From seed cycling to paleo diets to master cleanses, almost every scroll on social media promises a new superfood or a miracle diet. With so much contradictory information, it’s easy to forget that nutrition is not about trends or about losing weight.
One of the first things I learnt in Nutrition school was that the root word of ‘Diet’ comes from the Greek word ‘diaita’, which means ‘a way of life’ – it’s not what we eat or what we don’t eat, but a way of living. That small insight alone can change your entire mindset on how we perceive diets. It’s not a punishment, a deprivation for a specific duration or a simple fad – it’s a lifelong relationship with nourishment, health, and self-awareness. And one which evolves along with you over time.
Diet Is Not Just What You Eat
While everybody around is largely focused on counting macros and calories, it’s critical to realise that true nutrition goes far beyond calories, carbs or restricted eating. It’s really about how your body metabolises, absorbs, and utilises what you eat. Two people can eat the same meal and have vastly different metabolic responses. Why? Because nutrition happens at a cellular level, not just at the kitchen counter.
Your mitochondria, the energy factories of your cells, respond to nutrients. Light, sleep, stress, and movement are all intrinsically linked. So, if we want to talk about nutrition, we can’t isolate food from the rest of our biology. Be it blood sugar regulation, hormone balance, inflammation levels, gut microbiome, or circadian rhythms.
Food Is Information, Not Just Fuel
We have always grown up studying that food is fuel and something we burn for energy. Every Grade 3 Student will tell you how it provides you with energy to walk, talk and think. But we forget that food is far more than just an energy source.
Today, Functional medicine has taught us that food speaks to our biology. Every bite you take sends messages, not just to your cells, but to the trillions of microbes living inside your gut microbiome. These microbes not only help you digest your lunch, but they also actively influence your immunity, your brain health, and your hormones. For example, when you feed your gut a diverse, fiber-rich diet, it rewards you by producing short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which help reduce inflammation and strengthen your gut lining. But when your plate is filled with ultra-processed foods, artificial sweeteners, glyphosates, or your microbiome hears a very different message. One that can lead to an imbalance, a leaky gut, and eventually lead to chronic inflammation, starting from weight gain to autoimmune disease.
Functional Medicine: Emphasising Personalised Biomarker Analysis
Most conventional blood tests look at disease detection based on established clinical guidelines. You either “have diabetes” or you don’t. Your cholesterol is “high” or “normal.” But health isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum, and that’s where functional medicine biomarkers come in. They are not looking at normal protocols or a sum of averages, they check what is optimum for you. They help us read the subtle whispers before the body starts to scream.
Where conventional medicine asks, “Are you sick yet?”
Functional medicine asks, “How is your body functioning?”
Conventional diagnostic tests may miss subclinical nutritional deficiencies or early metabolic imbalances that don’t yet present themselves as overt disease–like fasting insulin, Free T3, HbA1c, homocysteine, LP (a) Fibrinogen and most importantly, your gut profile. You can eat “healthy” and still struggle with blood sugar, inflammation, and autoimmune disorders, all of which are influenced heavily by your gut microbiome. Functional biomarkers, in many ways, can turn nutrition from guesswork into precision. They tell us what to eat, when to eat, and what’s blocking the body from absorbing or using nutrients effectively or what the body needs to detox effectively.
It’s the difference between following a trendy diet and following the needs of your actual cells.
The Rhythm of Life
To make nutrition even more complex than just food and bloodwork, we add a few other elements, like light and sleep. As humans, we often imagine our body is working in real time and responding to hunger, sleep or stress, but in reality, under the surface, there’s an internal clock or your circadian rhythm, connected to your brain. This master clock is wired to the sun and quietly orchestrates almost every biological function from digestion and detox to hormone release and immune repair. Morning light signals the body to produce cortisol, awakening our metabolism. Evening darkness triggers melatonin, preparing us for deep restorative sleep. The gut, too, runs on this rhythm; digestive enzymes peak during the day and slow down at night.
But in today’s hectic schedules and work hours, we see more and more Indian households eat their largest meal late at night. Work hours and commute times back home have driven dinner timings to as late as 9 or 10 PM, long after the sun has set. Furthermore, in India, working late hours, night shift work and overtime are increasingly normalised. The result is a rise in young adults suffering from mood disturbances, weight gain, digestive issues, and poor sleep, which is often blamed on stress or poor lifestyle without realising that it’s their biology that is fundamentally out of rhythm.
Then, of course, there is sleep itself, one of the most powerful yet underestimated pillars of nutrition. Sleep is when our bodies repair, detoxify, and reset. Poor sleep impacts leptin, the hormone that signals satiety and increases Ghrelin, the hunger hormone and reduces insulin sensitivity, and increases cravings. Studies show that even one night of inadequate sleep can alter glucose metabolism as if you’re pre-diabetic. A study done on the U.S. Navy Seals found that after just 72 hours without adequate sleep, markers of inflammation, cortisol, and insulin resistance skyrocketed, If this is what happens to elite warriors in top condition, imagine the toll chronic sleep deprivation takes on the average person juggling a high-stress job, parenting, or night shift work.
The Forgotten Power of Community: Lessons from Roseto
In my nutritional journey, one of the most interesting health studies of the 20th century was a simple study that actually changed a lot of my thinking as a nutritionist and health coach. The Roseto Study followed an American town in 1960s Pennsylvania, settled by Italian immigrants. Roseto had almost no heart disease compared to neighbouring towns and villages. Initially, it was thought it was their Italian genetics and diet. It turned out their food was the regular high-fat American fare similar to neighbouring towns, but what was different was their tight-knit community. Families lived together across generations. People gathered for dinners, festivals, and Sunday masses. Elders were respected, social isolation was rare, and emotional stress was low. When younger generations moved away and adopted more individualistic lifestyles, their rates of chronic disease rose, despite having access to the same foods and medicine.
Many studies have even shown that children who regularly eat meals at a designated table with family rather than in front of TV screens, or computers, or alone have better dietary habits, lower rates of obesity, improved academic performance, and greater emotional resilience. Eating together, sharing meals, and living in connection helps reduce cortisol, improve immune function, and support better metabolic outcomes. Nutrition isn’t just personal, it’s also relational.
The New Path Forward
So, in a nutshell, true nutrition is not just random diets and food restrictions. It’s not only about weight loss and 6 packs. It’s about metabolic health, building muscle and health span. So let’s move away restricted diet and redefine nutrition to include:
The future of nutrition isn’t more noise, it’s about more listening. Listening to your biomarkers. Listening to your body. Listening to your environment, your microbiome, stress load and eventually what foods are healing or harmful to you. When this nutrition aligns with your biology, your rhythm, and your sense of belongingness and community, it becomes sustainable. It becomes a lifestyle, and the rest will fall into place over time.
As someone said, “Wellness is not a diet you start, it’s a life you design.”
