Hey, what's up party people? My name is Sunny Ray. This is the Sunny Ray Show. Normally we talk about Bitcoin, AI, robotics, the machine economy, but one of the other areas I'm starting to touch on is longevity and just health in general. as I get older, I realize that's more and more important. My next guest is Diva Gupta. She's the founder of Divia Nutrition and Wellness. She's going to join me to discuss the business side of wellness. what audiences are being sold, what genuinely resonates, and how practitioners can build trust without leaning on clinical claims. So, with that said, I'm going to bring on Divia. How you doing?
Hey, Sunonny. I'm great. How are you?
I am feeling healthy. I hit the gym this morning. So, for me, it's like if I work out in the morning, my day is like destined to be a win. In fact, I had like this kind of scary thing happen. I won't even go into it. Like I just deleted a bunch of things by accident and probably shouldn't have. But despite that, I'm still having a great day. That's good. I attribute it to the workout.
That's good. You're able to manage your stress and emotions. That's a win.
Yes. This one I think would have wiped out Sunny from maybe three years ago. Like I would have been devastated. But I recovered and thanks to AI. I'll save it for another one. So Divia, take me into the deep end. What are you building? Why should people care? I know I remember our conversation very clearly because I won't go into it too much, but personally with family members had been going through some stuff and a lot of what you said really hit home. So yeah, happy to kind of just peel it back, but let's start with Divia nutrition and wellness.
Great. so thank you for having me on the show first of all. I love talking about, you know, I've been on a lot of podcasts talking about the clinical side, you know, with health issues, but this is more taking peeling the onion and going behind the scenes and what it takes to build a business. And you know, I'll have to peel go back real back because this isn't my first career. You know, a very stereotypical Indian immigrant. I studied computer science engineering. I worked in corporate America for 16 plus years. And as you said, you know, it's as we grow older, we know our health is the most important wealth we have. It's, you know, it sounds cliche, but health is wealth. But I started dealing with health challenges much earlier in my 20s. And that's what brought me into this space. I've really got curious about, hey, what you know, my maybe the analytical engineering mindset. Okay, what's going on? There has to be more to it. you know what from what I was hearing from my doctors and just getting a pill for every ill but there has to be a better way because I didn't want to continue the route I was on or the path that was laid out in front of me. So that's what got me curious about health and wellness almost a decade ago and sort of that took me to switch my career and here I am you know started my own practice to really not just keep the knowledge to myself but start helping people to really from the ground are foundations because a lot of things you know you would think every everyone should know it how to get their health better but no we are all looking for the magic pill. Yeah, that definitely resonates. I know what you mean. but let let's back up a little bit, maybe slow it down as well. What first pulled you toward nutrition and specifically towards gut health rather than, you know, any other part of the field?
Yeah. you know, just as a go back, you know, when I was in my actually when I turned 20, I'll have to share a little bit of my health history because that's what brought me here. I lost my gallbladder. was taken out. Long story short, it was gallbladder attacks that started out of nowhere. It took a few weeks, a month of figuring out, you know, what was actually going on. I was back in India at that point. And then as a solution that was given is, oh, we can just take this organ out because that's fine and you'll be out of pain. And at that point, that sounded wonderful because I just wanted to be out of pain. You know, for any woman who would understand, you know, I've been through child birth twice now, I would still take that pain over the gallbladder attacks I was having. It was horrendous. And as a husband, you watch your wife. you know how painful it is. It was painful. It was crazy. So, I was 20. I was studying for engineering. I was studying to come to the US for my master. So, my organ was out. I come to the US. You know, life goes down, high stress, IV league school. A few years down the road, I get diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and which again autoimmune diseases is also in on the rise. It's just, you know, in Hashimoto's over the last decade, you know, it's gone 3x and you could attribute it to hey, that's just being more testing. People are more finding out more early or actually the cases are going up to because of a lot of different factors, you know, we'll keep it keep that for later. So once I got diagnosed at 25, I've already lost an organ now, an autoimmune condition. I was just given a pill and that hey, that's what you're going to be having for the rest of your life. And knowing what was, as you said, family members watching my mom because, you know, she also was gone through the same path as I did, but she was in her early 50s