Blog Milestones

Today I want to share with you some of my “mini milestones” that I have reached within my blog over the past couple months!  I started my healthy living blog with the intention of reaching out to others as well as keeping myself accountable to my food and fitness habits.  Before the job that I have now as Children’s Director of my church, I was a personal trainer at a gym.  I loved the health and fitness aspect of the job, but hated the sales and wasn’t fond of the management.  As much as I love my current job, I still missed the health and fitness component of my previous job.  When I started my blog, my hope was that it could be my “outlet” for my health and fitness passions, as well as allowing me to reach out to others.  (You can read more about my blog and why I started it on my About Me page too.)  Since I’ve started it at the end of July, it has been a life changing hobby for me.  It makes my day when I get emails from my readers telling me how much they appreciate my blog, so thank you all!   The encouragement and support I’ve received from my blog has been such a blessing. 

Never in my dreams did I imagine myself having a healthy living blog, or even a blog at all!  When I first started my healthy living blog, I had no idea what it meant to have your own domain, or that there was such thing as being self-hosted (or even what that meant!), or being able to be part of publisher programs.  My intention was to just have fun, write, and share my passions with others.  Then I started learning from other experienced and successful healthy living bloggers that you can really grow in your blogging “career”.  I started reading posts from other bloggers about self-hosting, sampling products, advertising, etc. and was amazed at what you can turn your blog into these days! 

Because my job is technically “part time” (although some weeks feel definitely more like full time…that’s ministry for ya!), I have some extra time to put into my blog.  I decided to go ahead with transforming my blog into something a little more.  I want to share the milestones I have reached within the past couple months to make my blog into what it is today. 

*Changed my blog title/URL address about 3 times before I finally settled on the title I wanted for my blog.

*Switched to my own domain.  This means that my URL address is www.myfoodnfitnessidiaries.com rather than www.myfoodnfitnessdiaries.wordpress.com (very wordy!). 

*Had Julie from Savvy Eats create a custom header for me.  It was definitely a much needed makeover!

*Had Ryan from Revive My Blog switch my WordPress blog to my own self-hosted blog.  In a nutshell, this means that I have a lot more flexibility and capabilities now than I did before with my WordPress blog. 

*Applied and was accepted to be part of Foodbuzz’s Publisher Program, which enables them to advertise on my blog for compensation.

 I’m sure these milestones are only the beginning of My Food ‘N’ Fitness Diaries’ journey!  I still have many goals for my blog, but ultimately it is to enjoy writing, have fun, and inspire others. 

I want to thank all of the bloggers out there that have given me their advice and direction to help me get to where I am today with my blog.  I also want to thank you all for being such loyal readers!  My blog wouldn’t be what it is without you.