We belong to a vegetarian family which has a history of hypothyroidism and so I always believed that I will also have to take medicines all my life. Getting married and having kids, I got so busy that I totally ignored myself and didn’t realise that over the years I was getting pigmentation on my face, back, dark eye circles and on and off my face swelled up early in the morning. Initially I thought I was allergic to certain things but those were my wrong beliefs. I also got PCOD, and had severe pain before periods.

Then my husband was diagnosed with diabetes. That’s when we started our whole food plant-based journey. Everything started improving. His HbA1c came down to 6.1 and his cholesterol also came in range. My periods got regular, my pain subsided and the best thing that happened to me was that my pigmentation reduced to one third – not only from my face but also from back as well! The swelling on my face, which was a kind of regular feature, just vanished. Within three months, my thyroid levels were also in the range. I think apart from stopping animal products, the green smoothies also played a big role in all this. Having them first thing in the morning increased my energy levels throughout the day. I lost nearly about 12 kgs too.

Now I’ll say I am 90% on SHARAN lifestyle as Bengali sweets are something I fall for at times. I keep attending the SHARAN online and offline sessions and try to unlearn the way I have been brought up and most of all I am happy with myself.