Welcome to Just Flourishing!

Hello! My name is Janna. I have been a reader of healthy living blogs for quite some time and finally decided to start a blog of my own! I am really excited to become a member of the healthy living blogging community. I am originally from Winnipeg (the coldest capital city in Canada!) but am currently visiting my favourite city in the world, New York City, for a few months while I study for my GRE. Oh yeah, and my boyfriend also happens to live here .

Just Flourishing! is a blog about being active, eating healthfully and naturally and, well, flourishing!
According to yourdictionary.com the definition of flourish is:

flour·ish (flʉr′is̸h): to be at the peak of development, activity, influence, production, etc.; be in one’s prime

I feel that the word “flourish” really defines what we all strive to do by being active, being conscious about what we put into our bodies and generally living a healthier more natural life. Conveniently my name, Janna, happens to mean flourishing.

A little bit about me:

Always an active and fitness-minded individual, I was a ballet dancer for 15 years as well as a competitive rhythmic gymnast for 3 years. At 17 I tore my right ACL during one of my dance practices. My dancing career came to an abrupt halt. I had to get reconstructive surgery and was on crutches for a large part of my senior year of high school. It was devastating learning that I would not be able to dance again for at least a year, and probably never to the same extent as I had before. I had plans of pursuing dance as a career but, of course, these plans had to change.

So instead of dancing, I headed to McGill University in Montreal, where I definitely had a blast, but my activity levels and eating habits took a turn for the worse. My knee injury prevented me from really delving into any fitness activities. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do them, I just was too scared. I took a dance class here and there and went to the gym every so often but I was generally inactive.  On top of this, I was eating unhealthy food, drinking a little too much and generally not taking care of myself. It took me a couple years to realize what I needed was a change in lifestyle. During my last year at school I started becoming more conscious about what I was eating as well as starting to go the gym more often. I eventually put my knee-fears aside and began running.  After graduating and starting work at a public relations company this focus on health kept growing and grew even more exponentially when I discovered healthy living blogs.

I became increasingly interested in health and wellness and increasingly less interested in public relations.  I was so drawn to the nutrition aspect of health that in my spare time I spent hours in the kitchen, the grocery store, the bookstore and on the internet discovering foods and how they affect our bodies. I became an avid reader of nutrition, wellness and fitness blogs and I found myself constantly questioning our health, our bodies and the food we consume.

Two blogs in particular inspired me to not only start my own healthy living blog but to go for it and actually pursue a career in nutrition. Meghan from Making Love in the Kitchen and Kath from Kath Eats Real Food who worked in similar areas as I did realized their passion for the field and went back to pursue degrees in nutrition. This was incredibly inspiring to me since I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to pursue in my undergraduate degree but was now positive that I had found my calling.

Today I am, as I said, in NYC studying for my GRE and on my way to eventually completing a M.S. in Nutrition and becoming a Registered Dietitian.

I have a long road ahead of me but am so excited to be pursuing what I love in the city that I love.
To my fellow bloggers: I hope you enjoy this sneak-peak into my life as it has been such a pleasure learning about your lives.
To everyone: Thank you for taking the time to come and read this, it means so much to me! Enjoy!

Flourishingly Yours (is that cheesy? ),

Janna