For some reason I’m finding it harder and harder to work out immediately upon awakening at my parents’ house.
Maybe it’s because Ryan is usually my gym buddy and we’re both typically on autopilot when the alarm goes off at 5 a.m. and head straight to the gym as part of our daily routine? (I miss him!)
For the past few days, I’ve been waking up between 6 and 7 a.m., working for a few hours and then taking a one-hour break to exercise around 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. I’m sure I’ll go back to my old “wake up before the sun rises to workout” routine when Ryan and I move into our new house (in NINE days!), but for now, I’m just going to roll with it.
I think my routine shifted a bit because my mom works out in the late morning and I like having her company when I drive to and from the gym. I’m going to soak up all the family time I can while I’m in St. Pete. This morning I think my mom and I are going to Jazzercise at 9:30 a.m.!
Breakfast
Here’s the other thing: I’ve been hungry immediately upon awakening at my parents’ house. Usually my stomach isn’t growling and I head to the gym on an empty stomach since I get really crampy if I eat within an hour of working out (and I’m not about to wake up in the 4 a.m. hour just to eat a snack).
My stomach never really craves food at 5 a.m., but when I wake up around 6:30 a.m. my belly wants food!
It got what it asked for this morning in the form of a yogurt bowl.
I topped a cup of Oikos blueberry Greek yogurt with fresh blueberries, Multigrain Cheerios and chia seeds and ate a peach on the side.
A spoonful of peanut butter rounded out this meal.
How Did You Discover Healthy Living Blogs?
I have been blogging for just shy of two years. One of the craziest things in the world to me is that less than three years ago, I didn’t even know healthy living blogs existed.
Now blogging is my passion. It’s part of my livelihood. It’s something that consumes my life in the best possible way.
I remember when I stumbled upon my first healthy living blog. I was browsing around Health magazine’s website and read an article written by Tina. At the bottom of the article, there was a link directing readers to Tina’s personal blog, Carrots ‘n’ Cake.
Before checking out Tina’s blog, I thought blogs were like personal journals. I assumed they were maintained by techy people and contained posts that vented about various things that annoyed them. Clearly I was mistaken.
When I clicked the link on the Health Magazine website and saw Tina’s blog, I fell in love with her laid back approach to healthy living. Something about her blog resonated with me. I felt like I read something written by a friend and continued to read daily.
Tina’s blog led me to many other healthy living blogs. Eventually I knew I had to get in on the fun and started PBF. (You may see my totally amateur and embarrassing first post here.)
So now I ask you…
Question of the Morning
- How did you discover the first healthy living blog you ever read?
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My first blog encounter was PBF! I was reading Women’s Health and saw an article you wrote. I have been an avid reader since. When reading your first blog experience it was like reading my own! Now I can’t miss a day with out reading all of my favorite blogs or I feel left out of the loop haha.
YOU! 🙂
And you know how much I love you for exposing me to this awesome world and saving me from the crazy O2 world. I should serenade you…
Did you ever know that you’re my hero? Everything i wish I could be. I can fly higher than an eagle. For you are the wind beneath my wings.
Do I get updated to creepy stalker status now? LOL
i would love to have YOU as a stalker. 🙂
I actually think I stumbled across your blog one day. it had something to do with Peanut Butter or something and there your blog was and have been following you since, which is been bout 6 months or so now…Janetha is another blog I read too, she is hilarious. Love you two!
Jessica, that’s so nice!
My friend is a food blogger and a few years ago she showed me how to use Google Reader. She showed me a couple of her favorite blogs and I fell in love with Jenna’s Eat Live Run. From then on my love expanded and during a difficult time in my life I turned to writing and thus began my own blog!
YOU were my first healthy living blog! I found a link to a recipe of yours on Fit Sugar (which I found one day while looking at celebrity gossip on Pop Sugar). I clicked over and realized you were from Orlando too, so I kept coming back! PBF was the only healthy living blog I read for a very long time (almost a year), before I realized that there were millions of other healthy living blogs out there. A whole new world opened up. And then I decided to jump into the mix! But I was inspired by you – my first!
Pbfingers was the first healthy living blog I stumbled across. It all happened when I googled “healthy snacks” and BAM! Your peanut butter, granola, apple sandwiches appeared. In fact, your blog inspired me to write my own healthy living blog. Your daily updates and photos of Sadie are always an enjoyable part of my day.
