About Adrianna Shashaty
I spent the summer after freshman year of high school obsessing over my weight and appearance. I got caught up in the usual—friends, fashion magazines, and popularity. Indiscreetly, I began counting calories and restricting food, and before I knew it, I was diving head first into a rip current of obsessive thinking around what I ate. I fought to recover for the next seven years, through high school and through all four years of college. I won’t bore you with all of the details, as this story isn’t about my eating disorder. My story is about how my relationship with food was restored, and how the fire to help others was ignited through my healing journey.
It wasn’t until senior year of college that something deep within me had shifted. I no longer wanted to identify with my eating disorder, and every ounce of me longed to just be “normal.” In time, and by the grace of something greater than us, I found the strength inside to ditch the habits that were bound to kill me. Though it wasn’t as simple as waking up and being free, I was blessed with the ability to recognize patterns and truths about myself. This understanding allowed me to shift my actions from punishing myself to genuinely caring about myself.
I graduated from Iona College with a bachelor’s degree in communications and a concentration in journalism. After a year or so of searching for a job in the field, I landed myself a fulltime position at a local newspaper. As a reporter with perpetual deadlines, I spent anxiety ridden hours out in the field and in the office. I was in my early 20s, and once again my health began to decline—but this time it was different. I began experiencing panic attacks, heart palpitations, and I struggled to keep my emotions in check. My happiness was fleeting, and fight-or-flight was all I knew. After years of battling an eating disorder, I thought things were supposed to be OK by now. I had a title that was satisfying for my ego, and I was working in the field I studied—what else could I ask for, and what could possibly fill this void within?
With a flimsy backup plan to do PR for an entrepreneurial couple, I left the newspaper. The gig was a total flop, and I began serving in a local restaurant. This marks the beginning of my journey to self-love. Truthfully, I love serving, I love being on my feet, and I love engaging with (most of) the guests. I started exercising regularly, I made fruit smoothies with greens nearly every morning, and I discovered a passion for cooking. Cooking became everything to me, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, food was exciting and nourishing. Fast forward about two years—I was a Kombucha drinking, kale loving, tree hugging server who wanted so desperately to get out of the industry and into something that I felt absolutely passionate about.
One day, a guest I was waiting on told me that a lot of the menu items were incredibly unhealthy, to which I agreed. She apologized, and explained that nutrition was essentially what she did for a living. I asked her to elaborate, and after hearing what she did for a living, she said that my “face lit up like a Christmas tree.” She went on to tell me about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and within three weeks I had enrolled in the program.
About a year later I graduated with a certification in Integrative Nutrition Health Coaching, and presently work as Modern Behavioral’s Nutrition & Wellness Coach. I am incredibly passionate about helping others heal their relationship with food, shift their perception from food as pleasure to food as nourishment, and I hope to inspire others to embark on the journey toward self-love, self-care and overall happiness and well-being.
So, in a sense, I feel my story has just begun.