I made an Instagram and only followed foodies & models for a week
I’ve always wondered if following big accounts like Alexis Ren and @nyceeeeeats on Instagram ever had a negative affect on me.
Whenever I open my regular Instagram, I see pictures of models with perfectly toned stomachs, and what follows is a a foodie showing off a tower of oozing mozzarella sticks. It’s kind of counterproductive in a way, because I’m striving to be in-shape and toned, but also addicted to junk food Instagram accounts.
I just wanted to see what would happen if I restricted myself to only these two types of accounts for an entire week. I couldn’t go on my own personal Instagram at all, which was truly an agonizing event on its own. The measurements I was calculating through this experiment were my overall happiness and mood, my weight, my ambition and drive, and my cravings and calorie intake.
Disclaimer: Weight isn’t what defines you as a person at all, and it isn’t a make or break type of deal. I simply have been following these two types of accounts for years and wondered if they played any role in my body or physical appearance. So I conducted this experiment and chose the food and model accounts because to me, they’re complete opposites.
The food accounts induce cravings and the model accounts motivate me to work out and eat healthy. I always thought if I only followed model accounts, I’d be motivated to be super healthy — but instead, it made me miserable.
I weighed in at 120 lbs at the start of the week. I find myself to be an upbeat person a majority of the time, so my mood is always optimistic. As far as my ambition and drive, I seriously find that it fluctuates, I want a lot of things, and I’m more than willing to put all my efforts into getting them. But once I get to a certain position I like to just go along with the ride instead of planning my next five steps to get even better.
As far as cravings and calorie intakes go, on average when I use the MyFitnessPal app I consume 1,300 calories a day and my cravings only get bad on the weekend when I go out to eat in NYC with my friends. Two cones of cookie dough never hurt nobody!
So let’s get down to it! The results:
READ ALSO: Why quitting the gym made me feel better about my body than ever
Happiness and Mood
This is the one category that really shocked me. Because of the conflicting images I found myself to be a hangry monster ALL THE TIME, so I was such a bish all week, I was never satisfied with my stupid salads.
I’d be eating a spinach salad with grilled chicken wanting it to be guacamole stuffed onion rings with sriracha oil, and that was just not the case. One thing I will say is I stayed very true to my diet kick that I’ve been on lately.
What I think happened was the images of the models made me feel guilty about drooling over the pics and videos of food. This made me super self conscious all week. Without being able to see normal people my age on Instagram I was under the impression that Tash Oakley was the new normal and I felt like the heinous friend that you take pics with to make yourself look better all week long.
Truly I do not recommend following all models. This might just be how eating disorders are started. I would look in the mirror and compare myself to Kendall Jenner, Candice Swanepoel, Izabel Goulart, and Sara Sampaio and I think you can imagine who was losing in the looks department. Honestly it was so dark, I would have to go walk around my neighborhood in Brooklyn to be reminded not every girl that breathes is a 5’8″ twig who says their ultimate beauty secret is water.
Weight
This category is obvious, I lost weight. Again I started off at 120 pounds, I ended up losing three pounds by the end of the week. I can’t tell if it was for the better or worse though. Because I mean it’s summer and it’s sick to finally make it to your goal weight, but I can’t tell if bullying myself made it worth it in the end.
I couldn’t believe how easy it was to stick to my diet. I still ate three meals a day and even had a snack. I just made a ton of better choices for six out of the seven days. One day I went to eat with my friends and splurged very hard but I’ll get into that later.
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Ambition and Drive
Another measurement I was pleased with: my motivation was through the roof. I found that model images really outweighed the food images each and every day. This drove me to work out five times this week instead of my usual three. I also think it really helped me focus on my goals and map out the rest of my summer for myself. I have a big birthday coming up in September and I want to look my best!
I basically came up with a workout routine for the rest of the summer, which is awesome. I’ve never really done that before, usually when I go to the gym I know what I have to work on and just wing it. But it’s nice to finally have a planned out agenda, one thing I will say is I’ll try and do cardio five times a week to get myself in shape for a couple runs I’ve entered coming around the corner. But I’m going to cut back and make it to the gym three times a week like I have been doing just because I’m so sore right now and found it to be too extensive for my liking.
My health and fitness was all I could think about, though, which… again… is a little dark.
Cravings and Calories
As far as other aspects in my life, it kind of made me distracted, I would come to work day dreaming of red velvet croissants and truffle cheese steaks. When in all reality I had very sad salads and wraps all week long.
My cravings were undeniable, I seriously have no idea how I didn’t cave a lot more all week. I was so stressed out from feeling like a glob of mayo compared to all of these women on Instagram that I basically cut myself off from buying food all week. All I could eat was what I had in my fridge and pantry, which was lettuce, spinach, broccoli, chicken, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, hummus, wraps, mushrooms and brown rice. It was a very bland week.
It was when I made it to my last day, sweet sweet Sunday, that I finally decided to cheat when I went out to brunch. My friend and I decided to go out to Buns Bar, where I conquered their fried mozzarella burger. The buns are actually mozzarella stick patties. It was decadent and it only took me eight minutes to clear my plate. Following this meal a few hours later we hit up Milk Bar Nolita where we both got a cup of ice cream and called it a day. And my what a day it was.
My calories on average each day actually dropped, I would eat only 1,200 a day instead of my usual 1,300 which I thought was a bit unhealthy, so I’m trying to get that back up after my hell week. I didn’t even count my calories on that Sunday because whooooo gives a f*ck !!
Overall
I hated this a lot. I was equivalent to the grumpy cat all week long.
I would see girls eating things like a burrito and I would legit imagine 19 different scenarios of her either dying or me knocking it out of her hand by “accident.” It was a very treacherous road with a lot of those annoying speed bumps every two feet. And it definitely took my self confidence down two or three notches, which I’ll have to agonize over to get back.
Now what I’m going to do with my Instagram is limit the number of these two accounts that I follow, because it’s not worth torturing myself with food that’s no where near my location, and the standards of a giraffe.