at that point and I was in my 20s and I'm like walking the same path. It just didn't make sense to me. I'm like if I don't do anything I'm going to end up like her and maybe much sooner. So that's what got me into okay there has to be a better way. What can I do? And this is before I'm this I'm talking this is maybe late 2008 2009 where we didn't have all these YouTube these podcasts or you know social media platform you know the AI with all the information out there where you can look it up what's going on. I had to literally go to the library pull books nutrition and be like okay what can I do? And I knew one thing that I can do is control what I eat. That was one piece. Food and you know what I you know an exercise gym. Those are the two aspects I knew I could control. And that's where I started making the changes. You know picking up books started to the whole concept of gut health which I had no idea what does it mean like you know I'm sure if I ask you where does the gut lie you would just point to your belly a general area but your gut is from your mouth all the way to your anus. like it's like the whole that body part the whole system is your gut. But again I that's how I got introduced to it. I started making changes to my diet, my food and I it I could see I could I was feeling better. I realized I wasn't bloated. My digestion felt better and that just I'm like there has to be more like you know just simple changes of getting gluten out of my diet or dairy out of my diet made the change. you know, stop eating out as much because I lived in New York City at that point and I was traveling, you know, the consulting three, four, five, you know, you're out of, you know, you're traveling and eating out all the meals. All these changes, I started feeling better and that's what got me intrigued. Okay, there has to be another way from what the doctors are saying. and that's when I'm like, okay, I started studying and reading, you know, had to like really get books because, you know, there was no social media, start searching about it. So just started educating myself about gut health and realized that you know hypocrisy said 2,000 years ago your health disease begins in the gut or you can say health begins in the gut. If your gut is messed up it's going to manifest and show up in different forms. how you going to deal with the symptoms? So that's what got me intrigued and you know one thing led to the another. where I just like okay there has to be more and where I went back to school to study nutrition more in more detail and just continuing my education in this field from there.
A lot of that resonates and I think I told you too like I started doing something about 3 four years ago that really started helping which is this idea of intermittent fasting so not eating anything.
Every day.
All day so I'll wake up at like 4 in the morning work out and do everything and eat literally at like 6:00 p.m. at the end of my workday. and I find like my energy is 100% throughout the day if I don't eat. It's so weird. I know it sounds weird, but like I mean I do drink water and black coffee, so these are my two like secret weapons. But I don't know. Just the idea of like eliminating stuff from your system is wise, right? I I've only done the whole fasting thing like three days or whatever once, but I feel like I should do more of it. I don't know. But have you tinkered with that idea or not so much?
Yeah, it's it doesn't sound weird. You know, intermittent fasting again, it's a new.
Can say buzz word, new people are exploring that are hearing it's out there, right? That you hear about intermittent fasting.
And.
We can Yes, I know why it works because you gave your system a break, right? You're giving your system a break from digesting. It takes a lot of energy to to really break down your food to digest. You know, it we just think eating and it's done, but there's a whole host of other activities happening internally to digest to absorb the nutrients, get the waste out, right? So, and we keep eating every 3 hours that's repeating. So, when you intermittent fast, you know, when you have a shortened window to eat, it can help when to rejuvenate old cells. It does a lot of cleanup job in your body. it you it gives body the time to hey instead of using the energy to digest the food I'm going to go and clean up clean up what I need to do it get rid of it and you feel more energized it's a great tool to have in your you know tool belt to leverage but with everything you know there is a spectrum of how you want to do it you know you just it feels good if you do keep doing it for a long time you're going to lose out on the nutrients you need because you also need to replenish So there is a strategy to do it and in especially with intermittent fasting.
Men and women are different and that's why when sometime women may do it and be like it didn't work for me or it worked initially it didn't because women our biology is different our hormone cycle through the month whether you are in which stage of your life are you in.
So that matters so that's and it is stressful like it is like workout it is stressful to the body to not eat your body is going to get okay where I need the food Right. So again, some people have to, you know, cycle through it or do it certain times of the month or, you know, your window don't have to be that extreme, but so yeah, it's a great tool, but.
