Meet Dhavindha

I grew up in London attending a strict private school where the food was genuinely nourishing, whole foods, fresh fruit, wholemeal bread baked by my parents, and plenty of exercise through walking, cycling, rugby, and football. I felt bulletproof. I could eat whatever I liked and never gained weight.

As a teenager I began to rebel, sneaking crisps, experimenting with alcohol and cigarettes. At university I felt free, and threw myself into the social life, though I still cooked healthy food, cycled everywhere, and joined a Kung Fu class. In my 20s I took my first IT job, started drinking beer with colleagues every evening, and gradually stopped exercising as much. I joined a Tai Chi class and learned the traditional long form including Chi Gong breathing, which I ended up helping to teach.

By my 30s I had given up trying to be healthy. I was drinking 8 to 10 beers every night and eating mostly prepared meals. By the time I reached 40 I was 19 stone, approximately 120kg, with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and irritable bowel syndrome. I had completely stopped exercising. My joints ached from carrying the weight. I had accepted this was how I would spend the rest of my life.

Before

After

When I tried to join a gym. My blood pressure was too high to use the facilities. My GP recommended statins, a low-fat diet, and gentle walking. I tried, fell back, tried again. The pattern repeated for years.

The breakthrough came through what I called "YouTube University." Spending a lot of time sitting on the toilet due to health conditions, I stumbled across Dr Berg's videos on the Keto diet and intermittent fasting. His message was clear, evidence-based, and inspiring, and critically, he showed that the body could recover even from serious damage like fatty liver and cirrhosis, given the right conditions.

In January 2019 I made the decision to go all in. I gave up alcohol completely, cut out sugar, bread, rice, potatoes and processed foods, and began cooking everything from scratch. I started intermittent fasting, moving breakfast gradually later until I was eating just two meals a day, then eventually one meal a day (OMAD).

Inspired by Dr Berg's recommendations, I prepared my own daily health drink: lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, himalayan salt, magnesium and potassium, sipped throughout my fasting window to support the liver and maintain electrolytes.

As my research deepened I discovered the world of biohacking through creators like Siim Land, Thomas DeLauer, and the organisers of the Biohacker Summit in Helsinki, Teemu Arina, Olli Sovijarvia, and Jaakko Halmetoja. Inspired, I booked my ticket.

The summit was held in a repurposed old power plant. Presentations covered everything from brain health and microbiomes to advanced neurohacking, intermittent fasting, functional mushrooms, ketones, and genetics for personalised nutrition. There was an outdoor Finnish sauna, cold water therapy, and exhibitors showcasing medicinal mushroom tinctures and vibroacoustic therapy devices.

I returned home and began integrating biohacking tools into my daily practice: an Oura ring to track sleep and heart rate variability, a vibration plate for efficient daily movement, red light therapy, blue light blocking glasses, and a morning elixir replacing coffee, made from gynostemma tea, green tea, ginseng, schizandra berries, MCT oil, chaga, lion's mane, and reishi mushrooms.

Feeling that keto and intermittent fasting had taken me as far as they could, and sensing there was a deeper layer of health to explore, I enrolled at the Academy Healing Nutrition in 2021, studying the year-long Holistic Health Coach course. The course drew on Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, macrobiotics, longevity science, and practical cooking classes.

TCM opened an entirely new world. I learned about Qi, yin and yang, the Five Elements, the energetics of food, and how the seasons, climate, and environment all affect our health. I discovered conditions I had not previously identified, sluggish digestion, kidney heat, and began to understand the interconnection of body, mind, and spirit in a way that biohacking alone had not fully revealed.

I began changing my diet accordingly: less meat, more slow-release carbohydrates, seasonal vegetables, warming foods and spices to address my cold hands and feet. I replaced coffee with herbal tonics and elixirs using the same powerful tonic herbs, schizandra, he shou wu, astragalus, rehmannia, dong gui, that are now at the heart of my Healing Vitality Elixir.

Healing Heart Space is the culmination of everything I have learned, through suffering, through transformation, and through dedicated study. It is where the ancient wisdom of TCM meets the modern science of biohacking, where food is medicine, and where the body, mind, and spirit are honoured as inseparable.

My daily practice now includes morning Qi Gong and stretching, meditation, movement on the vibration plate, seasonal whole-food cooking, herbal elixirs, and Ecstatic Dance, a practice that has been profoundly healing for me and that I now facilitate for the community.

I wrote about this full journey in my paper Biohacking Meets Traditional Chinese Medicine, written while studying at Academy Healing Nutrition. Everything in that paper is lived experience, and everything I now offer through Healing Heart Space grows from that same root.