About

Hi, I’m Angela. Welcome to Oh She Glows!

On October 31st 2008, I started Oh She Glows to talk about my recovery from an eating disorder and renewed passion for food. Even though it felt terrifying to talk about so openly, I reassured myself that no one was reading anyway. However, within the first few months my readership started to grow and grow. Before long, I connected with other women all over the world. One by one your comments and emails started to trickle in sharing your own stories of pain and triumph. That’s when I knew I had to take the plunge and tell my family and friends about my blog. It ended up being therapeutic and healing to talk about my 10-year long battle with food and weight because for the first time I realized I wasn’t alone. For the first time, I didn’t have to feel ashamed.

In the beginning, the blog didn’t really have a focus; I wrote about anything and everything (my initial tagline was "food, fitness, fashion, fun"). As my relationship with food improved, I focused on creating healthy recipes that would win over my husband’s approval. Not coming from a food or photography background, I had to teach myself how to create recipes, cook, bake, style, and photograph my creations. What a huge learning curve it has been, but my have I learned so much over the past 4 years. Fast forward to 2012-2013 and I’m now working on my first cookbook which is due out in 2014.

Let me rewind a bit and tell you about what was going on in my life the year I started my blog.

2008

We fell in love with this crazy kitten. We call him Sketchie. He’s a bit older now, but just as crazy…

In 2008, I married my high-school sweetheart, Eric, and graduated with a Master’s degree in Social Psychology. Life was wonderful, yet not so wonderful at the same time. I was in recovery for disordered eating and compulsive exercise, something I had been struggling with since I was 11 years old. Despite the great things going on in my life, I couldn’t enjoy them fully without putting my eating disorder behind me. It was like a storm cloud hovering over me for years.

During the last semester of my Master’s degree in the spring of 2008, I started working full-time as a researcher. I did lots of hands on, practical research and even had the opportunity to write a book chapter, but ultimately I found that research did not fulfill me like I thought it would. I just felt so empty inside and deep down I knew that it wasn’t a great fit for me. My creative side was just dying to be expressed! I wanted to write, but not in the form of scientific articles. Thankfully, Oh She Glows was a great outlet and really let my creativity flourish. For the first year of blogging, I wrote 3 posts per day and I absolutely fell head over heels in love with my new hobby. Up until this point in my life, I never had a hobby that I felt so passionate about and it felt so rewarding to enjoy something so much. Connecting with other women all over the world motivated me to keep going during a time when I was very unhappy with my career. Whenever I was frustrated with career unhappiness and worried about my future, I would brainstorm ideas for blog posts. Boredom was no longer in my vocabulary.

2009/10

In 2009, I took the leap and left my research career. Holy heck. This was a very, very difficult and anxiety-provoking decision as someone who doesn’t like change or letting people down. I had no plan, but I had a supportive husband and a hobby I loved. After a couple months of looking for other research jobs, I decided to start up my own business, Glo Bakery – a healthy bakery featuring my popular Glo Bars. At this time, Oh She Glows was several months old and achieving a lot of success. This gave me the inspiration to follow my dreams. Walking away from a career that I went to school for 7 years was not an easy thing to do, but it turned out to be the best career decision I could’ve made. Finally, I felt passionate and in control of my own happiness! I was determined and filled with passion to make this new career work.

I spent a lot of my life living for others and this time, it was time to live for me. I ran the bakery on my own (with the help of my supportive husband when he had time) for a couple years and it was a huge success. Each week, I hand-made over 500 Glo Bars and shipped them to customers (many were blog readers!) all over North America. It was physically exhausting running both the bakery and the blog, but I knew I was on the right path to career happiness. No matter how much work it took, I was willing to do it.

2011/2012

After a couple years of running the bakery and blogging full-time, I closed the bakery to pursue my cookbook dreams late in 2011. The bakery was an experience I will never forget and I learned so much. Who knows, maybe some day in the future, I will open up a store-front bakery or I might even re-open the online bakery if I can have the bars made out of house. My other dream is to own an animal rescue farm some day because I adore animals and feel so happy when they are around. Right now, my focus is on writing a fantastic cookbook and blogging.

As I update this page at the end of 2012, I am a couple months away from handing in my cookbook manuscript and time is flying. I can’t wait to share the finished product with you early in 2014!

Learning to love food again

With hard work and persistence, I was able to overcome my struggles with disordered eating. It’s something I still work on daily, but I’m so much happier than I used to be. I no longer count calories, weigh myself obsessively, binge eat, or workout compulsively. Balanced is how I feel in my life now.

I have been a vegan since mid-2009 which was a gradual shift as I learned more about nutrition, health, animal welfare, and the environmental impacts of factory farming. My goal is to show you healthy, unprocessed, and animal-product free recipes that I create to keep myself and my family inspired about food. The best part about my recipes is that anyone can enjoy them from vegans to carnivores alike. Don’t believe me? Just read some of the "glowing" reviews in the comments. I’ve received hundreds of emails over the years from blog readers crediting Oh She Glows for inspiring some major changes in their own lives like losing weight, shifting to a vegan or vegetarian diet, overcoming eating disorders, and changing careers. I am so grateful to be a part of such an inspiring community.

You can also check out the Green Monster Movement which is a website I created in 2009 about healthy green smoothies!

How to Contact Me:

Facebook: Like my Facebook page. I reply to all of my Facebook wall comments & questions and it’s usually the fastest way to hear back from me. Please allow 1-5 days for a reply (longer around holidays).

Twitter: @ohsheglows - I love reading what’s going on on Twitter (and I LOVE hearing about the recipes you try out!), but I’m afraid I don’t write much on there about myself. I’m pretty shy, but I try my best.

Pinterest: Follow me on Pinterest

Questions/comments? Please stop by my FAQ page for a ton of your questions already answered in one cozy spot. You can also say hello via email: angela [at] ohsheglows [dot] com. I personally respond to as many of your emails as I can fit into a day, but occasionally I cannot keep up with them or lose track of emails. If this is the case and your question is urgent, please feel free to re-send it or try leaving me a note on my Facebook wall. For some reason, I find comments much easier to stay on top of on Facebook, probably because they don’t get lost or archived (I just jinxed myself). I appreciate each and everyone of you who take the time out of your busy day to send me a note. Thank you for making my days brighter!

For my Press page, see here.

Not sure where to start? Try my popular recipes page. If you are a quote fan, then this page is for you!

Above all, I could not run this blog without your support, love, and enthusiasm. I’m so grateful for all of you who read the blog each day and share a part of your life with me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now let’s get our plants on.

Angela