Again, it's be personalized.
Yeah,.
It has to be personalized how you implement it.
That makes sense. So Restorative Wellness practitioner is a specific training, not a general one, right? So what does it teach that maybe a nutrition course misses? So yes, so first when I went back to school to study nutrition, yes, you know, it teaches about all your macros, the nutrition, how it you know, as you think, you know, get into what do you need for different organs of the body, how your digestive system work and I know lifestyle and diet changes make a huge difference, but these, you know, but it can only take you so far because with the current, you know, the stress that we're all dealing with, the toxins that we are all surrounded with everything going on in the world diet and our food system supply is not pure either right even if you're eating most organic our soils are depleted of nutrients so what I found in my own journey was I made the lifestyle changes I made the diet changes but it only took me so far and then things stop then you like okay there has to be more so that's when like in my quest to figure out hey how can I be my best self you know optimum health how to get my gut to where it needs to be, there has to be more. So that's when I came across Institute of Restorative Wellness of actually doing the gut testing like you know the stool testing to start looking at your microbiome. We have the tools and technologies to hey what does a microbiome look like? What does digestion look like? Are there gut bacteria growing in your gut that's not supposed to be that that's causing certain you know symptoms. So but you know it's data as you go. You know we are in the age of data is king or queen or whatever. So having that data can really help to understand your bio individuality of what's going on in my current environment. Why certain life you know diet and lifestyle changes are not giving the results. So then once we have that data that's what the training taught me is how can you now implement the steps to restore the gut health you know the digestion. So that's it's using the functional testing.
And food sensity testing using those testing getting the data for that person then implementing the next steps and the diet changes all the protocols all the right targeted supplements to get the person back to feeling like themselves.
Got it. So what what's the hardest thing to unlearn for someone coming into this field from the internet rather than let's say from training?
Like a person trying to better their health or trying to become a practitioner. I just want to clarify that question.
Someone trying to better their health.
Yeah. Like I mean I just get saying like I mean you know people go to their doctors and they're always like asking them stuff that they saw on the internet and I'm sure you get a lot of that as well. like I'm just throwing stuff at you randomly that I picked up. But.
But like but since you've had this actual formal training, I'm just curious like what's the first thing that or what's one thing you notice that a lot of people are coming to you with.
That you're kind of roll your eyes a little bit but not you know not actually.
No. my goal is for everyone to become the CEO of their own health. You know your body the best even the doctors don't. And I'm not against Google or AI like you know use information you know ask the questions you know you get like when you go buy a car I'm not a car expert I am going to get as much information as I can to understand the model what I need. So do that research. But I and there's a lot of great information out there, but when it comes to implementation and what works, I think that's what gets challenging and I've been there and I can empathize with them. Hey, I tried XYZ. I heard this good. I've XYZ. There's so much now and it may not work. And that's where the personalization comes in and the having the right data helps because you know I've you know what I've not rolled my eyes but I'm really frustrated with people and the influencers who don't have the training they're selling detoxes supplements you know it's become the new thing and I clients come to me they're having like pages like 20 I have like I've had a client that sent me a list of like two or three Google doc pages of supplements that they have bought they have and they've been taking like quite a bit of it for different things because they've heard it's good. And I'm not saying those are bad, but how does it apply to your situation? What do you need? What would be the right based on the environment you grew up in? What does your biology look like? I think that's what's with somebody going in just to not hear something on the internet and just go ahead and apply it and then it doesn't work. Then like, oh, that's not for me. And then they just give up on this whole idea like intermittent fasting. people hear about it, they, you know, for some people it worked, for some people it didn't work and they're like, "Okay, that's crap."
No, it's a great tool, but it again that personalization comes in and what else is going on?
I think that's what I want people and that's what I see a lot when people coming in as well.
Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty militant. I think it works for everyone. I think everyone should do it. But, you know, I tried and force my wife, but she's like, "No, this is not going to work for me." So, I Anyways, I'm kidding. But it definitely works for me. I love it. Like I said, I live like I I'm very aware of my energy levels.
