Adjusting To Her New Normal After A Tragic Loss She Found A Passion For Living Her Healthiest Life.
When unspeakable tragedy strikes, the emotional toll it takes on a person often manifests itself physically. Tammy Perconti was six months pregnant with her first child when her husband, Jon, was killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. In the months that followed, Tammy had to welcome her daughter into the world alone as a single mother while trying to cope with the loss of her husband. For the first time in her life, Tammy found herself with no energy, she had trouble sleeping, and was experiencing chronic skin and health problems doctors simply could not remedy. As a last resort, one doctor suggested she should try to treat herself holistically.
Taking a step back to analyze how she was nourishing her body, Tammy realized she was ingesting too much sugar and processed foods. When she eliminated them, she saw immediate results. She felt energetic, her mood swings went away, and she was sleeping better. Around this same time, Tammy took up tennis to incorporate some much needed physical activity into her daily life. Not only was tennis a rigorous sport that helped Tammy relieve stress, but it also gave her a nurturing social outlet, self-empowerment, and a new passion.
Wanting to educate herself further on the critical role proper nutrition plays in the mind-body connection, and hopefully help others along the way, Tammy enrolled at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a health coach. Tammy’s biggest takeaway was health starts from the inside out. As the body’s largest organ, your skin is typically the first place poor nutrition and stress manifests. As a health coach, Tammy learned the proper way to care for it from the inside out. To educate herself on how to nourish the body from the outside in, Tammy became a licensed esthetician and a consultant for Beauty Counter, a natural line of make up and skin care products.
Tammy put her health coaching knowledge to its best use bringing awareness to the importance of good nutrition to her daughter’s local public school. Tammy co-founded the school’s greenhouse garden and was a committee member that paved the way to improving the school lunch program by switching to a local food service provider and replacing high sugar foods and drinks with healthy options like a salad bar. Today, Tammy is a part of the school’s new Wellness Committee whose initiatives will further improve school lunches, raise even greater nutritional awareness, and foster an overall healthier environment throughout the district.
Choosing to take her health into her own hands, Tammy’s unexpected journey gave rise to passions that bring her a semblance of strength, balance, and knowledge to live her healthiest life for herself and her daughter while paying it forward to their community.
