Meet Fitelo, a health-tech startup based in Mohali, more specifically, a fast-growing weight loss app. The app, which was founded by Sahil Bansal and Mehakdeep (Mac) Singh, has over 15,000 organic users in 15 countries. Since its inception, Fitelo has focused on sustainable and holistic fitness. “Our wellness plans are personalised based on our clients’ routines, goals, medical conditions, preferences, etc,” says Singh. “With our Fitelo app, we work on building long-term habits and help our clients get into a healthy lifestyle step by step.”
Basically, Fitelo is a group of dietitians, doctors, nutritionists, and fitness trainers. They will ensure that your body’s overall nutrition is maintained as you lose weight and transition to a healthier lifestyle. They do not incorporate or recommend any supplements or medications into our diets.
“Our diets are entirely natural,” says Bansal, the other co-founder at Fitelo. “Understanding your medical conditions (if any), we recommend natural foods in our diet plans that can help with the condition while limiting things that are not good for the condition. To treat these disorders, we optimise diet plans based on your nutritional needs.”
According to Bansal, fitness is about habit-building. Habit building happens when you take small steps repeatedly over a period of time. Every weight loss product/service people try promises to give instant results. People lose weight only to regain it after a few months.
“We work on building these healthy habits. It is the only sustainable and long-lasting way to lose weight, stay fit and avoid diseases,” he says.
The platform was incepted in 2019 by the two co-founders who were reunited at an event after 11 years. As a matter of fact, both were childhood friends and obese from their early days. After trying every weight loss solution that is out there, they realised that there is no permanent solution available. Every solution gave temporary results. Bansal, after pursuing his MBA, worked for over a decade in the corporate space. Most of his work involved around creation of habit formation models using technology. In the process he realised sustainable fitness is about habit building. He had attempted to build an ed-tech startup in the past.
Singh joined an auto major after completing his MBA. After meeting with an accident in 2014, he was bedridden. During that time, his weight shot up tremendously. He decided to unlock the mystery of weight loss and maintenance on his own. This is what nudged him to quit his well-settled corporate job and pursue master’s in nutrition.
In 2019, both Bansal and Mac joined hands to build the platform of Fitelo. “Since its inception, the app has focused on offering the services of sustainable and holistic fitness. Its wellness plans are customised and personalised,” says Bansal.
The platform has expanded from a team of two people in 2019 to over 90 members. It boasts of four lakh followers on Facebook and a 70,000+ follower base on Instagram and is proud to share that its content reaches 50 lakh people on a monthly basis.
Today, Fitelo is not just helping clients to lose weight, but also to manage and reverse diseases such as PCOD/PCOS (a condition that affects women’s ovaries), diabetes, hypertension and thyroid.
“In the next five years, Fitelo will be a single-stop shop when it comes to sustainable and natural fitness. The Fitelo platform will be one place where an unhealthy or unfit person can come when they are looking for guidance, a product, or a service that can help them to achieve sustainable fitness,” says Bansal.
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