Have you ever felt like something just wasn’t for you? Not in the sense of good intuition, but that no matter how hard you try, the lifestyle you dream of and the version of yourself you yearn to be just do not align with who you are.
When it comes to fitness, that’s been the story of most of my life. It’s almost funny now because, if you follow me on social media, fitness (particularly running) is a massive part of my life.
But that doesn’t mean I grew up a particularly active kid.
I participated in sports, but it was more for the chit-chat on the bench than for the actual sports themselves.
And if you want to talk about body image? Bestie, I started trying to change how my body looked in middle school, and that desire controlled my life for the next decade.
So, how did I get here to where I am now? Let’s flash back to 2020 and walk through it together.
At this point in my life, my hatred for my body and criticism for how it should be different were at an all-time high. The world was falling apart, as we all know, and that desire to lose weight changed from a goal to a full-on obsession.
I didn’t have anything else to focus on other than some ridiculous Netflix shows while the world shut down around me, so my every thought became about how to make myself smaller.
On top of that, I had no idea how the science of weight loss actually worked. I would do things like go for a run and then spend the day trying to only eat the amount of calories my watch said I burned during that run. I would go to bed at 7 pm so that I wasn’t awake long enough to get hungry for dinner.
I was starving myself and, truly, I believe it was a form of self-harm. I knew that I had people in my life who cared about me, and this was a way to punish myself without anyone else knowing.
At the time, I was also a vegetarian, so it became very easy to hide what meals I didn’t eat because I “couldn’t eat” what everyone else around me was eating.
One day, I actually sat down and wrote out all of the unhealthy thoughts I could think of that my mind associated with the topic of food. That list is now a locked note on my phone that I can’t remember the password to (lol), but I remember getting to the end and thinking, “I think I have an eating disorder.”
Thanks to what I truly believe was a divine interruption from the Lord, the following season of my life immersed me into an incredibly supportive community as I worked at a camp in Colorado.
This community cared for me without even knowing what I was actively walking through. My friends noticed when I tried to skip a meal and would set food aside for me. Just by being the godly people that they are, they pushed me to seek healing from the Lord. Medication was also a major contributing factor in my healing journey.
I left my year in Colorado a completely changed person.
Over the next few years, I experimented with strength training. HEAVY squats, chasing the best pumps—I’m talking a serious gym rat.
It was fun and challenged me in a completely different way than I had ever experienced in fitness. I learned a lot, but it never really felt like me.
And, I knew that there was something that was mentally holding me back from true growth: the fear that a desire for growth would lead me back into that desire to change my physique.
I was terrified to push myself in any way when it came to fitness because I never wanted to get back into that mindset again.
That brings us to the spring of 2024. I had run a handful of times in the four prior years, but I had resigned to never running more than a mile ever again.
However, something in me changed and I had the strongest desire to try it again. So here’s what I did:
For about two months, every run I did was an out-and-back run. On the way out, I would let myself think any negative thought that came into my mind. Whether it was about myself, what was going on in my life, or things that had happened in my past. I just took note of those thoughts and let them be.
Once I reached the turnaround point, though, those thoughts had to stop. Any negativity that came into my brain would be redirected to positivity. I used it as a time to thank the Lord for everything my body could do and had done for me. I used it as a time to speak affirmations over myself.
When I tell you I could not believe how drastically my mindset had changed—bestie, I mean it. I began to look forward to my runs because, slowly, the negativity time began to shrink and the moments of thankfulness and positivity took over my runs.
Deep down, I knew I had to share this with people, so I started posting online. I made a promise to myself that I would always be honest about both the good parts and the hard parts.
Over the last year, I have had countless people reach out to me and let me know that my presence online has affected them in some way—that me sharing my story has made the world of fitness and running seem more approachable and has inspired them to give it a try.
It was through one of those connections that a dream I’d had in the back of my mind became a reality.
I launched “Hey Bestie, Run!” on March 8, 2025, and the joy that this run club has brought into my life is more than I could ever have imagined.
Through this journey, I’ve realized that while my life has a lot of purpose, the main one in this season is to make fitness seem accessible to everyone and to celebrate movement for every body through community.
Our bodies are incredible and can do amazing things. We can push ourselves without diminishing our worth. We can find joy in it. And if I can make it here, you can too.
What you can expect here is a more in-depth look into what my life looks like. From running and fitness to nannying and content creation, you will get a picture of what’s going on in the life of Allie with an I. E. that a 60 second video on social media doesn’t show you.
I’m so glad you’re here.
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