And I notice that as soon as I eat, even if it's healthy, it doesn't matter. Like even a whatever, my body just takes a lot of energy to digest. Just it's not.
Whereas like if I don't eat, I feel like I'm in this like hunter state throughout the day.
I don't know. Maybe now I'm getting we wish we wishy-washy here but but yeah.
You know like you know this is I know this is not about this is about getting into if you feel after you eat your digestion it feels like too much the question you should ask is how can you improve your digestion why aren't you breaking down your food efficiently or where you feel more energized.
By it's like you know avoiding the problem it feels good so I'm not going to do it but then you're not fixing the problem.
Of things to and then blood sugar comes into after you eat even though it's healthy but what do you need? Do you have are you having a huge blood sugar spike and then it drops and that's can impact energy as well. So that's where I say it's there's more to it than.
Yeah it feels good but then.
As I said I know people do it for a long time or all the time and then it can backfire too at some point.
Really interesting.
Cool. So gut health went from you know like a niche idea to like a marketing term in about a decade, right? So like what got kind of lost along the way? Yeah, I as I said in my story like when I started I was like what is gut you know what is gut health like you know I was trying to get into it was still pretty new but now as you said it's everyone is talking about gut health everyone knows hey I need to improve my gut health and I'm like and I think what's getting lost is the what does it even mean like I don't think people totally understand they just picked up from what they've heard what does it even mean your gut and what does it entail what is you know it's everything from chewing even getting the sense of you're going to eat the digestion piece of chewing the food getting into the stomach even the digestion and the elimination all of that comes into your gut health. So what's getting lost? People are now just using gut health as marketing term to sell different supplements to sell different detoxes to cleanse your system. Oh, you do a juice cleanse your gut health is going to be good. I think they just making it too simple than it is. And it can it's simple but it's also complicated. As I said, everyone's terrain is so different and I think they're simplifying it and that the personalization is lost. What's going on with my microbiome? And that's what the testing give. That's what the data gives to help understand what do we need to heal. and you just can't go pushing. You can't push detox. You can't just keep going detox, I'm going to just get rid of things. That.
Will also backfire. That may also not feel as well because you have to work. There's a strategy and in layers u one by one because one thing builds on the other, right? If you can't just keep okay, I'm just going to eliminate that.
Well and pushing your system more than it can handle that gets lost the nuances the personalization gets lost and it's just become a buzz word okay I need to improve my gut health.
And when I ask my clients or potential clients what does that mean radio silence oh.
I guess what does the evidence actually support that the maybe wellness industry underplays because it's not let's say sellable like you know we are in the era of instant gratification and magic pills right so a lot of people are not all of us are used to going to the doctor getting a pill and things getting better or feeling better right but when it comes to in this field you know in what I do in the work I do it takes time it's a marathon not a sprint there's and I There's no magic pill and you know and we can't skip steps like we can't skip the foundations like the foundations go to if you aren't sleeping well if you aren't getting all the nutrition nutrient-dense food getting your macros that you need if you aren't learning how to manage your stress you know that's you know if you aren't exercising but then hey I want to lose this weight and I want to get better tell me It's and those things that doesn't you know that's boring stuff like you asking me to sleep you asking me to take 10 deep breaths before I chew my food or you know slowing down really chewing your food tasting so those pieces foundations are important and the results may not be immediate but if you stay consistent that's what is going to give you the long-lasting results and.
And it may take sometimes months sometimes year to get to where you want to be. There will be improvement, incremental improvement, but it takes time. And that's what sometimes the wellness industry may not or you know, you won't hear that often of the time it takes because hey, when people come to me, hey, I have to like how long did it take you to get here to where you are where you're like, I need help.
So, at least you have to give your body the time to undo everything to do it in a sustainable fashion so it feels good. So, it's a timing like people want instant results. And what about the reverse? Like what sold hardest that the evidence supports least?
This is a hard question to answer. What sold hardest like the most but the evidence support least?
