Health concerns addressed
In 3 months: Hypothyroidism, prediabetes, high cholesterol, insulin resistance and GERD
In 6 months: Weight target
Hema has 20 million followers on social media.
We just thought people like food bloggers. But when we really got to know Hema, we realised that she lived for her “community” (not just followers) and she thought about them all the time. There was an occasion where we saw her becoming all sentimental and mushy when she spoke about her community.
Hema truly loves them; they are a part of her. She wants to make a meaningful difference to their lives. It’s no wonder she has 2 crore people listening to what she says. When you truly care, it shows.
That was the first love story we discovered when we spent a day with Hema.
The other lovestory is very obvious to anyone who spends some time with Hema and her husband Subbu. It takes all of two seconds to sense how deeply they are in love with each other, even 20+ years after their marriage.
When Hema was telling us about Subbu, she came to the part where she says no-Subbu-no-Hema, got emotionally overwhelmed, broke down and cried.
Subbu is always “Hema-first-Subbu-next”. When we asked him to come on camera for this movie, he refused. For him, it was her story to tell and that he would not dilute it by being in it.
The third love story in this movie is Hema’s relationship with food. She loved food all through her life. She learned the basics of cooking only after getting married and moving to the US. Because she learned to cook when she was already shuffling between many things, she had to innovate and simplify rather difficult Indian recipes.
Now, India cannot have enough of her simplified recipes.
However, this love story came with a dark shadow. Hema struggled with her weight from the time she was a pre-teen. By her mid forties her health deteriorated so much that even day-to-day tasks were becoming difficult.
Her friend Arthi Krishnan suggested that she get herself into the Amura program. It took us all of three months to get Hema’s blood markers healthy (though, she had to be with us for three more months to make her results stick).
If you are a Hema fan, or if you just want to know how much of a difference three months can bring, you should watch this short video we made.
6 -> 2
122 -> 97
147 -> 100
4.6 -> 0.7
About a year ago, when Hema finished her Amura program, I (Saravanan) called Subbu, her husband and my point of contact, to see if Hema could give us a shout out. They were both in our program and did fantastically well.
Subbu readily agreed.
I asked him how we could compensate. After all, Hema is one of the most popular influencers in the country. Subbu didn’t even bat an eyelid:
“Nothing is needed. I see her so happy. That is more than any payment I can ask for.”
I was stunned. I didn’t know how to respond. I felt like a freeloader.
So, I could not bring myself to follow up with Subbu and Hema on their promise to give us a shout out. I sent a thank-you note to them about offering to help us and left it at that.
Couple of months later one day, Subbu sent me a video link and asked me to check if it was OK for them to post. Hema shot a whole video about her Amura experience, not just a shout out. I was so touched.
I told him the video was perfect and thanked him profusely, sent a thank you note to Hema, and went back to my work.
Hema posted the video. As of this writing, the video has 7.3 lakh (three fourth a million) views. With that single video, Hema inspired thousands of people to change their lives and become healthy.
Many of them chose Amura as their vehicle of change. That single video helped us to postpone our fund-raising by another year (our burn is tiny)! For one more year we could remain independent and run the business the way we wanted.
I wanted to tell the story about these two beautiful people, and how they give without measuring. So we made this movie.
