Get To Know Ocean Drive Cover Star Model and Entrepreneur Vita Sidorkina-Morabito

“As I became a mom, I realized that this lifestyle wasn’t fitting me anymore,” she says. “It wasn’t just the logistics. I felt like there was no purpose for me anymore, and I disconnected from it. But I was still mourning that person on the inside. I was sitting with myself asking, ‘Who am I?’”

“…I realized that this lifestyle wasn’t fitting me anymore. … I felt like there was no purpose for me anymore, and I disconnected from it. But I was still mourning that person on the inside. I was sitting with myself asking, ‘Who am I?’” 

It’s a candid admission from someone whose career looked glamorous from the outside. Sidorkina-Morabito doesn’t pretend she had everything figured out. She speaks openly about how disorienting it felt to leave behind the version of herself she’d spent years becoming.

“I’ve always been independent,” she says. “Then suddenly I was married, I had children and I was asking myself what I wanted to build next. I always felt like I couldn’t sit still. I knew there had to be something bigger for me.”

Motherhood brought everything into focus.

“I have two girls,” she says. “I want them to be strong. I want them to be driven. I want them to approach life with curiosity and confidence.”

She realized she had to model those qualities herself.

“I have two girls. I want them to be strong. I want them to be driven. I want them to approach life with curiosity and confidence.”

Before finding her footing, she launched a vegan ice cream company with a friend. It didn’t work out. Looking back, she laughs at how much she underestimated what it takes to build a business.

“I thought, ‘I’m a model. I’ve done so many jobs. This is going to be easy.’ I wasn’t ready to start from zero,” she says. “I was still holding onto that version of myself.”

The failure hit hard. Not long after, she found herself navigating postpartum depression, a period she now describes as one of the lowest points in her life.

“When I was in postpartum depression, I felt like everything was falling apart—my marriage, my friendships, everything surrounding me,” she says. “That’s really where my thoughts about wellness began. I realized if I’m not well mentally and physically, my whole life falls apart.”

For years, wellness had been tied to her career. It meant fitting into sample sizes, battling disordered eating and constantly measuring herself against someone else’s standards. Exercise wasn’t something she enjoyed but was rather part of the job.

“I realized taking care of myself was never really about me,” she says. “It was about living up to somebody else’s standards.”

Slowly, she began rewriting those rules. Fitness stopped feeling like an obligation and instead became something she looked forward to.

“Showing up at the gym was no longer about looking good,” she says. “It became about feeling good.”

That mindset shift changed everything. Instead of chasing external validation, she started focusing on something more sustainable. Weight training and intentional eating replaced endless restrictions, while consistent work replaced perfection.

“I discovered you can actually look good without torture,” she says. “For so long I felt like I was starving myself, constantly going through cycles of being motivated and then falling off track. I finally found something that freed me from that cycle.”

Without realizing it, she had already started building the foundation for what would become The Core (jointhecore.co), her recently launched fitness and wellness platform.

What began as a handful of home workouts shared on social media quickly evolved into something much bigger. Women weren’t just asking about her workouts; they wanted to know how she’d changed her relationship with food, rebuilt her confidence and found a version of wellness that finally felt sustainable.

“I finally wanted to share the method that truly freed me from that cycle,” she says. “The Core is built for driven women who want to have a career, take care of themselves and still have a life. You don’t need hours in the gym. All you need is a mat, a pair of dumbbells and the willingness to show up.”

That simplicity is intentional. Sidorkina-Morabito isn’t interested in another all-or-nothing fitness program or the latest wellness trend. She built The Core around the idea that consistency beats perfection every time. Some days, that means a 20-minute workout; other days, it means 40 minutes. The goal isn’t to do everything but to keep showing up.

“If you wait for the perfect moment, it’s never going to come,” she says. “It has to become part of your routine.”

It’s advice that extends well beyond fitness. In many ways, it’s also how she approached launching the company.

“I realized if I’m not well mentally and physically, my whole life falls apart. … Showing up at the gym no longer became about looking good. It became about feeling good.”

The Core has since expanded beyond workouts to include nutrition, mindset and honest conversations about motherhood, mental health and learning to start over. More than anything, she hopes it feels like a community.

“I want it to be a safe space,” she says. “Whether you’ve already found yourself or you’re still trying to, I want women to feel like they have somewhere to come.”

Just a few months after launch, members have already begun sharing their own transformations. Those messages, she says, mean more than any metric ever could.

“I finally feel like I found my path again,” she says. “I always had that intuition that I was meant to build something. The Core gave me that feeling back.”

Today, Sidorkina-Morabito speaks about modeling with gratitude rather than resentment. She recognizes that every chapter shaped the woman she is today.

“I don’t believe life is fair,” she says. “If you always have a victim mentality, you’re never going to get anywhere. Every experience I’ve had has made me who I am.”

The teenage model who left Russia chasing a dream, the new mother searching for purpose and the entrepreneur now building a community around wellness have all been necessary to get her where she is today.

After all, as she reminds herself often, you’re allowed to become a completely different person multiple times in your life.