Sherry McAllister is the author of the new book Adjusted Reality: Supercharge Your Whole-Being for Optimal Living and Longevity. She is a chiropractor, and is the president of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress.
Q: What inspired you to write Adjusted Reality?
A: What inspired me to write Adjusted Reality began long before the research, the travels, or the thousands of conversations.
It started when I was 19 years old and survived a car accident that changed the trajectory of my life. Suffering severe debilitating headaches with no relief created a last hope effort to find relief.
Losing hope and unable to cope awakened something profound: a realization that health, alignment, and the nervous system are not luxuries—they’re lifelines.
That experience introduced me to a new profound philosophy, chiropractic care, which didn’t just help me recover physically; it opened my eyes to an entirely different way of understanding the human body, human potential, and the power of alignment. It led me to a career in chiropractic, the care that instilled hope.
For 28 years, I’ve witnessed something beautiful: just as patients are about to leave, hand on the door, they pause and ask the question that truly matters. The one they’ve carried quietly. The one they never felt heard enough, safe enough, or unhurried enough to ask elsewhere.
This book was written for them and for our future generations. For every person who has ever walked out of an appointment wishing they had one more minute, one more explanation, one more answer about their health, their body or their whole-being.
Adjusted Reality is that extra moment—expanded, honored, and held with care.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title Adjusted Reality was chosen to honor two truths: the transformative care that chiropractors provide and the profound agency each of us holds over our own life.
An adjustment isn’t just a physical correction, it’s a reminder that change is possible. Too many people believe they have no choice, no voice, no influence over their health or their future.
But that’s simply not reality.
Your body is your greatest gift—wise, resilient, beautifully designed to heal, adapt, and thrive. And you get to decide how deeply you honor it. Adjusted Reality is an invitation to reclaim your power, rewrite your narrative, and choose a life aligned with vitality, purpose, and whole-being care.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: During my triathlon training days, I learned something that became a profound inspiration for Adjusted Reality.
I remember a morning swim when I kept feeling an ache in my low back—not terrible, but persistent. My initial thought, even as a chiropractor, was that it was a back issue. But after a session with my chiropractor, we discovered it wasn’t my back at all. It was my ankle that was the cause.
I recalled the injury a few days before where I hit the curb wrong and felt my ankle roll in. The pain was sharp, but brief, so I continued my running the next few days. That tiny misalignment created a ripple effect through my ankle, knee, hip, and finally my spine.
It was such a simple but powerful reminder: the body isn’t a collection of parts, it’s a connected, intelligent system. That close first-hand experience helped me realize that even when you know better, you still have to “do” better.
But what struck me most was what happened next. Once that alignment was corrected, not only did my back stop hurting—my breathing improved, my sleep deepened, my training stress dropped, and my confidence returned.
That experience stayed with me, because it mirrored what I heard over and over as I traveled: people are being treated segment by segment—as a bad knee, a tight back, a stiff neck—while their actual lives are telling a much bigger, interconnected story.
In my research, I had the extraordinary privilege of speaking with chiropractors across the world, listening to their triumphs, their heartbreaks, and the pure, unfiltered joy they feel when patients reclaim their lives through care.
At the same time, I was constantly traveling town to town, city to city, country to country, asking people what shapes their choices, both the ones that lift them up and the ones that hold them back. I felt compelled to gather these insights and present them in a way that could inspire others to choose differently, to live better, feel better and expect better.
Researching this book was a gift. The researchers I met were passionate, generous and eager to see their findings reach the public. Their commitment reminded me that healing is a mission, not a moment.
What surprised me most, though, was the kindness I received from people along the way. Strangers who shared their stories, encouraged the work and affirmed the human longing for hope, agency and whole-being health.
Adjusted Reality is the result of all the working parts coming together to tell a story.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: More than anything, I want readers to walk away with a completely new understanding of health—one that goes far beyond symptoms, diagnoses, or isolated body parts.
Adjusted Reality is a call to see ourselves through the lens of whole-being health, where everything is connected and nothing about our lives happens in isolation.
Most people have been taught to think in fragments: A back problem is a back problem. A headache is a headache. Stress is “just stress.”
But true health doesn’t work that way. A pain in your back might begin in your foot. A migraine might start with how you breathe.
And, as my dear friend Mitzi Perdue shared during the evening of our book
launch, overwhelming stress can show up as very real, very physical pain that
no scan or test can explain until someone asks about their whole life, not just
their aching body.
I want readers to finally see the full picture: your nervous system, your alignment, your emotions, your environment, your habits—they’re all intertwined, influencing each other every moment of every day.
When readers turn the last page, my hope is that they feel empowered, not overwhelmed. Empowered to ask new questions, to look deeper, to consider connections they may have overlooked and to recognize that small shifts in alignment—physical, emotional, mental—can create profound changes in how they feel and how they live.
If they walk away with one truth, let it be this: health is not a single appointment, a single stretch, or a single adjustment. It’s a way of moving through life with awareness, alignment and agency.
And that is the heart of Adjusted Reality, helping people reclaim their capacity to understand themselves as whole-beings so they can live whole, aligned, intentional lives.
And I hope they feel encouraged to connect with a trusted healthcare practitioner who can guide them with wisdom, up-to-date knowledge, and a personalized approach that honors how and why the body heals.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Right now, my work lives at the intersection of leadership, advocacy and whole-being transformation.
As president of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (F4CP)—one of the most influential organizations championing whole-being health—I spend each day advancing a simple but powerful truth: health is not fragmented, transactional, or symptom-based. It is interconnected. It is dynamic. And it is shaped by alignment in every aspect of our lives.
Each day, I have the privilege of leading national public-education campaigns, collaborating with state associations and chiropractic colleges, developing evidence-based resources and driving initiatives that elevate the role of alignment and nervous-system health in modern care.
With more than 39,000 chiropractors united behind this mission, dozens of corporate partners, and expanding global reach, the Foundation gives me a platform to shift how America understands whole-being health, movement, and holistic care.
At the same time, I’m deeply committed to sharing Adjusted Reality, not just as a book, but as a movement awakening people to their own potential. I’m working with practitioners, healthcare leaders, athletes, educators, and media voices to bring these concepts to as many people as possible.
From national TV appearances and keynote stages to university visits, corporate wellness events and the growing Adjusted Reality podcast, every platform becomes an opportunity to ignite change.
The goal is always the same: to give people a new framework for living healthier, clearer, more aligned lives—physically, emotionally, and purposefully.
The work of the Foundation and the mission of Adjusted Reality are deeply woven together; one amplifies the other. Both champion the understanding that true health requires connection, alignment, and agency—not fragmentation or quick fixes.
Every day, my commitment is to empower patients, equip practitioners, elevate chiropractic and transform how the world sees whole-being health. And as I share Adjusted Reality on stages around the globe, I have the extraordinary privilege of watching the movement unfold—seeing people light up with recognition, curiosity and renewed possibility.
We’re building momentum toward a global “I’m Adjusted” movement, one that inspires reflection, conversation, community, and meaningful action.
In short, I’m weaving storytelling, science, advocacy, and heart into a cultural wake-up call—ensuring that Adjusted Reality becomes far more than a book. It becomes a movement for whole-being care, alignment, and the empowered, intentional lives we are all capable of living.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: May we all have the gift of living in the light of what makes us happy. The last chapter of the book is set to remind us that we can live with true intention and passion when we do what is in our hearts. Finding our true passion and living it daily is what creates true vitality!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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