Moving from India to Seattle reshaped Neha Shah’s health and daily life

Shah, who founded Ayurvedic Intelligence and lives in the Seattle metropolitan area, said she developed chronic bloating, fatigue, inflammation and weight gain within months of arriving in the US. She was still cooking the same traditional meals from scratch, which made the changes difficult to explain. An engineering background pushed her to investigate how a new food environment—including differences in processing, soil, water and infrastructure—might affect the body and microbiome. She later qualified as a holistic health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and as an Ayurvedic Nutrition Practitioner.

Daily life also changed. In Jharkhand, Shah said, walking, community ties and nearby produce markets were part of the routine. In greater Seattle, she found a car more practical for errands, groceries and school pickup, even as the region’s Link light rail expanded and ridership rose. Her family spends $5,000 to $7,000 a month on housing, she said, while groceries cost more than her mother spent feeding eight people for a month. Healthcare also meant learning about deductibles and copays and waiting weeks for some appointments.

The loss of everyday social contact was another shock. Shah recalled neighbors in India bringing food and noticing when someone was ill; in Seattle, neighbors were polite but more private. She described standing alone in her apartment on a rainy Sunday and realizing how unfamiliar the quiet felt. Motherhood brought a different surprise: without the wider network of relatives, she and her husband could follow traditions with help from her visiting parents, but without the competing advice she had expected. She said the loneliness was real, while the quiet also gave her more room to trust her instincts.

Community came gradually through her husband’s colleagues at Amazon, social gatherings, flea markets and cultural events. Shah said her advice to people moving to the US is to learn how its food system differs from what they know and to pay attention to ongoing symptoms such as bloating, fatigue or unexplained weight gain. She cautioned that these may signal difficulty adapting to a new food environment, rather than stress alone.