Fitgalaxy - Achieve sustainable health and fitness naturally

Fitgalaxy helps people become sustainably fit and healthy - helping them lose fat, build muscle, reverse lifestyle diseases like PCOD/PCOS, diabetes, thyroid, cholesterol, blood pressure issues naturally with focus on a traditional lifestyle encompassing nutrition, exercise, sleep, sunlight and motivation. Our approach ensures excellent health outcomes, minimises health burden and boosts immunity to pandemics at a population scale. 

Name: Rajat Sawhney

Designation: Co-Founder and CEO, Fitgalaxy

Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ra...

The problem we are solving is the alarming population level surge in overweight and obese persons, with a concomitant increase in lifestyle diseases. Pre-industrialisation, obesity and lifestyle diseases were negligible. Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. Globally, 39% adults (above 18 years) were overweight in 2016, 13% were obese, and there’s a serious surge in prevalence of diabetes, PCOD / PCOS, thyroid, cholesterol / blood pressure issues across age groups (even among young children). Obesity and lifestyle diseases raise vulnerability, lower immunity and lead to poor health outcomes in the event of a pandemic. 

In India, 19% women and 21% men are overweight or obese, over 75 million people are diabetic (~7% of India’s population) and 15-20% women of child bearing age have PCOS which causes infertility among other issues. 

This health crisis is due to health-corroding elements of a modern lifestyle - where consumption of packaged / processed food, sedentary work, staying indoors and not outdoors, disruption in sleep timings and quality, and being stressed is the norm and not the exception!

Our mission with Fitgalaxy is to help people become fit and healthy naturally at population scale in the most effective and cost efficient way. 

Fitgalaxy helps people across age groups and income segments of the population become fit and healthy naturally in a convenient, sustainable and cost effective way. 

Some segments of the population who we are currently engaging with mainly in India are: 

• Men and women in the age group of 20-55 who want to reduce weight and get fit and healthy. Their weight is above ideal body weight and this is typically accompanied by a lifestyle disease as well. This includes people who are between 5-40 kg overweight according to come into normal BMI category.  

• Diabetes / hypertension / blood pressure issues / cholesterol / thyroid or other lifestyle diseases - men and women in the age groups of 25-55

• Women in the age group of 18-45 who have PCOD / PCOS - some of whom are unable to conceive

• While our focus geography has been India so far, we have around 2-3% of users from outside India including the US, UK, Australia, Middle East, we aim to offer our services globally as well. 

We have a large amount of free information for the target audience based on their health and fitness goals in the form of health tips, questions and answers, plans, learn module, health score that users can follow to get fit and healthy in line with Fitgalaxy’s principles on nutrition, exercise, sleep, sunlight and motivation. 

We also offer subscription plans for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months periods where we guide people with their own nutritionist and fitness coach - across a variety of health and fitness goals - essential fitness, fat loss, muscle building, prevent and reverse PCOD / PCOS, thyroid, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure issues, plan for pregnant women and growing children. 

When the problem is widespread and the solution simple and elegant, a ‘public good’ approach can lend wings to the solution and unleash an exponential pace of adoption. This is especially evident from the unprecedented impact of the public digital platforms that India has created - Aadhaar (a nation scale online biometric Id); Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a platform for digital payment services; Government eMarketplace (GeM). Similar national digital platforms are currently being developed in healthcare and education.  

Recognising this, Fitgalaxy would enthusiastically embrace the ‘public good’ approach to pave the way for an ecosystem of partner institutions and associate entities that share common goals. Fitgalaxy would offer the following on FRAND terms to its ecosystem partners and associate entities -

1. Structured information on becoming fit and healthy and training of nutrition and fitness coaches,

2. Online tools to enable users to self assess their health and fitness condition & set goals, track their progress, interact with coaches and other users to stay motivated using Fitgalaxy’s own social media platform,

3. Design of a generic model for crowd-sourcing and curation of data on traditional food items, exercises and methods to remain fit (TBD), and

4. An AI-enabled algorithm to provide personalised guidance in the form of Fitgalaxy nutrition and fitness training plans (TBD). 

The impact that we will create is the following: 

• Currently, Fitgalaxy’s users are getting excellent results:  Our users are consistently achieving their ideal body weight (often losing 9-10 kg in 3 months!), improving body composition (lose fat and build muscle mass), preventing and reversing lifestyle diseases - which includes PCOD / PCOS, thyroid, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure issues, achieving sustainable health and fitness, and high immunity against pandemics. This is achieved at a fraction of the cost of conventional healthcare and from the convenience of the user’s home with natural traditional foods, exercises done outdoors / or at home without equipment and correcting their sleep, sunlight cycles - with expert guidance by our coaches

• Once we achieve population level impact: We will be able to drastically improve health parameters for a large percentage of population - directly reducing obesity / overweight percentage of population and % prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as PCOD / PCOS, thyroid, diabetes, cholesterol, and blood pressure issues. This will also boost natural immunity to pandemics, increase natural resilience of healthcare system, reduce health burden, reduce the % of vulnerable population and finally empower people to understand and take control of their health and fitness at large scale - without resorting to supplements or shortcuts. 

