Serena Poon

Longevity

Balance

Energy

Nourishment

My approach to wellness

My story began with my heart and soul, my parents.  While I was in college at UC Berkeley, my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer. He fought but lost a very painful battle. Two short months later, my mother was diagnosed with a rare and extremely aggressive form of ovarian cancer. Before we even had a chance to grieve my father, we were in another surreal battle to save my mother, who could hardly process the death of her soulmate, let alone her own mortality. With experimental treatment and (I truly believe), my father in heaven watching over her, my mother is still with us today.

As you can imagine, this completely changed my perspective on life. All that mattered was the health and happiness of my loved ones. I took it upon myself to be the ultimate caretaker, making it my passion, my mantra and my goal to make sure that the people I loved were happy and healthy. But in doing so, I overlooked my own health, heartache and trauma from what our family had gone through.

My good intentions and drive for healing others led me to a place where I was sacrificing my wellness for the sake of helping others.

As passionate as I was about healing and providing comfort and nutritional education to others, I did not realize the personal damage that the entire experience had caused. That is, until I found myself fighting for my own health after I had a surgery and contracted MRSA straight from the operating room.

I believe balance both mentally and spiritually is necessary for healing and wellness and from my experience – it is possible.

I started to work with a healer, and I made a commitment to myself that I was going to treat my sessions with her as I would if I was going to the gym or eating healthy food.

Inspired by all that I learned, I decided to pursue and study Reiki as a structured approach to energy work. Reiki is a very ancient healing energetic modality, and I was able to take what my healer taught me and what I've done with food, recipes and nutrition, and fuse it together. I realized that was the missing element in my healing journey, and so Reiki became a pillar in my practice... using the energetics of nutrition to balance out our spiritual body and our chakras with our physical body.

After seven years, eight surgeries, and nearly dying twice, I realized I couldn't maintain this level of devotion without my own personal healing.

As I began to heal, my business evolved to include more than just private chef and catering services. I developed Culinary Alchemy® and became a wellness expert, coach, Reiki practitioner and counselor to my clients. I was also inspired to soft launch my health and wellness line, Just Add Water®.

As I became aware of my influence within my own community, I realized that I could effectively educate and optimize the lives and longevity of so many more people by expanding my platform. By sharing my story, and the stories of other experts in the health and wellness world, along with the power of social media and my Serena Loves lifestyle brand, blog and TV show, I’ve been able to reach countless others who have gained insight from my knowledge and experiences. 

Everyday I wake up grateful for the growing and flourishing Serena Loves community. It is my honor to support you in your journey towards optimal health and well-being.