I often get asked when/why/how I started instagramming and blogging, and in truth, the story is long and not simple. I’ve always been a writer, enjoying capturing emotions and events in a diary from a young age. But, ever efficient, if I could capture the same story in a photo, I would rather do that. So here’s a little overview of how I got into both blogging and other forms of social media.

Throwback to my first ever shoot – for Sweaty Betty!

I started my current instagram at the beginning of 2013 (I had another one for a few months previously), following several years of struggles with body image, control and food. Instagram gave me a way to ensure I ate three meals a day – no under eating, no over eating, no purging. The community back then was small in comparison to now, but the support I received as a teen recovering from eating issues was phenomenal. Over time, however, I felt myself distancing from the community and felt better moving on from it all, as I’m sure others who have suffered have also felt during and after recovery. Remembering is good, dwelling is not, so I moved on.

The start of my fitness journey overlapped with the end of instagramming about eating disorders and food – I was a competitive squash player at school, and after deciding that my instagram would be about health and its role in my life, I started to include more fitness pictures alongside the food. However, I found myself increasingly opinionated on all things health and wellness, and was irritated at not being able to convey these feelings (and the facts and figures I feel are so important) in the space of an instagram caption. Not even a picture would tell the thousand words I wanted to tell.

That’s when I set up my blog. It was August 2016 and I had been storing up articles and recipes for some time. I was also getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of evidence based statements and abundance of pseudoscience being banded around social media. I hoped that sharing fact based, balanced articles might help people see themselves – and ‘influencers’ – in a different light. Essentially I want to share things that are important to me with a wider audience, and I hope it gives people a better insight into who I am as a person and what my values are!

After starting my blog I saw my followers grow. My first month of blogging received about 3000 views in a month. By January, 5 months later, I was getting 9000 monthly views, which coincided with my instagram growing from 10,000 followers on christmas day 2016 to about 20,000 followers around a month later. For reference, I now get an average of around 10,200 views per month, an audience that really means a lot to me.

I never really thought about twitter much, except to complain about the seeming abundance of trolls and stupid comments from various world leaders. However, partly out of perceived necessity and partly out of curiosity (and a desire to share more of what I was doing), I set up my twitter in November of 2016. Bizarrely I’m actually now quite obsessed.

Who knows what’s next – maybe a youtube, maybe a podcast? In a world where a woman is judged on one photo and opinions are crammed into 280 characters (admittedly better than 140), I want to slow things down and draw people in. Show them that life isn’t captured in a snapshot, and explain why truths aren’t one line quotes. It’s a mission that’ll probably go on forever, but in the meantime, I’m having fun and hopefully adding enjoyment to others’ lives too!

I hope this gives you a little insight into my journey through blogging. Read more about my story here, of check out my instagram or twitter to see what I’ve been up to!

Throwback to my account almost a year ago – it’s grown a bit since then!

Blogception