You might have noticed my absence on Instagram the past few weeks. I really didn’t think anyone would notice (lol) but I got a few messages, so I figured I would write this blog as an explanation for my absence and to raise awareness about the “side effects” of constantly being on Instagram. If I had to summarize my reasons for deleting the app from my phone they would be: mental health, social media addiction, and mindfulness. I apologize for how long this blog is and all the spelling and grammar mistakes but I found writing it therapeutic and hope someone out there will relate to my story.

Food and wellness were controlling my life. Yes, this sounds so weird but let me remind you: I cook food, take pictures of food, edit pictures of food, I learn about food, respond to messages about food, my feed is all food, my friends are foodies, I buy food, I prep food, I give food advice, I’m constantly looking for food inspiration, I eat food, so I BASICALLY BREATH FOOD.

That was a bit dramatic, but I felt like I got to a point where I was thinking about food 80% of my time. To make things worse, I decided to get into a 3-month macro program around February where I had to hit a specific number of macros every day. So, add to all that: weighting, counting, and basically playing with food like a puzzle to make it “fit in” to my program.

Also, in case you did not know I’m currently in school getting certified as a nutritional health coach. During this program you learn about most of the “famous” diets like keto, Atkins, paleo, and veganism. Even though each diet has “negatives” to it, many of their claims have good research to back them up. So, every week I am faced with compelling research of a different diet to “stop eating this and start eating that instead”. I felt like I didn’t know what was good and what was bad anymore. It was as if the more I learned about nutrition the least I knew how to make decisions.

I was overwhelmed. I needed take a step back from nutrition school and HealthyEspo.

I needed to get back to being Sofia. The girl who wasn’t scared of food, the girl who enjoyed eating healthy food, the girl who ate fruit without thinking about a potential sugar spike, the girl who enjoyed pizza in moderation without worrying about the quality of the cheese, the girl who ate because she was hungry and not because she had to eat every 2-3 hours.

I felt a huge disconnect between my mind and my body.

Yes, that sound so cliché but I felt lost, anxious, overwhelmed, and confused. I’ve always strived to find balance in my life, but I was far from balanced. I was either binging or eating clean, exercising or refusing to workout, eating fruit or not eating fruit, counting macros or completely free.  I was constantly on opposite ends of the spectrum and it was taking a huge toll on me.

I seeked professional help. – I’ll take this as an opportunity to remind you that asking for help is OKAY. Dealing with stuff by yourself is hard so reach out to a professional or your friends and talk things out. – And yes, food was a huge part of the problem, but I also realized there was a lot of change and stuff happening in my life.

I had a long healing journey ahead of me.

As I started this journey I came up with some goals: stop fearing food, exercising when I felt like exercising, and eating intuitively.

To stop fearing food I had to let go of all my rules. That might sound easy enough for most people but letting go of ALL my nutrition and exercise rules sounded terrifying. Not weighing food, eating dairy, eating pizza, having more than half a cup of rice, unlimited almond butter, and freedom to eat as much as I wanted? WHAT. I did not trust myself with that kind freedom. Isn’t that so ironic? I knew exactly what I should be eating, how much, what’s good, what’s bad YET I didn’t trust myself to eat without rules.

Without even realizing it, I had come up with this LONG ASS list of things I could eat and things I couldn’t. Influenced by nutrition school, books, Instagram, wellness gurus, and articles. But NONE of these rules were influenced by me. I didn’t ask if I liked X, if I felt good when eating X, and if I disliked X. Believe it or not, I was so resistant to letting myself eat whatever I wanted. It took so much of my will and mental strength not to judge myself when I’d eaten something that was in my “bad” list.

As I write this I think about how horrible the last sentence of the previous paragraph sounds. I never thought I’d be THAT girl. I’d always had such a good relationship with food and somehow, I was there. With an eating disorder. That was hard to write. Let me say that again: I never thought I would be a girl with an eating disorder. Much less be a girl with a wellness blog with an eating disorder. I was supposed to be encouraging people to live healthier lives, have a better relationship with food, and find balance. Yet here I was, battling with it.

