There is a particular kind of founder whose company cannot be separated from the thing that happened to them first. Tanisha Bawa was still in law school when she was diagnosed with PCOD and told, as so many women are, that the symptoms were simply something to manage rather than something to fix. She decided otherwise. She rebuilt how she ate, how she moved, how she slept, how she handled stress, until the PCOD came under control. She went on to practise as a litigation lawyer, but it was the pandemic, and the unexpected stillness it brought, that gave her the space to formally study functional nutrition. What stayed with her was not the diagnosis but the discovery beneath it: how much the body can do when it is finally given what it actually needs. That conviction became the founding logic of everything she has built since.
| Launched in 2021, TAN | 365 sits at the intersection of functional nutrition, gut health, hormonal balance, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum recovery and metabolic health, delivered through a multidisciplinary team of nutritionists whose approach is evidence-based, deeply personalised, and built on a simple, unfashionable conviction: that lasting health is a lifestyle, not a programme. The brand has since expanded into EAT by TAN | 365, a clean-label, gluten-free, vegan, refined-sugar-free functional food line, and a corporate wellness arm carrying the same philosophy into organisations. We spoke with Bawa about what litigation taught her about nutrition science, why the Indian wellness industry’s appetite for noise is a problem worth resisting, and what preventive healthcare in India looks like once it finally reaches the scale it deserves. |
| **Your own experience with PCOD became the starting point for TAN | 365. What changed for you?** |
| My own health journey is where TAN | 365 truly began. During law school, I was diagnosed with PCOD. Like many women, I was told that period issues, hormonal symptoms and medication were simply something I would have to manage. |
What surprised me was how little attention was given to nutrition, stress, sleep and lifestyle—the very factors that influence our hormones every single day.
Rather than accepting it as my new normal, I decided to change my lifestyle. I removed inflammatory foods, changed the way I exercised, prioritised sleep and learnt to manage stress more intentionally. Over time, those changes helped me manage my PCOD naturally.
It was the first time I truly understood how powerfully our daily choices influence our health.
I continued practising as a litigation lawyer, but when the pandemic brought the world to a standstill, it also gave me the time and space to pursue something I had become deeply passionate about. I enrolled to study functional nutrition, initially to better understand my own health. What started as curiosity quickly became a calling.
You trained as a litigation lawyer before moving into nutrition. What did law teach you about the way you approach health?
While law and nutrition may appear unrelated, they share one fundamental principle: every recommendation should be backed by evidence.
As a litigation lawyer, I was trained to question assumptions, evaluate facts critically and build a case based on credible evidence rather than opinion. That is exactly how I approach my nutrition coaching practice today.
I spend a significant amount of time reading peer-reviewed research, with a particular focus on randomised controlled trials, and translating that science into practical, easy-to-understand guidance for my clients. Before I recommend a supplement, I want to know what the highest-quality evidence says.
Every recommendation is backed by research, clinical reasoning and the individual’s unique health history. Even the supplement brands we work with are carefully vetted for quality, ingredient transparency and third-party testing before we recommend them to our clients.
| **The wellness industry thrives on quick fixes and novelty. TAN | 365 takes the opposite approach. Why?** |
It requires patience and conviction.
The wellness industry often rewards dramatic transformations, restrictive diets and sensational claims because they grab attention. But those approaches rarely create lasting health.
Our philosophy has always been simple: when we work with a client, we are fostering a lifestyle change and helping them implement it.
The way we coach our clients is not about getting them through a three-month programme. It is about helping them build a lifestyle. During those three months, our first priority is to help them heal and address the root cause of their health concerns. Once they are on the path to recovery, we work alongside them to integrate sustainable lifestyle changes into their everyday routine.
By the time they complete the programme, they are equipped to confidently navigate real life—whether they are travelling, attending weddings, celebrating special occasions or simply enjoying dinner out with friends—without feeling restricted or having to start over.
Your work spans gut health, hormones, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum recovery and metabolic health. What connects these seemingly different disciplines?
The body does not work in silos.
Gut health, hormones, metabolic health, fertility and reproductive health are deeply interconnected. The way we eat, digest and absorb nutrients, manage blood sugar, sleep, handle stress and recover can influence multiple systems at the same time.
So when we look at a woman’s health, we have to look at the whole picture rather than treating each symptom or life stage in isolation.
Women move through so many different physiological stages across their lives—from menstruation and hormonal changes to conception, pregnancy, postpartum and eventually perimenopause and menopause. Yet historically, many of these stages have not received the attention, research or personalised support they deserve.
