Today we’d like to introduce you to Kat DeRespino
Hi Kat, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My journey to where I am today is really bumpy. At times, it’s felt really chaotic, directionless, and hard, but I’m at this beautiful place now where I’m able to look back and see a plan and purpose in motion so much bigger than myself. I like to call this the turbulence of the early 20’s. The first few years of being an adult feels something like the daze of a redeye flight, a lot of time spent above ground, trying to find your footing, searching for solid ground, and losing your energy to the air currents until the breath is knocked out of you. The journey is almost always opposite of what we think – looking inward, moving backward, and getting to know and trust ourselves.
This is a lesson very similar to the one I had to learn from my body. I battled an eating disorder for most of my teenage years. The struggle came in waves, until it reached a low that almost cost me my life. Looking back, I send so much compassion to a girl who was deeply hurting, and just doing her best to survive an illness that was eating her alive but was also a safety net, the place she ran to hide. It was a default to cling to when I didn’t know how to live with myself, my experiences, and the overwhelming betrayal I felt between myself and my body.
There was so much that broke me, and so much that healed me. From the societal narratives that objectify women and their bodies as a whole, to a bad experience with a boy that stuck with me, to some of my earliest memories of experiences that took root inside me at as young as 8 years old. There was a dietitian who I’m positive is an earth angel, a car ride on a highway where I screamed for 15 miles straight, a moment in recovery when I reconnected to the feeling of being 6 years old and seeing the manhattan skyline for the first time, and how deeply significant it felt to be present and peaceful and profoundly at home in my body. It took years – years that were harder than anyone knows, even myself. But it was worth it. Life now, the vibrant, healthy, joyful life on the other side of resilience and so much grace, is worth it.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Since recovering, my health has been far from perfect. From chronic symptoms, hormonal disfunction, unexplained illnesses and episodes, to anxiety and challenges with my mental health. My new dedication to listening to and trusting my body pushed me to lean in, to educate, to dig deeper into the root causes of my symptoms. I became the advocate for my own body, when I once treated it like an imposter. My passion and interest in holistic wellness and nutrition began to grow as I watched it truly change my life and heal me from the inside out.
It was a passion that I felt like I was keeping in my back pocket – unsure if I wanted to “go there” with my history of disordered eating. It felt really close to home for me – which was equally exciting as it was nerve-racking. I put in a lot of time trying on career paths for size, pouring energy into things that were not aligned with the purpose I deeply felt I was supposed to serve. And I think that’s so okay – I learned, I dug deeper, I doubted myself, I chose myself, and I changed my mind. I left digital marketing to pursue holistic nutrition and wellness counseling, and I’ll graduate from Berkley’s Bauman College in Fall 2025 as a CN / BCHN. I am also gaining pilates teaching certification as well as CPT and health coaching. My passion is to truly help people feel their best and take really good care from a holistic, wholebody, all-inclusive, one-size-fits-one approach.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As I go through schooling, I am actively working on building my own digital wellness platform, sharing whole-body wellness tips (mind, body, nervous system etc.), easy, nourishing recipes, raising awareness around EDs, and more. As a creative, social media is such a beautiful medium to connect with people and provide tools to help them on a broader scale. Post graduating, my goal is to eventually build a private holistic nutrition / wellness counseling practice, and help clients and my social media community experience the beauty and fullness of life through mind body connection, intuitive eating and movement, informed nutritional habits, whole-body health care, and wellness practices.
My mission is to be a resource to guide people back to the expert of themselves: their own body.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I definitely can remember being called bossy, non-conforming, and definitely ambitious. I loved filming myself make chocolate chip cookies and pizza tortillas and scones when I was little which is funny, because that’s essentially exactly what I still do, haha! I loved curating, and have scapbooks full of fashion designs, travel plans, recipe ideas – all the things – so again, basically an early 2000’s version of an Instagram page. I was a little type a, and my mom always tells me that as soon as I learned to crawl I started organizing the shoes in the closet and making sure they were lined up and paired perfectly (also hasn’t changed).
I always knew I wanted to do something different and big with my life. Something that would impact people a lot. My definition of success has certainly changed from making a name for myself to making a difference in the lives of others, but my ambition to push myself remains the same.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katderespino/
