The Boss Mom Podcast Episode 195: Healthy Transformation Through Vitamins and Minerals with Shivani Gupta
As moms and entrepreneurs it can be a real challenge to prioritize our health and self care. But as you know, everything begins to fall apart when we don't!
Shivani Gupta is a mother, entrepreneur, educator and healer with a huge passion for helping learn how to take better care of themselves through a holistic, Ayurvedic approach to health and wellness.
As the founder of Fusionary Formulas, a line of supplements that bridges the gap between Ayurvedic and modern medicine, Shivani remains committed to bettering the lives of others, which you will see is totally evident throughout our discussion in this episode.
If you want to be a healthy person, if you care about what you put into your body, your immunity, your energy, how you feel, and how you can show up to be a better you mother, wife. entrepreneur, etc then you're going to love this one.
Listen + subscribe on iTunes // Stitcher
Shivani's Boss Mom Journey
Ever since Shivani was a child she's been obsessed with health. Her father was a health nut, so he always showed up at people's homes with green juice and vitamins and said, "Here you go, this is how you're going to fix the cold or sickness you have going on."
Shivani believes she inherited that from him, because she'll show up on the doorstep of anyone she hears complain about feeling sick with ziplock bags of herbs and spices and whatever else she thinks they should be doing.
She also always knew she wanted to be a business owner because her parents were really fantastic entrepreneurs, and so over the years she has had several businesses.
One was an organic cotton children's clothing line that was carried in Whole Foods. Then she started a green blog called "Greenista", and after that a marketing company that helped small businesses with marketing a branding.
Finally an opportunity came her way to launch a supplement company in Ayurveda and, she happened to be working on her PhD in Ayurveda at the time, so it was the perfect fit and time. She decided to pair her skillset - finding complex things and simplifying them into a very usable way - with her passion for health and wellness, and launched Fusionary Formulas to educate people in health, wellness, Ayurveda, and these "super spicesandh herbs" that they can use in their daily lives.
What is Ayurveda?Shivani explains that Ayurveda is an ancient system of medicine from India that's over 5,000 years old. Ayurveda actually means "science of life."
It heavily emphasizes the mind-body connection and focuses not just on treating illness and disease, but actually preventing them.
As Shivani learned more about it she thought, "If people just understood what Ayurveda had to offer and how powerful it was for preventing disease and preventing issues, they would be on board with this."
Where Does Someone Begin with Ayurveda?Shivani explains that Ayurveda encompasses many different modalities.
- There's the nutrition component that covers food combinations and what to eat or not eat.
- There's a detoxification ritual that teaches you how to detox and cleanse the body once a year to prevent disease
- There's this concept of doshas which is all about uncovering your individual body constitution, which helps you best support your unique body type
- There's also an herbs and spices component and learning all about what they can do for your overall health (turmeric, cardamom, paprika, cumin, and fennel are a few examples)
Shivani has chosen to focus on what she calls the "best three" areas to make it as simple and easy to integrate into our fast-paced, non-intuitive, Western way of living.
The three areas are: super spices and herbs, daily self care rituals and learning to adjust your lifestyle to what your body demands so instead of being so stressed out all the time and allowing stress to impact the body negatively, you're better supported.
"I feel like as moms we are high stress, high speed, high volume, trying to get through life and do everything. I just want to prevent stuff from coming down the road because I chose to be high paced in my 30s and 40s."
Why Variety & Seasonal Eating is ImportantI had my mind totally blown when Shivani let me know that we actually aren't supposed to eat the same foods all year round. She speaks heavily to the importance of ensuring a broad variety in your diet and making sure to eat things that are in season to best support your body's systems.
She also shares a story about a woman she once met who had chronic hives and was eating healthy, so couldn't figure out what was causing her issue. It turns out she was eating things that were exacerbating her unique body constitution AND out of season, causing her body to react negatively to the "health" food she was consuming!
Practicing What You Preach & Prioritizing Self CareSomething I loved hearing in this conversation was how Shivani described her own personal journey with health, which can be a lot trickier and harder than just being passionate about learning and teaching it.
She describes where she was at just last year - going 100 miles per hour working on a huge event for her company, trying to be supermom keeping up with all her kids activities, being a good wife and trying to feed everyone healthfully (since she was totally obsessed!)