Personalised nutrition goes far beyond giving someone a meal plan or a list of foods to eat and avoid.
It starts with understanding the individual: their medical history, symptoms, blood work, lifestyle, food preferences, stress, sleep, exercise and, most importantly, their long-term goals.
Two people can come to us with the same diagnosis or the same symptom, but the underlying reasons can be completely different. That is why our approach begins with understanding why something is happening before deciding what to do about it.
We work closely with clients throughout the programme, adapting protocols as their body responds and their needs change. It is a process of education, observation and refinement rather than simply handing someone a plan and expecting them to follow it.
| **EAT by TAN | 365 extends the philosophy into food itself. What gap were you trying to fill?** |
| EAT by TAN | 365 started with a very simple observation: there was a gap in the Indian market for snacks and desserts that could genuinely fit into a health-conscious lifestyle without compromising on taste. |
When we looked at the market, we found brands that were gluten-free, or vegan, or sugar-free, but very few that brought all of these together while still creating food that people actually wanted to eat.
Working with all three parameters is not easy, especially when you also want the product to taste indulgent and enjoyable.
For us, it is not about labelling food as guilt-free or telling people they should not indulge. It is about creating better choices so that health and indulgence do not always have to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Your corporate wellness programmes take this philosophy beyond the individual. What changes when health becomes part of workplace culture?
When people feel better physically and mentally, it inevitably influences how they show up at work. Better nutrition, sleep, movement and stress management can support energy, focus, productivity and overall wellbeing.
The biggest shift we try to create through our corporate programmes is moving wellness away from being a one-off activity and towards becoming part of workplace culture.
A wellness talk or health day can create awareness, but sustainable change requires ongoing education and an environment that makes healthier choices easier.
There is still a mindset among some organisations that wellness is an employee benefit or perk. I believe it is much more fundamental than that. Employees are the foundation of every organisation, and investing in their health is ultimately an investment in the organisation itself.
| **If TAN | 365 were an ingredient rather than a supplement or wellness trend, what would it be?** |
Turmeric.
It is ancient, accessible and incredibly versatile, but it has also stood the test of time. Long before wellness made individual ingredients fashionable, turmeric was already deeply embedded in Indian food and traditional practices.
What I love about it is that it represents something I strongly believe in: you do not need the newest or most expensive wellness trend to support your health.
Sometimes the most powerful things are the simplest ones, especially when they are incorporated consistently into everyday life.
| That, in many ways, is what TAN | 365 stands for: going back to the fundamentals, understanding the science behind them and making them practical for modern life. |
What does lasting behavioural change actually require?
It starts with understanding that behaviour change is not about willpower.
People need to understand why they are making a change and experience enough positive reinforcement to want to continue it.
We focus on education, consistency and gradual integration rather than restriction. Clients learn how their body responds to different foods, how to make choices in different situations and how to listen to their own hunger, energy and digestive cues.
We do not expect people to live in a bubble. Real life includes travel, weddings, celebrations, dinners out and busy periods at work. If someone’s health plan only works when everything is perfect, it is not sustainable.
Our role is to give clients the knowledge and confidence to navigate those situations without guilt or the feeling that they have failed. That is when nutrition stops being a programme and becomes a way of life.
| **What comes next for TAN | 365?** |
| The next phase for TAN | 365 is about building a larger preventive health ecosystem—one that brings together personalised nutrition, education, functional foods, community and technology, while staying true to the evidence-based approach we started with. |
I believe the future of healthcare has to move from reactive to preventive.
Instead of waiting until someone develops a chronic condition and then trying to manage it, we need to start much earlier—understanding our bodies, nutrition, metabolic health, gut health, hormones, sleep and lifestyle before problems become entrenched.
| EAT by TAN | 365 will be an important part of that journey. We have already started building community-led programmes, including one focused on educating people about blood sugar balance, and we want to expand these into more areas of preventive health. |
Education is one of the most powerful forms of prevention, because when people understand what is happening inside their bodies, they are better equipped to make informed decisions about their health.
| My long-term vision for TAN | 365 is to help shift the conversation in India from “How do I fix this?” to “How do I prevent this from happening in the first place?” |
If we can make evidence-based nutrition more accessible, practical and enjoyable, and give people the tools to understand and take ownership of their health, we can help create a generation that thinks about healthcare before they need it.
Follow Best List India for the culture, conversations, and ideas worth paying attention to.
