Student Spotlight: Nutrition Student Transforms Self, Hopes to Help Others Do Same

Marcel Tassara, a student in the Bachelor of Science in Nutrition program at Bastyr University, has realized a little secret: that you first have to transform yourself before you can help others. And sometimes you have to go through hard times to discover what you are meant to do in the world.

Formerly prone to overindulging in food and other substances, Tassara found himself getting very tired of his lifestyle before he was ready to find a better one. And now, not only is he fit, healthy and motivated to study nutrition, but even better, he knows he wants to devote his life to helping others become mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready for change. Enrolling in Bastyr's Bachelor of Science in Nutrition program was one of many steps in his transformation.

But this transformation was a long time coming, as Tassara struggled along for many years, knowing something wasn't quite right.

Tassara had always been someone who enjoyed delighting his senses. After all, he grew up in Milwaukee learning to make wine with his Northern Italian father who was also a great cook. Tassara, a high-school football player, had always been a bigger guy who carried a little extra weight, and he didn't try very hard to change that. In fact, taking care of his health wasn't on the top of his list. It fell toward the bottom along with schoolwork and career goals.

In spite of the fact that academics weren't his forte, he decided to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after high school, thinking it might be enjoyable. Before long, his found his academics suffering because of all of the enjoyment he was having. Hoping he could choose a new major and reform himself, he transferred to Columbia College in Chicago to pursue a journalism degree. But no matter where he went, he couldn't seem to shake his tendency to skip class and have fun -- and not always the wholesome kind. "It's one of those 'Wherever you go, there you are' types of things," he notes.

After getting to the point where he was, as he puts it, "tired of feeling the way I was – once again," he decided he desperately needed a change. He swore off alcohol and drugs. But he compensated by ratcheting up his consumption of food. At his heaviest, the 5'8" Tassara weighed 280 pounds.

But he wasn't giving up. The first sign that Tassara was truly ready to change was when he stopped smoking a pack a day of cigarettes during a singular weekend when he was sick. Although he had previously thought about quitting, being sick gave him a convenient time and reason to do it. After accomplishing that, he decided he wanted to change the way he ate. But it wasn't simply a matter of making a decision. He experienced changes on a mental and spiritual level that created a willingness within himself to change. He developed a spiritual practice and started meditating. His perspective started to shift. He was truly changing from the inside out.

"I wanted to lose weight my whole life," says Tassara, "but this was different; I just wanted to be healthier. I wanted to change my lifestyle, not just my diet." Within a week of deciding this, he lost interest in the foods he usually ate and started looking for alternatives. Then by coincidence, one day he met a man who had cured himself of prostate cancer by following a macrobiotic lifestyle. Fascinated, Tassara gravitated toward a macrobiotic lifestyle as well. "I guess I was just ready," he says. "I became obsessed with reading about nutrition -- first macrobiotic nutrition and then other areas." In one year, he dropped 100 pounds.

Sometime during that year, Tassara was again having coffee with the man who introduced him to macrobiotics. Tassara was telling him how he wanted to go back and finish college but was unsure of what to study. As they talked, Tassara realized that he ought to study the subject that he was already studying on his own: nutrition. Besides, it would be nice to have a scientific backing for his own personal studies. Says Tassara, "I remember verbalizing to people even before I came to Bastyr that everywhere you look, you see conflicting information about nutrition. I felt like I wanted to get a base of information so I could sort out the other information out there."

That same night, Tassara searched on the Internet and found Bastyr University. Bastyr's nutrition program seemed perfect. "All the other schools seemed really cookie-cutter, like just another rendition of what was already out there, spitting out calorie-counters," he says. "But Bastyr's approach was right along the lines of what I was already doing, and I knew this was where I wanted to go." Tassara completed a year of coursework to prepare to enroll. He continued running and exercising and altered his diet a little bit, still focusing on whole or minimally processed foods but now incorporating animal proteins.

Marcel Tassara Tassara moved to the Northwest to attend Bastyr, and, this time, his college experience has been different -- it has actually enhanced his well-being. Tassara lived in the dorms the first year and enjoyed the "nice family atmosphere." There were Sunday potlucks, Frisbee and soccer games. And, "Having the trails was great," he says. "I love trail running, and you can't ask for a better spot than having the trails 10 feet out your front door."

What about his peers – did they help him stay on track and contribute to his pursuit of nutritional knowledge? "The Bastyr experience is unbeatable," he says. "I feel like everyone brings so many different, interesting life experiences so that I can learn so much from my peers. The student body is not homogeneous; it's very eclectic."

"My diet continues to evolve and change," he continues, and notes that it's still extremely healthy. "I just finished taking Therapeutic Whole Foods Cooking and that has influenced me to eat even more local, whole foods."

It's not that the experience at Bastyr hasn't been without challenges. The first year of studies was tough because of the heavy science course load, including anatomy, physiology and chemistry. Yet, certain elective classes including Whole Foods Production kept the spark of passion alive within him. He enjoyed the cooking classes so much, in fact, that he became a teacher's aide.

Although he is only halfway through the program, Tassara is now very focused on his next steps. He devotes a great deal of time to preparing for the graduate degree he plans to earn in psychology. "I'm interested in getting to the core of nutrition issues; that's what I came here for," he says. "I'm interested in the internal process that leads to healing through nutrition." He is considering a number of graduate schools and is interested in focusing on psychological research. Meanwhile, he has also been actively gaining hands-on experience in psychology through both volunteer and paid jobs. He works for the psychology department at the University of Washington in its addictive behaviors research laboratory, focusing on homeless adults and teenagers. He also has volunteered at a local crisis clinic.

Through his work and personal experiences, Tassara has realized that he would like to focus his graduate work on topics such as blame and how blame can hinder people's ability to change. He has realized the importance of this issue first-hand. "I had such a huge shift in my life when I started to take responsibility for how I felt instead of putting my condition onto others," he says, "So, I would like to look at that."

Certainly he is no longer blaming others, and in fact is searching for what answers he can provide for them. At 26, Tassara is already an example of how people can radically change and transform, and Bastyr is honored to be a part of his amazing journey.