After the event she looked at photos of herself and thought, "That is not me! I don't know who that is, but that is not me!" She was in disbelief that she'd allowed herself to get to that point, and knew she couldn't go on calling it "baby weight" forever.
She decided to take her own advice and really put self care first. And she says that once she did that, everything started to change! She made her personal workouts top priority, above anything else (including her children's activities!)
Her brain moved faster, which meant she moved faster, all of which benefited her business and life in tremendous ways. Everything started to click into place.
For those of you who are interested in what exactly she did to drop 8 dress sizes in just 8 months, she mentions using three Fusionary Formulas supplements every single day: Elite Athlete, Weight Loss Formula and Turmeric Gold.
The coolest part, she says, is now that she's proven to herself how powerful embracing this lifestyle is, she is even more fueled with passion to share her message.
She also mentions that one reason she believes she's been successful in the personal health department is by establishing "laws" for herself....for example, she never eats sour cream. Since that's a law for her, she doesn't ever break it.
The Difference Between Intuition & Bad HabitsAnother unique point in our conversation came when I asked if Shivani thought that maybe we sometimes crave things our bodies actually need.
She completely agreed that our bodies were made to flourish when we rely on our innate intuition. But, the problem she says, is that people have gotten very far off from their intuitive selves.
Thinking you've had a bad day and need a glass of wine or plate of nachos isn't intuition - it's being ruled by bad habits and using food as a crutch for dealing with stress.
This led to us both agreeing that, as parents and entrepreneurs, we often use crutches even more than the average person, and to make ourselves feel better about our poor diet and lifestyle choices (daily wine and coffee habits anyone??) we've collectively made it an acceptable thing.
Obviously there needs to be room for grace and acknowledgment of certain seasons of life (the newborn days, for example) but eventually we all have to take personal responsibility and choose better.
We need to learn how to replace our bad habits, replace our crutches with things that are actually good and actually work.
What Makes Fusionary Formulas Better than Others (& Why You Need Supplements)Shivani is both modest and humble about her supplement line, but equally enthusiastic about how amazing it is.
She begins by explaining that the supplement industry is far less regulated than one would think, and people can often get away with doing or saying whatever they way....which means it's critically important to understand what you've investing in and putting in your body!
Shivani uses a factory right here in the US, which is owned by a physician, and has chosen really high quality herbs that come from only medical grade suppliers. This ensures you can feel totally confident in the product you're investing in.
She also has a really well-rounded approach to supplement use, which is nice for people like me who don't really use them ever.
Her thought is that proactive health means finding the perfect combination of exercise, nutrition and supplements that will support your body. Supplements are supposed to work alongside everything else to give you what you need.
How to Get Back to Calm When You Feel OverwhelmedOverwhelm is an inevitable place we sometimes reach as boss moms, which is why I loved hearing Shivani share what her approach to overwhelm is in her life.
She has learned that when she starts to feel overwhelmed, she begins to shut down. So, she quickly starts making adjustments, taking things off her list, relying on outside help and giving herself downtime.
She'll also give her immune system a boost by increasing her supplement intake, staying extra hydrated and getting enough rest.
Referenced in the Show:(Just FYI, some of these links may be affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase using the links I may receive some love in return!)
Connect with Dana & Shivani- Dana: Instagram / Boss Mom Facebook Community (her total happy place)
- Shivani: Website / Instagram / Facebook
If you've got a question about today's episode or want to leave us some inbox love, you can email us at hello@boss-mom.com. Or, you can always find Dana hanging out in her happy place, the Boss Mom Facebook Community.
We would also LOVE it if you'd leave a podcast rating or review for us on iTunes! We know it can be kind of tricky to figure out, so here are a few step-by-step instructions on how to leave an iTunes rating or review for a podcast from your iPhone or iPad.
- Launch Apple's Podcast app.
- Tap the Search tab.
- Enter the name of the podcast you want to rate or review.
- Tap the blue Search key at the bottom right.
- Tap the album art for the podcast.
- Tap the Reviews tab.
- Tap Write a Review at the bottom.
- Enter your iTunes password to login.
- Tap the Stars to leave a rating.
- Enter title text and content to leave a review.
- Tap Send.