• Partner with organisations and govt to move the economy towards true sustainability at scale: Additionally, we would focus on partnering with companies and governments and driving the change we want to see to achieve sustainable health and fitness at population scale. Once we are operating at scale, we would focus on promoting organic farming / traditional methods of farming, home based cooking, open sourcing access to traditional foods recipes and exercises and traditional health and fitness knowledge, reducing pollution (air pollution, water pollution), moving the conversation towards sustainable consumer spending, promoting traditional skincare / haircare products, explore newer business models which incorporate these areas into Fitgalaxy’s operations

In the next one year, we want to achieve the following: 

• Move from 200,000+ users to 5 Mn total users using Fitgalaxy

• Launch AI chat bot which answers questions and guides people for free or low cost based on FItgalaxy principles. 

• Make free features ultra high value including high quality nutrition plans statewise and season wise, reshooting high quality exercise videos + adding yoga videos etc. Add autonotifications (1 per day from the learn modules etc). Ensure that free users are also getting massive value in terms of knowledge and guidance to get fit and healthy naturally. Add analytics and talk to users to ensure adoption!

• Innovative and large scale marketing - achieving massive scale in marketing while being most cost efficient with a sustainable business model. This includes marketing inside the app / website (to existing / first time installs / users) as well as externally in every platform / medium!

• Increase subscribed users from 4000 to 200,000 - while maintaining quality of customised coaching, continue with excellent results! 

• Ensuring a sustainable business model with value to users, coaches and Fitgalaxy to drive massive scale!

In the next three years, we want to achieve the following: 

• Move to 50 Mn users using Fitgalaxy (cumulative users since start)

• Launch AI based nutrition / exercise plans + integrate with a low cost fitness band of our own

• Drive adoption of Fitgalaxy principles at population scale

• Awareness of what has to be done to become fit and healthy through Fitgalaxy to reach 200-400 Mn people - with partnerships / extensive innovative marketing of the core message!

We measure success based on 

1. Number of users using Fitgalaxy. We currently have around 200,000+ users - mainly on the android app which is our flagship product with the most work done on it!

2. Number of subscribed / paying users - which determines sustainability of business model and ability to scale. Currently around 4000+ users cumulatively. We are adding 300-400 per month. Average length of subscription is between 3-4 months which we are aiming to increase. 

3. Impact on health and fitness - for free users as well as paying / subscribed users. Our results have been excellent as can be seen in the reviews and rating of our android app (most of these are by our subscribed users who have achieved stellar results!). Results can also be seen in visual form in our instagram page or here - https://www.fitgalaxy.in/testi...

4. Awareness of how to become fit and healthy sustainably driven by Fitgalaxy’s efforts - even if the person isn’t a user of Fitgalaxy!

A challenge which we are now working on is using innovative marketing - through organic marketing, paid digital marketing at lowest cost, usage of affiliates, innovative marketing campaigns through videos of founders and evangelism of the message, providing huge free value to unpaid users of Fitgalaxy - which we are now exploring to scale up rapidly while being cost efficient in marketing thus maintaining a sustainable business model that we can scale up rapidly. 

While we have now built a strong technology base and features to grow from - another challenging problem to solve is on using technology to support marketing efforts, deploying new technology using AI chat bot to support ‘massive free value’ to users to drive scale. 

Success in the Trinity Challenge can help the Fitgalaxy solution gain visibility, partners and resources for a global reach and impact:

1. Visibility and Access: Make the solution visible and accessible to those who need it - at a population scale, within and beyond India. A key barrier to global impact is the limited appreciation of the problem and how widespread it is, as well as the simplicity and generic nature of the solution, and how easy and effective it is in addressing the root cause of poor health, obesity and the inexorable spread of lifestyle diseases - that have gained epidemic proportions. 

2. Replication beyond India by joining up with 

   1. global partner institutions that can help Fitgalaxy add depth and resilience to its operational model, and 

   2. local social or business entities that can 

      1. adapt and augment Fitgalaxy content, training & resource material, by curating a database of traditional foods, ingredients, recipes, traditional methods of cooking and food preparation; macro and micro nutrients in these food items; and videos of traditional exercises and fitness methods; 

      2. create implementation team including nutritionists and fitness trainers, to roll out Fitgalaxy in new regions.

Access to the right resources: To attain population scale and spread faster than the problem.