YOURS was the first one I ever came across! I was googling “Capital Grille nutrition facts” for our anniversary dinner date that we had planned, and it pulled up your post where you posted the information for your dinner date a while back. I started reading more and more, then reading other blogs that you recommended, and now I am hooked! Thanks!
oh my gosh i remember that post! so long ago!
This was my FIRST!!! a facebook friend had a link to a peanut butter recipe on your website! I clicked it and I was drawn in bc i am the same age and have a ton of the same joins in life (pb, fro-yo, working out, cothes) I was stunned that these types of bloggs exist, I am obsessed with excersize and love to eat healthy (most of the time 🙂 ) my friends think i’m crazy sometimes when I plan my day around my workout or insist on working out on vacation… glad to know I am NOT crazy and there are many people like me out there! Love the blog think you are adorable!
One of my best friend’s from college was a blogger and I enjoyed reading her blog. She had a few other blogs linked to her sidebar (yours was one of them) and as I got to really enjoy them, I started searching for some more that interested me. I eventually was convinced that I had to start my own because it just seemed like a fun, creative outlet that is completely yours. 13 months later and i’m so glad I did. I have met some amazing people! 🙂
I was actually just writing a post about how discovering Healthy Living Blogs changed my life!
I found these blogs when I was working for a sports marketing company and running a twitter account for one of our races. In late July 2010, one of my followers tweeted at you and wished you congrats on your 100 post or 1000th comment or follower or something so I clicked through! I remember I made your flourless pb & funfetti cookies later that night ! From PBF, I discovered many others and just got hooked on the concept. It was exactly what I needed to find 🙂
Ohhh I love that you asked this question, because the first healthy living blog I came across was yours! I’ve told you about it before I think and I actually tell the story in the ABOUT section of my blog. I was googling peanut butter nail polish. LOL, i mean really, wouldn’t that kind of be a fun color? Sorta?
teehehehe oh the cute first post we all have~~I remember I felt very awkward divulging things not even expecting anyone to read it?!! but hopefully someone would read it..? 😛 yours was so cute!
Yours was my first too! I read about you in the Angelos (and had to check it out because I love PB, too.) Then, I started peeking at your favorite blogs and reading some of theirs too.
And THEN, I started my own. You’re really starting a movement, Julie! Thanks for all of the inspiration!
I started out on Livejournal, where I was a member of a few weight loss communities. Gradually, some of us moved on to Blogger and WordPress and started our own more indepth health blogs.
Now, there are thousands and thousands! And so many good ones! I think it’s my favorite trend to happen on ye olde internet! 🙂
Yours was my first! I can’t remember how I came across it, but I’ve been a regular reader ever since!
I found Meals & Miles 1st through the infamous Marie Claire article came out. I loved her site and found most of the other HL blogs through her blogroll (including yours) :o)
When I used to journal at Oxygen Forums someone posted a link to Oh She Glows and I thought it was a great post and I couldn’t stop reading through previous entries…which lead to the discovery of the MANY great blogs out there…it really is such a great community! 🙂
You were my first! I clicked through from the SparkPeople article you wrote, and have never gone back to their site as I’ve found everything I needed here. You are an intelligent writer, a thoughtful person with interesting perspectives, and funny to boot! I love reading about your day and you really cheer me up (and in turn, inspired me to start my wee blog…)
The first healthy living blog I discovered was Gina’s about a year ago. It was right before I started my weight loss blog and I fell in love with healthy living and healthy weight loss blogs! I think I found you, Caitlin, Tina and Kath all from Gina’s blog or blogroll at some point and now I have over 50 healthy living blogs in my google reader and love every one of them! 🙂
Yours was the first one I found and bookmarked!!!
Hi Julie,
I am a reader (lurker) of your blog, and I thought this would be a good time to say hi, and that I love your blog! I started reading healthy living blogs a little less than a year ago.. It all started with an article on either yahoo or msn about weight loss stories. They were doing profiles on several people – one of them being Katie with Keeping up with Katie. I started reading, and I was hooked. I liked seeing how another person managed their eating and exercise. I started looking at other people’s blogs through her blogroll and comments – that’s how I found yours. I still randomly click and look at people’s blogs through comments, but I definitely have a list of my favorites that I read every day. It’s part of my morning breakfast and coffee routine! This community inspires me so much, and I think about starting my own blog all the time, but there is a big fear that comes along with that.
