I’ve been deeply involved in sports and fitness my entire life. I grew up playing tennis, squash, basketball, and cricket. I played semi-professional, national level tennis in Canada for about 3 years and continue to play at club-level, even now.
Like a lot of people I’ve encountered, I’ve had my ups and downs with weight management and unhealthy eating in the early parts of my life. I didn’t get into strength training until my mid-twenties, when my tennis coach introduced me to its many benefits which included mitigating my many injuries.
At that point, I had a bachelor’s degree in pre-medicine, human physiology, and computer sciences (McGill University, 2002). I had a corporate job in the field of bioinformatics (software application development in the medical field).
In 2008, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the next 4 years, my family and I dealt with her treatment, remission, recurrence, and metastasis – which eventually spiralled into her grisly demise. My mother fought like a trooper until her bitter end in 2012.
I wish I could have helped more. I felt like a headless chicken researching under a stiff deadline and suffering from paralysis through analysis with all the information out there to mitigate this vicious disease. I remember realising how the medical treatment prescribed to treat her was worse than the disease itself. Mainstream medicine was and continues to be focused on controlling symptoms of disease via medication, rather than getting to the root cause of disease, its prevention or reversal. With all that I know now, I look back and wish I could have done more, but in the end – I was just a helpless spectator. Turns out, hindsight really is 20-20.
Two life altering things happened at that point. One, I was concerned about my own health over my lifetime; and two, I wanted to get to the root cause of this hideous disease. I was certain diet and lifestyle played an important role but didn’t realise (at the time) how much of an impact they could have.
At the same time, my marital life was undergoing a crisis, which eventually led to my divorce in 2015. These were the catalysts in my journey to become a part of the wellness industry. I started digging deep and doing my own research: on cancer, on optimal health, diet, lifestyle, and nutrition. As an emotional coping mechanism, I got into triathlons, long distance triathlons – Ironman. With a buddy of mine, we spent up to 22 hours training per week, and life consisted of eat, sleep, train, repeat. I found solace in physical training for mental health. I shut out the world.
That’s when I realised, I really had to focus and fine tune my nutrition if I were to have ambitious goals of completing an Ironman event that involved a 3.8 km open water swim, 180 km bike ride, and a full 42 km marathon run – with a 17-hour time cap. I had the fundamental knowledge to build on. It was now a matter of investing time, effort, knowledge, and consistency. 15 triathlons (including 5 Olympic distance triathlons) and two stress fractures in two legs later, I came out healed the other end after three years in 2018, having completed 4 Ironman (3 halves and 1 full distance) events along the way.
While on this path of transformation, I ended up helping many others along the way – athletes and non-athletes who wanted to get into better shape. And that’s when it hit me. This is my true passion: this is my calling.
That’s when I pursued and completed my master’s certificate in nutritional sciences (Stanford University Medicine, 2019). I wanted to help people optimize their health and become the best version of themselves, whatever their goals might be – performance as an athlete, weight loss, optimal health, or my primary focus – management of chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular issues, obesity, autoimmune issues, and most important of all – cancer.
