16 Oct 2026Essay · 6 min
Supplements and protein powders: when fixing it yourself backfires
Reaching for a tub of powder after a bad report is understandable. It's also where a lot of new problems start.
Who comes to us
Most people arrive in one of four places.
Recognise yours?
A report with a bad number on it — thyroid, sugar, cholesterol, vitamin D — and no one explained what to eat now.
The report
Something you've been working at for years, often with a deadline. Trying to conceive is the most common.
The long road
You tried to fix it yourself — supplements, protein powder, a diet from the internet — and it got worse.
The DIY detour
It isn't about you. It's your mother's sugar, your father's heart, your child's growth — and you're the one booking.
Booking for someone you love
How we work · three steps
Not a diet chart. A plan you keep.
01
Listen
Bring your reports. Bring what you've tried.
The first consultation is an hour. We go through your lab reports, your history, your medicines, your week, and — the part nobody asks about — what's actually cooked in your kitchen. And what you've already tried, including the supplements and powders.
60 min · in person in Bengaluru or video
02
Plan
A plan built from the food you already eat.
Rice, dal, curd, rotis, the sabzi your family likes. Your plan is written down, portion-clear, and aimed at the number on your report — with recipes from our own kitchen to make it easy to follow.
Written plan (PDF) + recipes
03
Follow through
We adjust until the number moves.
One visit rarely changes a lab report. We set a follow-up date at the first consultation and keep it — checking what worked, what didn't, and revising the plan alongside your doctor's treatment.
Follow-ups every 2–4 weeks
About · Saraswathi Usha
14 years of hospital and clinic nutrition — now one-on-one.
I've worked as a clinical nutritionist since 2012 — as Senior Nutritionist at Motherhood Hospitals and Ovum Hospitals in Bengaluru, counselling in-patients and out-patients, and later leading a team of 85 nutritionists at Cult.fit.
Most people who come to me are holding a report: a thyroid value, a sugar reading, a cholesterol number, a vitamin that's too low. Their doctor has named the problem. What they don't have is a plan for what to eat on Monday — one that works with the food their family already cooks.
That's the work. We read the reports together, look at what you've already tried, and build a plan from your own kitchen. Then we follow up, because one visit rarely moves a number.
- ✦Senior Nutritionist at Motherhood Hospitals and Ovum Hospitals, Bengaluru
- ✦Led a team of 85 nutritionists at Cult.fit
- ✦500+ nutrition workshops for companies, colleges and schools
- ✦Co-author, Diabetes Nutrition chapter — IMA Academy of Medical Specialities (2019)
— Usha
Saraswathi Usha · Senior NutritionistMaster's in Dietetics & Food Service Management · PG Certificate in Paediatric Nutrition · B.Sc Biochemistry
From Usha's kitchen
The recipe book →The plan is food you'd cook anyway.
What it costs
Start with a free call. Decide after.
Fifteen minutes to tell us what's going on. If we can help, we'll say how. If we can't, we'll tell you that too.
15 minutes
Discovery call
Free
15 minutes · phone or video
Tell us what's going on and what you've already tried. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help.
- ✦No preparation needed
- ✦No obligation to continue
60 minutes
First consultation
₹2,000
60 minutes · in person or video
A full look at your reports, history, routine and kitchen, ending in a written plan built around the food you already eat.
- ✦Review of your lab reports and history
- ✦Personalised written plan (PDF)
- ✦Recipes matched to your plan
60 minutes
Follow-up
₹2,000
60 minutes · in person or video
We check what worked, what didn't, and adjust the plan against your latest numbers.
- ✦Plan revision
- ✦Updated recipes where needed
Recommended
Three-month programme
₹9,000
1 consultation + 5 follow-ups over 12 weeks
For a lab number you want to move. Change takes more than one visit — this is the plan, plus the follow-through.
- ✦First consultation + five fortnightly follow-ups
- ✦Plan revised at every visit
- ✦Lab review at the start and the end
- ✦WhatsApp questions between visits (weekdays)
Pay online at booking (UPI, cards, netbanking) or at your session. See pricing and our refund policy.
Mission · Vision · Belief
To make eating well feel like coming home.
Mission
To meet every Indian woman in her own kitchen, with food she already loves, and walk her — patiently, without shame — back to a body that feels like hers. To replace the extreme with the sustainable. The fashionable with the right.
Vision
A generation of South Indian women whose first instinct in any health season — period irregularity, thyroid trouble, pregnancy, perimenopause — is not Google, not a fad cleanse, and not a guilt spiral. It is a thali, a glass of buttermilk, and a clinician who knows their name.
Beliefs we work from
- 01Food is medicine — but only when it tastes like food.
- 02A plan you abandon in week three was never the right plan.
- 03Hormones, gut, sleep, training, mood — they are one system, not five.
- 04Your culture is not the problem. Restaurants and cereal boxes are.