hypertension would disappear, the reports would come back to normal and the weight loss would be accelerated. Shiv nodded, seeming extremely unconvinced and said, ‘What about my travel?’ I reassured him that we will deal with it. And so he signed up. That was December 3, 2019.

Six months later, during our video session, after having lost 37 kg and reversing his knee pain and hypertension, Shiv confessed, ‘I never thought we could reach here.’ He was mentally prepared to lose 10 kg and ‘see how it goes.’ But today, when I told him that he needs to reach the magical number of 75 KG, he laughed and said: ‘Today I believe you, when we met on December 3, in my mind I was like, that’s not going to happen.’

The first 14 days of his plan, from December 4 through December 18, Shiv not only travelled crazily, but he was in one city for not more than a day. I would ask him where he was staying, which hotel and find out the restaurants around – and provide him with food choices from the menus. In those first 15 days, he lost 4 kg. And then there was no looking back.

Through the lockdown, when everyone lamented on lack of choices, he stuck to limited choices available, but refused to deviate from food groups. Exercise was a challenge with crazy back to back zooms, but we worked out spurts of 15 minute exercises spread through the day to keep his BMR high and inflammation low. Circulation was key so water was a big focus.

‘I think what really worked was the consistency,’ he confesses. He had never been given the tools to be consistent before. ‘What you did with me was like management pillars: inspire, enable, track.’ And then, Shiv broke it down:

Inspire: he said he was inspired to join my program because my focus was understanding what was happening inside his mind and body via our sessions and his biomarkers along with symptoms. I treated him like a holistic person. And then I went ahead and broke the goal down with him into smaller milestones. Even though I talked about the end goal of 40 kg, which he was disbelieving of, I told him that he needs to focus on 99 kg. I explained to him that I could not give him heavy exercising till he reached 99) was his heart would be at risk. And so, despite gentle and low exercise, we used nutrition to achieve 99. After that, the next goal was 95, 89 and then 85. He says, “The smaller milestones seem achievable and here we are, we have achieved them.” Breaking down any goals always makes them less threatening and makes sequential following of instructions easier.

Enable: “You give me a 24-hour chart. It made sure that I got into a 24-hour rhythm and enabled me to eat as per the charts when I was travelling. It was also easy for my secretary and family to understand and implement and everyone supported me in this period,” says Shiv, grateful to the ecosystem around him that made it all happen. But since we cannot live life going from one chart to the other and I need to wean people off charts, I transfer knowledge on how healing will continue. “Yes, this continuation of rhythm is what made consistency happen,” shares Shiv. Whether it is milestones for health goals or milestones for each day, being broken down into smaller elements, doing everything in moderation brings in consistency. So many senior corporate executives I work with don’t even have that one hour to spare for exercise. Hence, enabling them to achieve holistic well-being by breaking down exercise into smaller bits enables epigentic benefits.

Track. This is a crazy one. “What you measure is what you can manage,” says Shiv. “You asked me to give you daily weight updates and even though it was not your singular focus, it kept me on track. Every evening and I would eat, I would be mindful of my quantities because the weight the next morning would determine the kind of emoticon you would send me!”

We both laughed at this. His most dreaded emoticon was the rolling eyes one when there was no movement in weight. With 37 kg gone, no knee pain, Shiv’s moods improved and stress response became efficient. Shiv is a shining example of everything going against him and he still managed to not only stay on track but achieve his fairly difficult health goals. He could have hidden behind excuses of extensive travel, long work hours, too much sitting, no time for exercise or breath work… But he did not. He found a solution every time he reached a stumbling block. He got his family to help him, he asked for help and he received it. Asking never hurts and often, the universe grants you are asking for.