The Girl Behind @fruitandchia:
An Introduction
When you stumble across a health or food account on Instagram, how do you visualize the owner of it? A devoted, disciplined, exercise-addicted person who wakes up at 5 a.m. to run and eats nothing but beautiful salads and exotic smoothies? Or someone who wears trendy workout apparel and is always seen with a yoga mat and an oddly colored smoothie or juice in hand? Or someone who simply has no problem saying no to delicious (and often unhealthy) comfort foods? Possibly even all of the above?
Well I'll straight up honestly tell you that I'm not the person I just described. I don't wake up at 5 a.m. to exercise, nor do I exercise every day. I've never tried yoga in a studio setting. (Although I will admit that has been on my list of things I do want to try!) I
most definitely don't restrict myself to eating only salads and smoothies, either. I'm not the definition of perfect health and a perfect life.
And this is nothing new. A little over 6 months ago, I remember sitting in my living room one evening scrolling through the feeds of several health Instagram accounts that I had just discovered, and thinking to myself,
I'll never be like this. There is no way I could ever seek out enough motivation or means to keep up a lifestyle like that. All those accounts represented lifestyles that, to me, seemed too perfect to be achieved. It was quite crushing to think I could never do it. Standing in the way of me and the ideal, healthy version of myself that I had created in my head was my busy lifestyle (junior year as demanding as it had been expected to be), insufficient amounts of motivation and determination, and a slightly imbalanced, unhealthy relationship with food. I felt stuck and imprisoned by bad habits which only further crushed my dream of becoming
Meghan 2.0.
Maybe later on I'll make a post dedicated to the specifics of what I mean by an imbalanced relationship with food and what that looked like for me, but for now, I'll dig deeper into one aspect of it: guilt and its association with food. Numerous attempts were made throughout my high school years to diet and become healthier, usually with the underlying motivation that I would lose weight. I have been at a healthy weight my whole life, but I never was happy with where I was at. I thought I'd be happier if I were skinnier. I would end up giving up all junk foods, but every time I tried to do this I wound up in failure, which led to enormous clouds of guilt and disappointment in myself. It really sucked. I was stuck in a cycle of food, guilt, compensatory actions.
In late February of 2014, I decided enough was enough; I couldn't live with being weighed down by that destructive cycle any longer! So, on February 25th, 2014, I woke up and changed everything. I decided that I would no longer eat dairy, meat, or wheat. This probably sounds intense, and that it was. But I had explanations behind each exclusion: I was told that consuming less or no dairy helped skin be clearer, eating less meat would reduce the amount of icky hormones that can promote mental issues (i.e. depression, anxiety... a doctor told me this), and quitting gluten could help reduce stomach aches and bloating. Aside from this, I liked the idea of following a plant based diet after a family member of mine almost lost a tough battle to stage 3 cancer but was changed to a raw vegan diet to restore and maintain health. I initially intended it to be a 21 day detox experiment. I wanted to see just how these changes in my diet would change my mental and physical health!
The healthy eating created a domino effect into the implementation of other healthy habits into my daily life. I began to focus on exercising more, which definitely boosted my confidence levels. It was so satisfying seeing all my hard work of eating healthy and working out pay off as I watched myself become more toned and fit! I lost weight, too, but nothing drastic. At the end of the 21 day challenge, I felt wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that I decided to continue on with being a gluten free vegan! It became somewhat of an obsession--I dedicated my Instagram account to the documentation of my healthy eating journey, I spent hours upon hours planning meals and thinking up new smoothie combinations, and I stayed up late at night packing lunches for school. In my head, I would only be ideally healthy if I was 100% plant based with absolutely no exceptions.
Now, as I sit here in late August writing this post (I'm approaching my 6 month healthy eating anniversary!), I can say that food is no longer the center of my life. I actually am back on gluten now (toast was warmly welcomed back into my life) and I'm no longer strictly 100% plant based. But I've come to understand that perfection within any diet does not equate to health! I now know that the better I eat, the better I feel, so I live by this rather than striving for utter perfection. And I recommend this to anyone pursuing a healthier lifestyle: chase after improvement, not perfection. At this time in my life, I can't devote as much time to focusing on food as much as I did in my first few months. I have college just around the corner and I'm about to embark on my senior year, and most of my time is spent at my summer job, running with the cross country team, and spending time with friends. However, I do aspire to once again be 100% plant based later on, as I was my absolute healthiest during those times. But until then, I am living and loving the benefits of healthy eating. It has changed my life for the better and I can say that it helped me to become healthier and happier than I had ever hoped. One of my favorite parts of this journey has been documenting it on Instagram. I have met some amazing people who share the same passion that I do and I love combining both art and photography into healthy eating into one.
I hope that you've learned a little more about me through this blog post! I already have plenty of plans of future blog posts; the pros and cons of a plant based diet, food and faith, living in a meat-eating family, recipes, and more. If you have anything you'd like to see me address here on my blog, please don't hesitate to ask! As always, questions are welcomed as well. I am absolutely open to answering any question you may have! Here is my contact information:
Email - fruitandchia@gmail.com
Instagram - @fruitandchia (instagram.com/fruitandchia)
Personal Instagram - @m_swan24
Hope you all have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by.
xx Meghan
