Getting a (Well-Deserved) Reset
I’m an award-winning marketing and advertising expert who is consumed by thoughts of calorie counting and carbs.
That’s where our story begins.
On paper, I had “it all.” I had a thriving business (that was slowly killing me), I had lost 85+ pounds (but still had wildly unstable hormones) and I had advice for most challenges my clients, team and followers faced (and still, like most experts, couldn’t take my own advice).
In 2015, I launched a six-figure business in six weeks. I started my side hustle before that was a trending term - in the early aughts (aka the 2000s) while still in the midst of my undergrad career at Quinnipiac University.
I wrote for anyone and everyone who would pay me for the words that bubbled out of my head and flew across the (digital) page. And I loved every minute of it!
As the world of journalism was crashing down around me, I was getting paid for my ability to research, distill and write. First, as an Online Editorial Intern at This Old House magazine, then at Fortune Small Business, then at publications around the country — working “remotely” way before that became cool.
My college career was reset by a diagnosis of Celiac Disease — as I became legal, I learned that beer would, quite literally, kill me and that all of the symptoms I had as a child (aka the persistent pain after consuming any type of food) were related to an autoimmune disorder that impacts 1 in every 133 Americans.
This quickly prompted me to do what any budding journalist would — write it out. I did my thesis — a “multimedia” presentation, aka a website I built in Dreamweaver — on Celiac Disease and Infertility as I quickly realized my own fears of following in my mother’s footsteps with miscarriages and a complete hysterectomy at the age of 37 could in fact be my reality if I didn’t do something to change the course of my seemingly ill-fated genes.
Getting a Life-Changing Diagnosis
Having a name for the disorder that made my favorite family tradition — Sunday Dinner — quite unbearable was the first trigger for my post-college evolution. A journey that would take me down a winding and difficult road, and which would ultimately lead me here, to writing this post on a sunny Saturday in my apartment in Manhattan. But first, dear reader, there are many chapters to tell.
Celiac Disease: a disease in which the small intestine is hypersensitive to gluten, leading to difficulty in digesting food.
I’ve had a dysfunctional relationship with food for as long as I can remember — in preschool, my teacher told me I needed to eat more “yog-hart” (aka yoghurt for those of you who don’t balloon up like a Thanksgiving Day Parade float after a touch of dairy) and it seemed as if my fate of labeling certain foods off limits was forever sealed.
Of course, in my 30s, I have now realized that this was not the case.
Intuitive Eating is For the Birds
Or so I thought…
I didn’t eat a PB&J sandwich until college. For much of my elementary school career, I regularly packed lunches of Chickarina soup and Chinese takeout leftovers as I tried to understand why food felt like a bomb inside of my stomach.
I thought everyone’s stomach hurt when they ate.
And that’s when my obsession began.
I started Weight Watchers at 10 — prior to that, I wasn’t a chubby kid but as puberty kicked in and my hormones, due to an undiagnosed thyroid condition, couldn’t function, I began to steadily gain weight.
Being a chubby kid is hard. Being an attractive chubby kid is harder. Having people tell you “you’re just a big girl” and “you’d be so pretty if you weren’t fat” is all kinds of effed up.
Growing up in the 90s when waif-like models graced the pages of magazines and every women’s magazine seemed to have 1001 ways to lose weight, get fit and get the life of your dreams, I perpetually felt like I’d simply never fit in.
I’m short — and I come from a long lineage of short, curvy women… my maternal grandmother resembled Vivian Leigh and my great aunt literally looked like Sofia Lauren — and that didn’t help things.
What did help things? Getting my driver’s license. I started training at a women-only gym and fell in love with moving my body. A body that I had been at war with for so long finally seemed to be working with me instead of against me.
I got down to a size 6 as I met my first boyfriend after High School and moved into the 18+ evolution of my disordered relationship with food. I figured, if I can stay a 6, all will be well.
Eventually, I got into a car accident in college and staying a six was nearly impossible — I kept eating like I was working out but my stress increased, my hypothyroidism kept being undiagnosed and my waistline expanded.
Getting a Reality Check
Fast forward to May of 2010 — a newly minted college graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Print Journalism (an industry that was on its last legs) and a fresh Celiac Disease diagnosis, I declared that it was now time for me to work on healing myself.
And I did that, for a bit.
I did detoxes and fasts and juice cleanses. I once ate nothing but smoothies and veggies for 3 meals a day for 28 days, under the care of a well-meaning doctor who had no idea I was truly battling an eating disorder because I wasn’t even able to admit that fact to myself.
Throughout the next decade, I worked my way up the ladder — tripling my salary in four years, starting my own six-figure ad agency in six weeks and surviving a physically and emotionally abusive romantic relationship — to get hit in the face with the 2020 pandemic.
And in that? I got the greatest reset of them all — I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism after years of misdiagnoses and gaslighting doctor’s appointments. I was put on Synthroid (aka Levothyroxine), a drug that makes the body-fueling thyroid hormone I simply don’t have enough of and slowly but surely, from October 2020 to November 2022, I lost 85 lbs.
I went from a size 12/14 to a size 2/4.
I went from working out 6+ days a week, doubling up at least 2-3 of those days, to working out 3 days a week.
I went from feuding with my body to fueling it for the (incredible) work it does on a day to day basis.
I went from being alone to being in a healthy, thriving romantic relationship.
I went from hating myself to loving the warrior I saw in the mirror every day.
And with that, I had the greatest reset of them all — I made the decision to close my award-winning advertising and marketing agency to become a Health Coach and Certified Nutritionist.
Too Long, Didn’t Read (TL;DR) - Get Ready, Get Set, Go
That’s where this blog/Substack truly begins.
Getting a life you love is about:
Feeling fulfilled in your professional life
Feeling appreciated in your personal life
Feeling connected in your inner life (aka the mind-body connection)
Feeling healthy to enjoy all of your hard work
Feeling worthy of the success you manifested in your life
And, most of all? Knowing you’re worthy — and strong enough — to change course at any moment in time.
What to Expect from This Substack
In this blog/Substack (I’m old; we’ve established this, you’re lucky I’m not calling it a LiveJournal), you will get:
Tips to help you be more fulfilled professionally
Tips to help you be more mindful about what — and how — you eat
Tips to help you be more committed to healthy relationships — with yourself and everyone in your circle
Plus, some recipes, laughs and honest commentary along the way.
If this inspired you, let me know - @vixinthecity on Twitter and @vixreitano on Instagram.