Anyways, just wanted to say hi! I’m going to stop being such a lurker and comment more!
The first blog I found was also Carrots N’ Cake! Back in May, I was looking for a recipe for a smoothie and stumbled across Tina. Next I found Monica at Run Eat Repeat. The other 20+ blogs I follow (including yours of course!) I found by looking at blogrolls and links in the comments. I was also surprised that I hadn’t known this wonderful world existed, and I have been addicted ever since! I’ve been contemplating starting my own blog…we’ll see 🙂
The first healthy living blog I read was probably Jess from Fit Chick in the City. I was looking for reviews on a particular exercise class I wanted to take and found her blog. I am glad I found this community though. I normally discover blogs through blogrolls or blog comments and if something about the writer resonates with me I follow! I love Tina’s laidback style also and have been following her for a while. Love yours too!
Love this question! The first one I ever read was Jenna’s at Eat, Live, Run! I then found Kath’s, Tina’s and yours right around the same time from Jenna’s blog! Love yours so much <3
I found Daily Garnish first (though at the time it was Marriage, Marathons and Milestones… I may have the order of M words wrong!) when I was looking for wedding blogs. Her blogroll led me to Graduate Meghann (now Meals and Miles), and that was right before the first HLS…so I found a lot of blogs from those recap posts!
I was Googling an image for an omelet pan that I bought so I could show it to my mom. True story. The rest is history.
About a year ago a friend of mine was trying to get in shape for her wedding and linked a post to her facebook from http://peanutbutterrunner.com/. From there, I connected to a ton of other healthy living blogs and I’ve been an avid follower ever since. I am so thrilled that there is a supportive and awesome healthy living community. Even though I’m only a reader, I totally feel like I’m part of this community!
I discovered Caitlin’s blog first! I had googled before and after 30 day shred and I was hooked!!
I found Tina’s blog when I was searching for a quinoa recipe. From there I have started reading many others, including yours. I am orginally from Florida and went to school in Orlando for a few years then worked at Florida Hospital before my boyfriend’s Phd brought us to Texas A&M. He went to UCF too. So it was neat seeing your posts about Orlando and Wekiwa Springs and all the fun stuff I miss.. 🙁 Plus, Sadie is a definite bonus to the blog. You make me want a Vizla! Even though I have 2 beautiful muts already. I am also wanting to start a blog so Blog Talk Tuesdays are really helpful.
Also, I love your grey shirt in the picture on your post today. Do you remember where you got it? You have great style!
Fun to read all these comments!
I don’t remember how I found them, but the first blog I read was Roni’s Weigh and the second was Carrots N Cake. It seems like a lot of people found CNC first or early on. Tina’s blog is a gateway drug! 😉
I was on Tumblr following a bunch of random blogs when I found Nutritionista. She was posting a day a week of meals at the time. I thought “oh, I can do this, but do it everyday!” (I had NO IDEA there were other blogs doing the same thing.)
I started running and got a knee injury and a friend recommended Caitlin’s blog…which, of course, led me down this addicted-to-health-blogs rabbit hole.
I had NO IDEA the healthy living blog world existed until I read a yahoo article that talked about several women who lost significant amounts of weight while blogging. I started reading Katie’s (keeping up with katie) blog from this article, and then just kept reading more and more (you bloggers tend to link to each other and get me hooked on more blogs!! haha). Anyways, blog reading is now my new favorite past time. =)
You look so beautiful in that picture!
This is my first time commenting here. I’m a healthy living blogger in Dallas, but I originally started out as a fashion blog. I discovered them when I was unemployed 😉
Over time as I developed more readers, I started talking about my passion for health/fitness. It was all gone after that, I turned to a full fledged blog about pretty things: outfits, fitness, food…the list goes on.
This is exactly what happened to me! I would religiously read baking blogs. One time I clicked on one of jessica’s recipes at how sweet it is. I was so excited to find someone in my age bracket writing about baking and fitness and life in general. From there I have discovered many more great blogs. Ps I’m an engineer too:)
It all started in AP Stat when my table and I were talking about food. Someone recommended staring at Food Gawker for a while and immediately I was hooked on to baking blogs!!