I’d always thought someone with an eating disorder was either extremely skinny or extremely overweight. Turns out eating disorders come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of severity. I was hesitant, scared, and a bit embarrassed to share this with the world but I wanted to share it to create awareness.   There is a lack of education about what an eating disorder is. And I want you to know it is not normal to overthink, question, deprive yourself, or fear food. If you can relate to what I said in the last two paragraphs PLEASE reach out to me, a professional, or a friend. YOU ARE IMPORTANT and deserve to have a healthy and happy relationship to food.

Step two of my healing journey was “listening to my body” and eating intuitively. Yes, ew. I feel like that quote is thrown around social media so much now a days that it’s kindda lost its value. But it’s so important and sadly I’d lost the ability to REALLY listen to my body. I would eat because it was noon and not because I was hungry, I’d lost my ability to know if I was hungry or just felt like eating. I would fight off my cravings instead of understanding my body craves what it needs. It was hard to understand this deprivation was a huge part of what was causing my binges.

I went through the same process with working out. I feared not working out. If I over ate or ate outside of what I allowed myself to eat, exercise was there for me: to make up for my wrong doing. I was doing intense 45-minute HIIT exercise every single day and putting my body through stress to the point that I injured my ankle. More than 1 rest day a week was unheard of for me, and I really had to force myself to not go to gym if I felt tired or unmotivated. I had to get rid of thoughts that encouraged me to do double or intense workouts after a night of too much food or binges.

But Sofia, how does this have to do with your absence on social media?

I did not want to accept my Instagram profile had anything to do with what was going on in my life. Yet it was. Consuming so much food related content had a huge influence in my decisions. So many amazing wellness gurus sharing valuable information, but for me that was another reason to doubt my decisions. Unconsciously I wanted to look like her, eat like her, exercise like her, eat the same things as her, use her products, try what she is trying, buy what she is promoting, and be someone I wasn’t.

Being so consumed in the content I chose to see was making me question my own decisions, what was good for me, what was bad for me, what I wanted.

I did not want to leave Instagram because I knew how much it helped some of my followers. I have support groups of amazing women encouraging each other to be better, eat better, and love themselves. So many people reach out to me on a daily telling them how much my journey and content has helped them take small steps towards bettering themselves. So I stayed.

I stayed, but I wasn’t posting, interacting, and interacting with intention. I wasn’t motivated, passionate, or interested. It felt like a duty and something I was just doing out of habit.

Then I went to Hawaii. I feel so weird saying this, but there’s something about nature that makes me feel so small. It makes me put everything into perspective, realize we are just a spec of matter in a planet. Being there made me realize I’m rarely 100% present. Why was I at the top of a mountain thinking about my next post, thinking about how I would caption the picture I just took, thinking about what motivational tip I would write about? Instead of being there. I was mad at myself for having this constant need to show my life, what I’m doing, what I’m thinking. Instead of living in the moment.

In that moment I had an epiphany. I was tired of fearing food, I was tired of caring too much about how I looked, I was tired of comparing myself to others, I was tired of pretending everything was alright, I was tired of not being present, I was tired of being so addicted to my phone.

I wanted to be present, I wanted to love my body, I wanted food freedom.

I decided to take a step back from social media to take care of myself. To find a reason to why I was posting and why I wanted to keep doing this.

It was the right decision.

I’ve taken time to really think things through. To find a purpose, a why, rediscover my passion for health. To “fight” my eating disorder in order to be “normal” again. To be able to make my own food decisions without being influenced by social media. I’ve been able fight that constant urge to be on my phone. To be 100% present in the moment.

It’s still a work in progress. It’s still a constant fight. And I’ll keep doing my best to keep getting better at being me and not someone I would like to be on Instagram.

So I’m back. But this time it will be different.

I won’t let myself get carried away by the number of followers, engagement, likes, or comments I get. I will only follow people who inspire and motivate me, instead of people who make me question myself. I want to be as transparent as I can about my struggles and only post when I WANT TO instead of when I have to.