Hey, I'm Mary.

I was in the 2nd grade. Oh yeah, it goes way back.

Sitting in the Nurse’s office in excruciating pain, barely able to keep my eyes open. Walk there had taken an act of God, but when she took my temperature it was normal so she was sending me back to class.

My eyes were filled with tears, both out of frustration but also because it felt like ice picks were being hammered in and out of my head, and to add insult to illness the nurse told me to stop making up stories to get out class.

I barely made it around the corner before BAM, projectile vomit was all over the front desk. How’s that for making it up, Lady?

And so it began – decades of pain and sickness while doctor after doctor told me that it was all in my head, completely psychosomatic. I was prescribed every medication and coping pain killer under the sun. I had so many blood samples drawn that I speculated that I was actually keeping a small town of vampires alive.

You learn to live with all the symptoms, and begin to wonder if it is indeed, all in your head. Pain becomes your normal and you’re led to believe that you have to start your day with pill to get through it.

By age 23 my body decided to turn up the volume, doing whatever it could to get me to find the source of all this bullshit. I spent the year with my skin completely inflamed, from head to toe.

Anywhere my skin was touched, an inflamed print would be left. Doctors again would doll out prescriptions in lieu of answers. The steroids I was put on to reduce my skin’s reaction left me a pile of depression on the floor, gaining weight rapidly.

My 24th year was my record number in ER visits from vomiting induced blackouts brought on from my migraines, only to be asked over and over as though I was ‘making up stories’ about what drug I allegedly was OD’ing on.

Again, I had more tears in my eyes, but this time instead of pain, I felt angry. Really angry, and helpless. I’ve had enough.

I had a melt down in the ER as they finally believed I wasn’t lying about my monster migraine and were about to treat me once again with heavy duty pain killers, pulling at the IV in my arm before they could put the morphine into my body, yelling I WANT TO KNOW WHY I HAVE THESE MIGRAINES!

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and on top of that, feeling like the marvels of modern medicine had forsaken me.

The rage led to the realization that it was up to me, that it was time to take my health and my diagnosis into my own hands and to seek my own answers.

After going down the internet research hole, I sent out my own lab work after learning that standard blood tests related to certain food intolerances can be up to 60% inconclusive. Talk about room for error…

The results came back, I was a Celiac*, in addition to having a severe Casein and Soy intolerance.

News like this is the opposite of winning the lottery unless you have a positive outlook on food and its potential to make you healthier and so I saw the challenge as a culinary opportunity!

*What is a Celiac? The word “Celiac” has a Greek origin – It comes from the word ‘Koiliakos’ which means hollow and refers to the way an individual with Celiac disease can eat but remain malnourished when gluten is present in the diet. The root word made more and more sense as I learned that there is so much in our accessible and daily food supply that cause this ‘hollowness’ in our digestion. Greeks, they are just so dang eh-smart!

I finally had answers, or at least partial answers, to what the root cause of my ailments over the years, and immersed myself into the world of modern American food to learn how what we eat today affects the human body.

What was the conclusion of my extensive research, medical study reading, and late night Googling? I learned that all of my allergies and ailments could effectively be ‘cured’ through the adoption of the *Paleo Diet, based on quality meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, tubers and seeds.

Simply changing the way I ate, without the use of any prescription drugs reversed my symptoms within months. A lifetime of pain and sickness began to disappear; migraines, hives, nausea, depression, digestive issues, muscular and joint pain, all gone!

Once I began regaining my health, sharing my story via Instagram, and reinventing my favorite dishes from childhood, the requests from professional athletes, well-known authors, actors, and even world renown Chefs came rolling in for private chef work and culinary consultations.

During this time, I was still working in corporate America at a tech job that I loved but knew I had to choose one and after a happenstance moment with Tyler Florence at The Ferry Building (ask me about it, it’s hilarious), I decided to go all in on my journey as a private chef advocating the power that real food has when it comes to health and vitality.

Ok, so here we are at a pivotal moment in my trajectory. I’ve left the comforts of corporate to embark on a journey into a new industry in a unique way, paving my own lane as I go along AND sharing it all publicly via social media.

Oh, and at this point, I loathe the word ‘paleo’ and leverage nomenclature to educate people on what I call PaleYOU or rather the individuality of diet and how what works for me won’t work for YOU and what works today may not work in 6 months.

This approach is why I’m hired to cook and consult with elite athletes and performers, being more than a chef, working with nutritionists and doctors to identify what each of them needs based on unique test results.

In that process, I began making Phat Fudge for my athlete clients, with slight modifications for each individual but a general base recipe, which I share online.

And as our parents warned us, you must be careful what you share on the internet because it can spread like the wind, which lucky for me, is true!

That recipe went VIRAL, and THOUSANDS of people were buzzing about its positive effects on their health and performance. Posts were going up of my recipe in sandwich baggies with caption-demands that I turn it into a product.

I listened, and just like I had no idea what I was doing when I left corporate life to become a private chef, I shared that I had no idea how to create a consumer product but that I would if you’d understand that I’d be learning as I go.

With no funding and an amazon bought heat sealer, I launched 50 orders online of Phat Fudge, selling out in one humble hour, which meant I needed to hand pack 600 packets to ship out that week.

The following week, I did it again, and again, and again, until Phat Fudge would sell out in under a second.

After about 10,000 HAND PACKED squeeze packets of Phat Fudge and still being fully self funded, it went on to a production facility where demand took on a life of its own thanks to the demand.

For the first 2 years, I grew the company solo while still private chef’ing and consulting with my clients, expanding the product from online into retail locations like Erewhon and Whole Foods.

Today, I now have a team (thank goodness!), and you can find me gallivanting about online and offline spreading the word about Eating Clean, Playing Often, and Crushing Life through my work as a private performance chef and consultant to your favorite athletes and entertainers, and of course, continuing to build Phat Fudge.

I’d say the rest is history, but as we all know it takes a long time to get to just the beginning so allow me to say that I’m just getting warmed up.

Trust your gut,
Mary

More stuff about me – Written by Nils Parker 

Before “The Paleo Chef” and Beyond the Plate…

Prior to her professional position so early in life, Mary Shenouda proved herself to be a compassionate advisor and supporter during volunteer counseling with hospice & bereavement, at-risk youth, and women who’ve endured domestic violence encounters. This experience is part of what has formed the basis of her highly responsive interpersonal communication approach.

While most are still in college, Mary dropped out of HS and became a top-performing marketing technology sales executive alongside peers 15 years her senior, performing above her objectives effortlessly where she would spend the next decade.

It was during this time her visionary and early use of social media contributed to increases in revenue for her clients (at times up to 300-700%). Mary has developed and executed successful strategic sales and marketing plans, and consistently closed business with Fortune 500 companies. Always crushing goals that were thought to be unattainable, Mary is consistently able to identify, win, retain and expand business and individuals. Because of her impressive record and precise execution, her “Sniper”-like talents have her regularly hand-picked by executive board members and CEOs to consult on product development, coach teams, and one on one at every level within organizations.

It’s no surprise that she has chosen to forge out on her own and become an all-encompassing advocate and “secret weapon” for her clients whether it be professional athletes, entertainers, or product and event consultations with companies such as Oura Ring, Katalyst Fit, and Nike.