Hi, my name is Mara, and I’m a recovering food blogger.
“HI MARA”
This post has been a long time coming, and years in the making.
Over five years ago, I started my food blog, What’s for Dinner? with the hopes of chronicling losing “those last 20 pounds” after a successful stint in Weight Watchers. Friends were always asking me for recipes so I figured “what the hell?” and started writing them down.
The recipes gave way to pictures of the food.
Which then gave way to bringing a camera to every meal out…
…which then gave way to a more expensive camera at every meal out.
I think months went by and I didn’t eat a hot meal because I had to get the photo “just so.” There were eye rolls when the camera came out. People started passing me their plates before they started eating so that I could get a picture. I’m apparently the only one who didn’t find it ridiculous.
Being a food blogger was a huge contributor to my weight gain.
When I say huge, I mean “in the top ten reasons I piled on over 80 pounds in a few short years”.
At first, I was sharing healthy recipes, measuring my portions, and if I remembered to photograph them, great.
Then things changed. I don’t know if it was the advent of Pinterest, the insane competition that started happening between the “bigger bloggers” and the “smaller bloggers” to get as much blog traffic as possible, or whether I used these things as an excuse to make deep-fried appetizers, cheesy pasta-filled main courses, and decadent (I now shudder at this word) desserts. I got a kick out of people loving my food. I also loved my food, way too much and way too often.
When I started my Optifast weight loss journey, I abruptly said goodbye to this way of life. I think in the whole 14 weeks of the intensive program, I took one photo of one shake one morning. ONCE. They just weren’t interesting.




