HUNDRED PLUS Recipe for Antiageing
“Dr. Kalpana Shekhawat, lady of substance and an inspirational single mother in 50s, who has herself brought her mother back from Congestive Cardiac Failure. She was told that her mother had severe cardiac muscle weakness and a slim chance of survival. She is the Medical Director at Freedom Diet Functional & Regenerative medicine clinic. Gurugram, which focuses on chronic lifestyle disease management with the help of nutrition correction, Nutraceuticals and Bio Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy. “HUNDRED PLUS” recipe for anti-ageing. “
Dr. Kalpana Shekhawat
Q1. Tell us about your journey? My journey into wellness began in 2008, when I started to look for lasting solutions to the multiple health issues suffered by many of my patients and family members, which were mostly related to lifestyle and environment we live in. Since the time I started to practice differently and thinking out of the box solutions to the chronic lifestyle diseases, I have seen an amazing change in the health and wellbeing of my patients. I am able to deter multiple chronic diseases before they appear, and all this without having to take too many chemical based medicines.
Q2. What is Functional Medicine? Functional medicine in nut shell is about addressing the root cause of chronic diseases. Practitioners of this medicine look for underlying reasons for the symptoms which our patients manifest. We believe that a Band-Aid solution to the symptoms is only going to suppress the symptoms temporarily until you continue to take the prescribed medication and will come back as soon as you stop them.
Q3. What were the struggles when your mother was diagnosed with Congestive Diagnose Failure? This is a long story, my mother was diagnosed with congestive heart failure 10 years ago when she was living in Malaysia. Worried after hearing the diagnosis, I brought her to India under my care and supervision, however lost with the existing solutions to this condition, I started to dig deep into the research papers on how to boost the cellular mitochondrial strength of the cardiac muscles. My extensive research led me to put her on some very effective safe nutritional supplements and they worked like a miracle, encouraged with results I was determined to pursue this stream of science further and help as many people I can.
Q4. How you help her to recover from it? Like I mentioned above I looked for nutrients which can enhance the performance of mitochondria’s inside the cells, and our cardiac muscles have highest number of mitochondria’s.
Q5. How you think that Functional medicine is helpful in our modern Lifestyle? I firmly believe Functional medicine is the medicine of 21st century, we are already in times where matching “pill to the ill” will no more work. Our modern lifestyle is way too different from our ancestors and it’s imperative that we change our thoughts towards health and wellbeing looking at the way our environment has changed. We currently live in a world where our food is not the same as it used to be, it is loaded with chemicals, preservatives and many harmful substances. We are living in an environment which is highly polluted and has many heavy metals and toxins. Functional medicine is addressing these factors such as Nutrient supplementation, toxin removal, cleaner eating, Gut healing etc.
Q6. What is “Hundred Plus” recipe for anti-aging? Living to be hundred with good health and wellbeing is possible with good lifestyle, which encompasses:
1. Healthful and mindful eating habits. 2. Stress reduction. 3. Regular Detox. 4. Regular gut cleansing protocols. 5. staying physically active. 6. Involving into regular recreational activities. 7. Keeping hormones balanced. 8. Keeping a healthy metabolism ensuring optimum levels of nutrients.
Q7. What is your USP to reverse lifestyle disease? Keeping your Inflammation low and avoiding sugar completely. Reversing lifestyle disease is very much possible with functional medicine approach and it incorporates looking at the root causes of these diseases and adopting a lifestyle which prevents further deterioration and reverses it by bringing inflammation down.
Q8. How you balance your personal & professional life? Well my profession is my passion and I love what I do, I do not really see it as work, rather its extremely gratifying to me, when I see the change and happiness brought to my patients with my advice. Therefore my personal life does not get impacted adversely as my moods are good due to the happiness I derive from my work.
Q9. How you spend your leisure time? I love reading, and I have a huge collection of books on diverse subjects, apart from this being close to nature whenever possible is my favourite way to spend leisure time.
Q10. Any advice you wants to give to maintain healthy lifestyle? Watch out for what you eat, it’s crucial and difficult with multiple poor choices available, switch to foods which are health promoting and not loaded with anti-nutrients.
• Exercise regularly • Have a sleep routine • Avoid sugar completely • Reduce stress • Stay close to nature • Have a good social support group • Look for your passion, do-not follow stereotyped advises and maintain a healthy balance in your lifestyle. I would say if you are happy with what you do, this has great impact on your overall health.