We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gauri Junnarkar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Gauri thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?
How I got into Ayurveda ?
In my childhood home, in the heart of Mumbai, I regularly helped my mother with preparing our family meals. Food was aromatic, full of spices, and delicious. By helping my mom in the kitchen throughout my childhood, I was lucky to be introduced to cooking and proper nutrition at a young age.
Little did I know that an incident involving a small cut on my thumb while helping her cut onions would serve as a major turning point in my life and also introduce me to Ayurveda – the ancient health science of India.
Following the small scrape, the area on my finger was bleeding. In response, my mom instructed me to wash my hands and gently dab a pinch of Turmeric on the open cut. She also emphasized the importance of slowing down while using a kitchen knife. In just a few short seconds, the bleeding had immediately stopped. She briefly explained the healing benefits of Turmeric, which left a lasting impression on me for the rest of my childhood and adult life.
Daily gratitude practice, grounding and Ayurvedic Abhyanga Massage became my everyday practice, and it is still part of my routine today. I immersed myself in India’s ancient science throughout my life and went on to receive my Bachelor’s degree in Ayurveda (BAMS) from the University of Mumbai.
This education allowed me to work as an Ayurveda Practitioner in a Mumbai clinic, which exposed me to diverse patient populations and reinforced my passion for complimentary wellness. After moving across the globe to the U.S. with my husband 15 years ago, I was determined to continue this practice while furthering my education. My knowledge and experience with the Ayurvedic diet and food principles coupled with my interest in evidence-based nutrition led me to pursue a rigorous and competitive combined clinical internship and Graduate Nutrition program in order to become a Registered Dietitian (RD). My background in Ayurveda inspired me to complete my Master’s thesis research on “Dietary Curcumin (phytochemical in Turmeric) and its effect in Melanoma (skin cancer)”. This research was selected at the National conference on Experimental Biology under “Diet and Cancer” and also at the Texas Dietetic Association conference.
Despite my many years of dedication as a RD in an outpatient diabetes setting, there was always a little voice in the back of my mind telling me to go back to my roots of Ayurveda. Understanding the proven benefits to evidence-based and individualized nutrition, I was determined to share this passion with others in the U.S. by using a unique combination of Ayurveda principles.
With a desire to offer an individual approach to one’s health and wellness, Ayurnutrition was born in 2009
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I am an Integrative Dietitian, Ayurveda Practitioner and a Certified Diabetes Educator. I work with clients to optimize their health by combining the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda with modern nutrition. I guide people who want to improve their health and wellness to feel better, eat better, increase energy levels, vitality and reduce stress levels.
We offer a variety of wellness services:
Ayurveda Consults
Nutrition Consults
Integrative Consults
Ayurveda Programs:
• Taste of Ayurveda
• Spring Restore & Reset Program
Nutrition Programs and courses:
• Taste of Nutrition
• C.H.E.F.S
• Virtual Grocery Store Tour
• Nutrition for Optimal Metabolism
• Nutrition for Optimal Immunity
• Nutrition and reducing the risk for cancer
• Fight Inflammation with the power of Food
• Nutrition & Thyroid Health
• Nutrition & PCOS
• Nutrition and heart health
• Nutrition and Gut health
• Nutrition and Brain Health
Integrative Programs:
• Integrative Weight Management Program:
• Integrative Diabetes Program
• Integrative Gut Health Program
Meal plans:
• Anti inflammatory meal plan
• Plant based meal plan
• Pantry powered meal plan
• Simple eats meal plan
• Indian Flavor meal plan
• Diabetes meal plan
Workshops, Wellness seminar and Webinars
Corporate and employee wellness programs:
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I believe in working with my clients as a team. They are in the driver’s seat and I am there to guide them on their wellness journey. Thinking out of the box, offering unique services, providing an integrative approach to health and wellness along with sound credentials has helped. Besides that having a niche , specialty, excellent customer service and understanding where a client is in their health journey, understanding their needs and showing them a step by step plan that is customized and personalized to them have been our key points for success. Our excellent reviews reflect what we stand for and how we can help our clients achieve better health and wellness.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I remember, when I came here I was still a student doing my Masters. My husband was finishing up his graduate degree and our finances were very limited. We just had one mattress, no furniture, no TV, limited utensils or cell phone or internet. We had to budget for every small thing. Our rent, groceries and save for tuition. In fact we didn’t even have a car. We had to walk to local grocery stores, or learnt to buy only when needed, and learnt to manage the limited finances to last the month. We had to time our weekly grocery visits to match the local bus schedule so we could return back on time for classes. We had to juggle with working and studying. This taught has important lessons on time management and financial management. When I remember those days it still fills me with joy, knowing that we didn’t have much but we had each other, we were resilient, worked very hard and the passion to succeed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ayurnutrition.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayurnutrition/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ayurnutrition
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AyurNutrition/
- Other: Listen to our podcast: https://ayurnutrition.com/podcast/ Read our blog: https://ayurnutrition.com/ayurnutrition-blog/ Our book on Amazon: Ayurveda & Yoga: A Path to health and healing: link: https://www.amazon.com/Ayurveda-Yoga-Healing-Discover-yourself/dp/B08F9TBL7J
Image Credits
Kaushik Chaudhuri