I was a fitness influencer with 1 million Instagram followers. I made a career U-turn after I realized my content was damaging myself and others.

This was around the time that everyone was sick of burpees and mountain climbers, and the beauty standard was shifting from skinny to curvy but in a muscular way.

The guide I was following was designed to be used at home with minimal equipment, and after a while, I started to get frustrated that my body wasn’t building muscle the way I wanted it to.

I wanted to get stronger and have a muscular body, so I started researching and reading about how to do that. I fell into a rabbit hole about how to build muscle and the best techniques, and I developed a program for myself that incorporated weights.

I was naturally thin, but through the gym, I managed to shape myself into the aspirational aesthetic of the time. I had the solution, essentially.

At this stage, I was influencing but still running my social media business. Influencing was an income stream on the side.

I started selling my guide around April 2017, and it just exploded. It became very big, and then I started working on my own fitness app, working with brands, and gaining more and more followers. I was super excited about it. It took me about a year in total before I was able to quit my social media job and work full time in my fitness job.

My body became my business card, and it led me to an obsessive headspace

In 2019, I started to reflect. I visited my sister in San Francisco and tried psilocybin, a psychedelic, which opened my mind to ideas I hadn’t considered — or hadn’t allowed myself to consider.

It prompted me to question what I was promoting and things I’d previously accepted, like why people struggle with weight loss if diets supposedly “work.” Before, I assumed people weren’t trying hard enough or didn’t have the “right” knowledge. But after the experience, I began to recognize the complex factors, such as socioeconomic status, that affect someone’s ability to manage their weight.

I became genuinely interested in reading deeper and understanding. I also felt more open, compassionate, and receptive, so the messages had a deeper impact on me.

A few weeks later, I stumbled across an article about how dieting doesn’t work. It mentioned a study and a few people’s different experiences. Suddenly, it felt so true to me. I just remember crying and thinking, “Oh my God, it doesn’t work. What have I been doing? It’s a scam.”

My content wasn’t specifically about dieting, but I posted before-and-after photos of women who had lost weight and now looked thinner after using my program. I spoke about low-calorie diets, and on my app, I used phrases like “get leaner.” I promoted the idea of “no excuses” when it came to hitting the gym.

I began to interrogate what that language actually meant and the underlying message I was sending. I realized that it was insidious — it’s not saying “become your best self,” it’s saying “become your thinnest self.” It was clear to me that I was telling people that their body wasn’t good enough and needed to change.

It took me a while to come to terms with that emotionally because, naturally, you make excuses for why you did what you did. I feel guilty about so many things I said.

But overall, I felt like I needed to spring into action. I thought: “What can I do to change this?”

I changed my messaging completely and received a lot of hate

Changing my messaging so suddenly and drastically in front of a huge audience was really difficult, but I don’t regret anything.

I now work as a functional nutritionist, seeing one-to-one clients remotely. I used to be a lot more extreme with my anti-diet stance. Now I’m more centered in my beliefs. I encourage the whole foods diet and eating foods that will fuel your body and satiate you.

I still have a big following on Instagram, but I wouldn’t consider myself an influencer because I very rarely work with brands. I use it as a way to get clients, connect with my community, and share educational content about nutrition and fitness.

I recently started going to the gym again after a five-year break. I stopped going because I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror without thinking, “You look so bad, you don’t have this, you don’t have that.”

I’m proud of my decision, and I feel comfortable with who I am and what I’ve done. My relationships with myself, my body, my partner, and my friends improved too.

I just wish that Madalin back then hadn’t cared so much about what people thought.