posted on November 4, 2018
Welcome to the “Tell Your Story” highlight reel.
If you haven’t guessed it as yet, everyone has a story. Within each is identifiable life experiences, anyone can glean from if open to receive.
This is a Highlight Reel of another’s life journey designed to inspire.
So, prepare your mind and enjoy a coffee/tea as Kirsten of @f00dventuresRD shares her story.
First off, a big “thank you” to Al for asking me to be apart of his “Tell Your Story” highlight reel. I am honored that he chose to feature my story 🙂
So a little about me. My name is Kirsten and I am a Registered Dietitian but I am also a huge foodie and a bit of a free spirit (if you didn’t already guess that from my picture lol). While on my journey towards becoming a dietitian, I knew I didn’t want to take the traditional career path which is clinical work. It just wasn’t for me. The problem was, I didn’t know what I wanted to do as a dietitian. I had hoped my dietetic internship would open some doors for me but all it did was confirm what I already knew- clinical work would slowly kill me inside. So I decided to take a little time for myself and teach myself how to cook.
honestly never set foot in the kitchen other than to make frozen meals and I figured as a dietitian it would be extremely helpful if I knew how to actually make healthy meals. Not just for my own benefit but also so I could better help potential patients/clients in the future. And that’s how I first got into blogging.
I started my blog in April 2012 just talking about my kitchen failures. But eventually my kitchen failures evolved more into “experiments” and adventures in the kitchen as I learned how to cook and bake and that’s how my name came about food + adventures = “f00dventures”.
I have always been a very creative person and I love being able to take that creativity and use it to “healthify” food so I can show people that you don’t have to cut out all the foods you love to live a healthy lifestyle. I regularly eat desserts, mac, and cheese, pizza, etc either through making “healthified” versions or just enjoying the real thing in moderation. I started to share my experiments on Instagram and in 2013/2014 things really started to pick up for me as I got better at recipe development. I started entering food contests through Instagram and ended up winning a lot of them. Within a pretty short period, I had gone from 80 followers on Instagram to close to 20,000. And this is when my struggles with blogging and social media kicked in.
I gained so many followers so fast that I constantly felt pressure to keep the momentum going. I started to forget why I had started blogging in the first place and started posting things I thought my followers wanted to see rather than posting what made me happy. I started to get extremely burnt out and obsessed with stats to the point that I just couldn’t handle it anymore.
I got rid of all social media and stopped blogging for about a year. I got rid of not only my business Facebook and Instagram pages but also my personal ones because I just couldn’t bear to face social media anymore.
Fast forward to 2017. It had been about a year since I had left social media and I finally started to feel strong enough mentally to make a comeback. I had a new approach this time; I was going to blog for me. I wasn’t going to let everyone else dictate what I posted about. Yes, as a dietitian, I wanted to help and inspire people but I also wanted to help myself keep my sanity. If people didn’t like it, too bad. And yes, I did lose a lot of followers. 4,000 and counting. But the great thing is that it doesn’t bother me anymore.
I still have people tell me how much I have helped them from sharing my struggles with disordered eating or inspired them to get back in the kitchen because of my fun, unique recipes. And that means way more to me than having a bunch of followers. So my biggest piece of advice? Don’t get caught up in numbers. Blog because it makes you happy. Blog about whatever you are passionate about. Your passion will shine through and that is what will draw people in. But also remember to live your life. Don’t let your entire life revolve around blogging or social media. Don’t just let life pass you by.
Thanks, Kirsten for sharing Your Story. Hopefully, your experience has encouraged others to go on.
You can connect with Kirsten on these social media platforms.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/f00dventures/
Instagram: https://Instagram.com/f00dventures/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/f00dventuresRD
Blog: https://f00dventures.wordpress.com/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/f00dventure0169/
