Since childhood, Shwetha traveled to different states and understood different food cultures and eating patterns that opened her eyes towards the field of Nutrition and she ended up becoming a Nutritionist, based on her ‘gut.’

Shwetha Ashok is a Nutritionist based in Mumbai. She is the Founder of ‘Gut Guru’, that trains clients to build better relationships with food, as she says. The holistic list of her consultation programs includes medical conditions in which major focus areas are diabetes, thyroid and PCOD, weight management, healthy eating for maintaining fitness and therapeutic nutrition that deals with productivity, energy levels and stress management.

Shwetha was born in Chennai but due to her father’s transferable job, she also lived in Rajasthan and Mumbai in her childhood. She did her Masters in Biochemistry and Microbiology and a Diploma in Nutrition. She has also done her MBA in Health Care Management.

Recalling her childhood, Shwetha says she had a wonderful fun-filled childhood. She traveled to different places and observed different cultures, their food habits, eating patterns and other aspects of life.

Shwetha shares that after her graduation, she worked at National Institute of Nutrition in the field of Research. It was during her research that she gained a lot of insights about different foods and decided to enter the field of nutrition to illuminate people with this knowledge. Thereafter, she worked under various nutritionists. After gaining enough experience, she founded ‘Gut Guru.’

When asked about her inspirations, Shwetha says she considers discipline as her motivation, part of which she got from her upbringing. She draws inspiration from her husband for pushing and supporting her to move ahead in her career. She also takes inspiration from like-minded people.

Talking about her struggles, Shwetha says, in 2019, she started her nutrition center and within a few months, COVID struck. It gave her a hard time because all her workshops, seminars and interaction sessions got canceled. But slowly she started sharing her knowledge from home and made people aware. Also, she feels that social media is also a big challenge because everyday trends keep on changing and it becomes difficult for a business to cope up with those fast changing trends.

Sharing her COVID experience, Shwetha says that because of the pandemic, people understood the value of their relationships and considered spending more time with their families. Besides, an avenue to work from anywhere is now open to people and has given a good opportunity to work from home, staying close to families. Also, people have shifted to home-cooked food and healthy eating patterns.

Between education and experience, Shwetha says that experience matters a lot but without education, it is null and void. She says if you do not have knowledge then what will you apply to gain your experience. Hence, education makes you understand things wisely and helps you grow in your career with experience.

Regarding leadership, Shwetha opines she does not consider herself a born leader because earlier she used to be a shy, introvert and low-spoken kid. But over time, she developed many skills with experience and her business further enriched her leadership skills.

In her spare time, Shwetha enjoys traveling, going out, meeting and chatting with people. She also likes doing meditation, workout and yoga to keep herself fit.

If someone wants to start their career in nutrition, Shwetha advises them that getting a degree is not enough. You need a lot of reading and research to do in any field you go to, especially in the health care sector. She adds that you should have a coach who could guide you to develop your business development, social media strategizing, time management and other skills required to become an entrepreneur.