Can we get back to it?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah,.
I guess like what's the pattern that you see more often in clients that they never see themselves?
I Yeah, I don't think people are attuned to their body as much as they think they are of you know the symptoms you know u they don't realize how the lack of energy that they have throughout the day. They think they have good energy and things are going well and until we start our work and then they when the energ then they realize they're like gosh my energy is so much better now. I thought I was doing well before but this is how I'm supposed to feel. So they don't really see that those patterns. they don't, you know, see the blood sugar swings because that's another foundational piece of the work is foundation in your body, your blood sugar and how you're managing that throughout the day and how stress is playing a role and energy into their mood. Those patterns to like really slowing down, changing how the way they're eating and realizing how that was impacting their mood to their sleep. and a lot, you know, another buzz word that people come to me, I have inflammation. And I'm like, that's become another buzz word. I'm like, yes, but what does that mean? What do you mean when you have inflammation? And they have to really h I they they're not really able to get in. I just know I have inflammation because they've just heard it so much around them. They just feel I have inflammation.
And you know, a AI now is being pointed at personalized nutrition, microbiome testing, and like wearables right now as well. So does that help your clients or just give them like more noise to misread?
I think it increases the overwhelm as well. That's now AI is great again. we know AI is definitely collating data from different sources and bringing it in and again your how you prompted and the questions you ask and the data you given also matters. Is everyone well versed with how to do that? Maybe not. And then when whatever the AI gives you again, you have to take it with a grain of salt. So how does it apply to you? What do it's going to give you a bunch of options, right? and it may or may not what it's saying may or may not be always right. where is it getting its data from? So while it could be helpful to just to get more educated, I wouldn't I would still want somebody trained and educated in the field to really parse it to and really help me understand what applies to me. What do I need to do next? Because otherwise you're going to be spending years and years trying different things and failing and giving up entirely. So I think with everything there's a good and bad to it. data is always helpful. like you know wearing variables can be helpful to get the data but I find it if you do it too much obsess over it can also add a layer of stress to it cuz I remember wearing my gosh what was it the wearable I'm even forgetting the name of it.
To see my not Fitbit Whoop sorry yeah I was wearing the Whoop for a few months and you know I'm postpartum like a year and a half but I wore it a few months ago it was helpful but I'm like I took it off. I'm like I know my sleep is crap right now. I'm waking up every few hours because of the baby. I don't need more the data to tell me and stress me out. So it can be helpful to get some in. I think people should use it for a short period of time, get some input and then try to work on it, take it off than constantly harping on those numbers on the data. They just go after this one piece. Similar to their other tools like CGM, continuous glucose monitor, which is again a great way to manage your blood sugar, get your bio individuality, but I never recommend my client wear it more than a couple of months at a time. Hey, wear it for a couple of months, get some input, get some see how your body works, take it off, make some changes, then come go back and wear it to see how did it change or not change. so there's always two sides to every coin. So, I love to use it too. So I use it as well, but I always take it with a grain of salt and don't trust everything AI says.
Yeah. Diva, can you describe what actually happens when someone works with you? Like what does the first kind of month look like?