Yep, someone who read baking blogs for fun through Food Gawker now writes a “healthy” blog. 😀
But I saw that some healthy living blog writers commented and read the baking ones, so that is how I transitioned and stumbled upon this amazing niche!
It’s funny that you of all people wrote this post because your blog is the very first healthy living blog I began reading. I stumbled upon your blog from a friend’s personal blog and immediately fell in love. I bookmarked this page and read your blog daily. I remember when I went on vacation for a week (with no computer) I immediately went back and read up on your recipes/workouts/life posts as soon as I got back! You are the reason I started my blog 🙂 So THANK YOU!
Yours was the first I came across Julie! Love your blog and I learn so many healthy ideas from you! Keep up the good work girl!!
I think that PBF was one of the first I discovered! Truthfully, I think I did a google search for something on healthy living. One of the things that popped up was actually a mean article that mentioned you + chocolate covered katie 🙁 Rude, right? So I visited your sites and thought, hmmm, that article was dumb! So, now, I’m a regular reader. Thanks rude jerks!
Oh my gosh, I actually can’t remember! I think my first one was Kath and Jenna, and that was after seeing a blog that used to be on Self’s website (I believe): Eat Like Me, or something like that by an RD. Gosh, my memory is shot, clearly, bc it’s all a blur and now I live and breathe food and healthy living bloggers.. funny how that happens!
A friend had a link to afoodiestaysfit.com on her blog, and I clicked on it! IT led me to a whole new world!
Oh She Glows was my first HL blog I read. I googled some recipe and her’s was the first I saw and clicked 🙂
This is so crazy. I was in the middle of writing what I hope to be my FIRST POST EVER last night and I thought to myself, “I wonder what some of my favorite blogger’s first post looked like?” So glad you shared. It’s also amazing to see how far you’ve come in such a short time. It makes me wonder what my blog (which has barely begun) will be like in a year or two! Thank you for share!
I was searching for recipes and stumbled across your blog only a couple of months ago! As of yesterday I have my food blog up and running. You really are an inspiration (I also love Carrots and Cake!) 🙂
I actually discovered blogs the exact same way! I thought they were or weirdos who liked talking about themselves too much, and then this summer I found a link to Carrots N Cake and was hooked! I actually started my own blog almost 3 weeks ago because 1) I love writing it and 2) I wanted to reach out to other girls and possibly help them the way Tina’s book helped me through a tough summer. And I’m so glad you’re going to Jazzercise! I got my mom started with it a year ago (I used to go in college with my best friend) and I love going with her when I’m home! I wrote about it last week on my blog when I was home!
I have been blogging for years now, but up until about 2 years ago did it become about healthy living (mostly the past year). Before that I blogged as a journal and to rant as you pointed out.
I cannot even remember how or who i found first!!!!!!!
My blog was focused on internet marketing about a year ago and to help get my blog out there I was a part of a “tribe” and there was a healthy living blog there that I got to know a bit. You were the next though!! LoVe PBF!
Moses. I think the first healthy living blog I ended up reading must’ve been Kristin at Iowa girl eats, I ended up meeting her at blogher this year so it was super fun.
This is fun to read all the responses to! I actually went to college and was in the same sorority as Anne from Fannetastic Food so I started reading hers and then found everyone elses. Prior to 2009 I had no idea blogs existed either. Apparently, I was way late to the game!
Yours was the first for me! My friend recommended your blog to me because we were talking about how hard it is to find internal motivation when it comes to eating healthy and consistently exercising. I work in the fitness industry…but sometimes a little external motivation is all I need! So thank you for helping motivate someone who has to motivate others for a living!
Iowa Girl Eats was the first blog I stumbled upon (literally, I discovered her blog when I was using stumbleupon).
Her’s quickly led me to Kath’s and it just took off from there to Carrots N Cake, Une Vie Saine, and all the rest of the fantastic blogs that I read now (including yours!)
It’s all about looking at people’s blogrolls, the links that they post, and the people that comment on their posts. These three things have led me to incredible places.
I started reading Lisa’s at healthnuttxo.com and then she released her blogrolland I found Carrie’s at movesnmunchies, and then that’s where it all began!