63 year old B L Chandak’s (Executive Director, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group) story is truly inspirational. Read on to find how he made the shift from a vegetarian to plant-based diet and how adopting a raw lifestyle has proved truly transformational for him.

“I was born in a vegetarian family and have always led an active lifestyle with regular exercising and outdoor activities. Yet, I was overweight and had health issues like hypertension and elevated creatinine levels. I was advised lifelong medicines.

In 2012, inspired by my daughter Kavita and my friend Anil Narang, I turned 90% vegan. I got the opportunity to attend Dr Nandita Shah’s 7-day programme and I followed that up with SHARAN’s 21-day health retreat in June 2018. Here she spoke about the benefits of a raw diet and cited the example of Victoria Butenko who changed her life by just adopting a raw diet. Inspired, I switched to a 100% raw diet. Now, all my foods are free of sugar and oil, and comprise lots of salads, green smoothies, berries, beans and seeds. I have also been to the Prakriti Shakti Wellness centre to discover more wonders of the raw diet.

My journey in the last eight months has been phenomenal. I reduced my weight from 80 kgs to 68 kgs, my waistline from 40 inches to 32 inches, and my creatinine level from 2.08 to 1.49. My BP remains stable at 120/80 and my medicines have been stopped.

The transformation is incredible. I feel more energetic, clock 10K marathons in 100 minutes, sleep without snoring, and travel worldwide with no change in my diet. My body fat and protein levels are just perfect. My key takeaway from this personal journey is my conviction that controlling hunger is the first element of self discipline. If we can control hunger, we can control anything.

As an added bonus, I have been getting a lot of compliments on looking younger. Truly, going green is the only way to go if we are to safeguard ourselves from diseases and live a fuller life.” – B L Chandak