Yeah. The first, you know, month, you know, a lot of people come to me is with they're dealing with any autoimmune conditions. A lot of them have gut issues, right? And the gut issues I'm going to like elaborate could be from digestive like you know they're having bloating to you know from constipation to diarrhea to even heartburn. So it can be a variety or they just sensitive they have really bad reactions to certain foods. So they have a lot of those issues going on along with other symptoms. So the first month you know we I do functional testing. I'm like I want data. I don't want to guess. I want to test to know exactly what's applicable to you. So the first month is doing some detailed blood work, not what your doctor ordered because your doctor as we know it's I know you're in Canada, I'm in the US, the basic tests are as they're very basic. They don't cover all the different markers that we can get and everything in our body is interconnected, right? So it's all looking at patterns. So the first month my clients get a detailed blood work based on what's going on with them. There could be a stool testing or looking into the toxin profile, different gut testing as well. And the next step is, you know, go through different phases is for setting up the foundations. We don't go I don't go to jump to detox is making sure your body's drainage system is working. What does that mean? If you're not eliminating, if you're not sweating, if our kidneys are not working, if our lymph nodes are stuck, there's no points like the bathtub, right? If it's clogged, I'm not going to keep pouring more water. I want to make sure I un you know fix the clog first. What's clogging it? So we work through the foundation. We look at the nutrient profile and making sure that their body is strong enough have the energy to do the detox down the road like not just external like cellular at the cellular level. You have the energy, we have the nutrients. Really looking at their lifestyle nutrition. How should they be eating? What should they be targeting? What foods they should be avoiding? What they should be adding. So the first month is setting up that foundation and that can last from four weeks to 6 weeks to 8 weeks depending on where that person started with. You know some people hey I've done XYZ so that phase could go quicker and after that and based on their test results is then we go step by step in fixing detoxing and it's more like fixing the terrain right if the water your fish tank is dirty you know we got to clean up the fish tank than just trying to get new fishes in. Similarly, we got to fix our body's terrain, what's messed up, you know, taking a look at the bad bacteria growing or there's mold or fungus, but taking step by step through the detox protocol and then finally does getting into a stage that we can maintain and we retest to see, hey, how far what changed? Of course, the symptomology also changes, the energy changes, the weight. I'm not a weight loss coach, but people start losing weight. And they're like I'm like you it will once inflammation goes down when your body is not fighting all of this, the body's going to relax and it'll get rid of the unwanted weight that it doesn't want to keep. The body does not want to hold on to weight. It's holding it on holding on to it for a reason. So the energy changes, the symptoms go away that they were dealing with. The brain fog clears, the digestion improves, they're able to tolerate more foods. So all of those changes comes but at least it takes at a minimum six months to get there.
Cool. So I guess what would you want to be true about how people understand gut health let's say in 10 years?
I wanted to be taught in school honestly I think this is such fundamental and basic that you know I learned you know we learned basic biology in school but you know maybe basic nutrition or we have to eat healthy. but I wish we really in 10 years this is something that's embed embedded in our the way we are brought up the kids understand about gut health our microbiome you know how what we eat how we feel impacts you know the world outside you know because we want you know you have kids I have kids we want them to live to the potential and this also we focus so much on studies and extracurricular academics but what about they're putting into the system especially when they're getting exposed to so much junk and so much other noises and pressure from outside. So in 10 years a I really want this to be something that people understand and don't come back to and really understanding the symptoms. are signals our body is giving and a lot of us are not really you know I wasn't when I had my gallbladder attack. So, I don't think I even paid attention if my body was giving me any signs that something was off to know, hey, you know, if you're going to the bathroom after every time you eat a fatty meal, that's not normal. Or you're avoiding certain foods because it doesn't make you feel good. maybe that's not normal. What is your why is your body doing that? Or you, know, just being more attuned or if you're not going to the bathroom every day, that's not normal either. A lot of I have clients saying, "Oh, that's how I always am. I go to the bathroom every other day. I'm like, yeah, that's not normal. That's not how it's supposed to be. So really, so you know, and people understanding that how to learn their symptoms. And two is this testing should be more accessible and more, you know, from moni, you know, from costwise so people can actually look at the microbiome, hey, what's going on and start making changes and adjust to it before things get worse. So in 10 years, I want this to be more accessible, more people more educated. I think we're getting there. and in the western medicine system I don't know when that will change because if people start feeling better then we know how insurance works then you don't get a disease then they can't prescribe medication it's a business model as well so so hopefully it's part of the mainstream western medicine look at their gut health.
Cool. I guess help me land the plane. Where do people learn more about your work and how do they get in touch with you? Yeah, we you can find me on Instagram you know that's where I share a lot of educational content and tips of everyone atgupta. I know it'll be in the show notes. you can also find me on my website divygupta.net. that's those are two places you can find me.
Awesome. Well, thank you all for tuning in live as well. Really appreciate all of you. And yeah, with that said, Div, I'm going to bring this one to an end. Just hang out for one minute. I'll see you on the other side.
