My focus is to improve health span and not life span: Luke Coutinho

We all live busy lives, but taking out time for our body, mind and soul should never be compromised. In order to enlighten ourselves about the broad idea of Holistic Nutrition and a lot more, Wellness India caught up with Luke Coutinho, Holistic nutritionist and Physiologist, amid his busy schedules and commitments and took some of his precious time to get his insights as he travelled on his way to the airport.

How did you think of Holistic Nutrition as an upcoming opportunity in India?
I started off with nutrition, but I soon realised that at some point in time I may have to cater to a larger audience. Holistic means being emotionally connected to your body and being balanced to progress further. I am working towards improving people’s health span, wherein they can live a healthy life. So, I want to focus more on integrated nutrition.

What are your focus points when working with patients having different problems?
While treating cancer patients, I noticed many times that they were low on immunity. I am in the field of integrated medicine and believe in balancing the whole collateral damage done to the body. I always recommend a combination of good nutrition, exercise and right quantity of sleep to my patients. Treatments are dramatic, whether it is for diabetes, heart problems or cancer. I am not looking at only treating people or increasing their lifespan; I try to connect the treatments with emotions.

What according to you can be done to boost people’s health and lifestyle?
In spite of having the abundance of hospitals, health care centres, doctors, nutritionists and spas, people are still affected by lifestyle and health related diseases. We have 60 million diabetics in India and according to WHO this number will increase to 80 million by 2023. Moreover, there are 45 million people with cardiovascular disease, which is going to get worsened by 2025 as the number will increase to 90 million.

In order to improve the degradation, we need to blend all the important components to flourish and enhance human health, which will only be possible once we have a balanced routine in life.

What is your idea of integrated medicine?
My concept of integrated medicine is to make the patient the centre of focus in order to make their health better. We have to increase our staple diet intake and avoid junk food which may harm our system. If we talk about our ancestors, they were never sick because they never compromised on what they ate. Since the day we have changed our lifestyles, we have started falling sick. Our genes are connected to our staple food and they play an important role in shaping our health.

Sleep is also important as it helps our body to recover and heal.We require at least 6-7 hours of sleep and problems arise when our body is not able to rejuvenate. So, this is how I see integrated medicine.

How do you want to make your holistic system more scalable?
There are people who cannot come to me due to health issues or cannot afford expensive treatments and it gets difficult to get in touch with them. Having worldwide clients, I have an online system which is very much scalable right now. I also have an online coaching group through which my team of doctors connect with the patients. I get into their lifestyles so that I get to know what has to be done for their treatments. My team of doctors and nutritionists is growing everyday and we are looking forward to expanding this model. I am not in any hurry to make it extremely scalable as I do not want to compromise on the quality of my services.

I just want to create awareness because I believe it has the power to change things and it can reduce the damage impacting our body. I do videos so that people who want to learn can get acquainted with what I have to offer.

Can you enlighten us about your Pure Nutrition food range which seems like a very scalable model?
It is a scalable model but I am very particular about it. I am the founder of the company and the formulation was also designed by me because I know how I want to treat people I work with. I have very strict rules which consumer gets to know when they purchase my products. My team of doctors talk to people and try to figure out why they need a particular type of nutrition. We plan the diets because if it is not right, it can harm the body rather than helping it out with something good. Unless people make lifestyle changes, the diets and routines are not going to work for anyone. If you are only taking pills, it’s not going to work for you because you need to manage your stress levels and exercise well

Tell us about GOQII, a wearable tech company.
I am the co-founder of GOQII and basically, own the methodology. Vishal Gondal, the founder, owns the credit for the tech part. We wanted to do something different, so we thought of connecting a coach through the fitness band. When a person is using the band, he/she can upload desired goals and a particular coach can connect and train the person on nutrition, sleep, diet, exercises etc. The coaches go through a right type of training and particular measures in quality are taken to keep up the name.

I have highly qualified and specialised people as GOQII is all about lifestyle. We have 500 coaches handling over one lakh users by now and are expanding to US, Dubai, UAE etc. I have my own team of doctors and nutritionists with whom I handle lifestyle disorders.

Can you explain the working model connected to your brand, Luke Coutinho?
I have 35 doctors and nurses who are working for my brand, Luke Coutinho. They are working with the brand and also doing other things for their overall growth.

So, are these doctors and nurses in a way your franchisees?
No, they are not my franchisees at all. They work according to their capabilities on patients they can use their skills for. I am not looking at franchising my model right now as I do not want to compromise on the quality.

You have also authored a book with Shilpa Shetty. Can you shed some light on it?
I have written a book with Shilpa Shetty, named ‘The Great Indian Diet’. I was looking for someone when I was writing this book as I wanted a Bollywood face that could spread out the message to the market. I wanted someone who actually shares my vision of food and diets and Shilpa is the perfect person to set an example.