Cobie Higgins has a bright and positive, all round approach to health and wellness. She not only maintains a healthy lifestyle by eating nutritious foods, exercising regularly, meditating and sleeping well but she has made a miracle recovery in just over a year from an accident that almost took her life. Cobie created the blog Inhale Healthy, where she posts beautiful photos of delicious and wholesome food and has an audience of over 5,000 followers to show for it. She is a role model in health and wellbeing, and an inspiration for her incredibly positive mindset and outlook on the future.
Read our interview with Cobie below:
Why did you decide to begin Inhale Healthy?
Actually I didn’t exactly decide to begin @inhalehealthy, it was originally my personal account and after a while I realised that I was posting all things health and wellness so I decided to do a name change and I haven’t looked back.
What do you get out of creating recipes and running a food blog?
It gives me great joy, I’m so passionate about everything that comes with it, the creating, the styling, the photography, fuelling my body with the food I’ve created and the amazing community we have. I’ve learnt so much and it has also been such a blessing throughout my recovery having something else to focus on other than rehab. I also find it a great out let, I am very honest and everyone in the health and wellness community is so encouraging and supportive.
What does being healthy mean to you? Have you always been a healthy person?
Being healthy to me means fuelling your body with nourishing food, moving your body in a way that you enjoy, getting enough sleep to let your body and mind recharge, looking after your mental health is so important and often under looked, I find meditation helps and not being so hard on yourself. I’m a massive advocate for self-care; I’m much more in tune with my body after my accident and know just how important it is. While keeping all this in mind we all need balance and enjoying a treat every now and then and being okay with that is part of it all. I have always been a very active person but I had a life style change about 4 years ago and that’s when the food side of things changed.
I recently read an article about you in the Geelong Advertiser. You must be such a strong person to bounce back from such a traumatic experience like that. What do you do to look after your psychological wellbeing and take time for yourself?
I’ve learnt so much throughout my accident and as I said I’m now very aware of my body, so I listen to it. Sleep is so important, throughout my recovery I had to take two ‘brain breaks’ daily and now I still meditate regularly, I had a psychologist on my team of therapist and am still able to see her if need be, I surround myself around people who help me to be a better version of myself and make me feel good, do things I enjoy and making sure I don’t plan to much at once as fatigue has been a big problem, doing minimal was difficult for me as I love doing things and keeping busy, I had my occupational therapist work with me on time tabling on a big white board each week so I didn’t overdo it.
You have such a beautiful Instagram page, do you have any photography or social media tips for aspiring food bloggers?
Lighting is key to a great photo, taking photos on different angles, playing around with editing apps and finding what works for you, having a theme, posting regularly and most importantly just being real, being you. I am continuing to learn and want to improve my photography, it has come a long way if you scroll back (but please don’t haha) but it’s nice to see that I’ve progressed.
Do you have any food bloggers that you look up to personally?
I absolutely adore @ellencharlottemarie photography and food styling, not to mention her drool worthy healthy food. There’s really too many to name, everyone I follow, I love their accounts and get inspiration daily.
What is your favourite healthy dish?
Ooh a favourite, it’s hard to pick only one! I would say I love variety bowls as you can have a bit of everything and colour, lots of colour. I love eating rainbows it always makes me feel good from the inside out.
Following your Instagram and reading all your captions you seem like you not only eat healthy, but stay active too. What’s your favourite form of exercise?
Pre accident I was all about HITT and loved it but after learning how to walk again things have changed a little, I am now able to run 6km so I usually run a couple times a week, I enjoy strength training at the gym and I’ve found a new love for yin yoga as I’m extremely inflexible & experience back pain so it helps so much. I’d love to get back into HITT again sometime in the near future.
What do you get out of exercising regularly?
Exercising has endless benefits but in a nut shell it makes me feel great, both mind and body.
What made you want to do Sugar Free September?
I thought this campaign was a great idea and was honoured to be apart of it. I want to get the word out there to as many people as I can, I don’t think people realise the extent of what sugar is doing to our health and would love to be able to educate people further.
We use The One Line Rule as an easy way to be sugar conscious. How do you check for hidden sugars?
I make all my own snacks for the week so I know exactly what’s going in to them, same for meals but if I’m heading out for a meal I naturally opt for the healthy options and usually ask what it’s made from if I’m not sure.
What’s your favourite way to deal with the 3pm snack-attack?
I make raw bliss balls weekly as a quick afternoon pick me up, usually with cacao in them for a chocolate fix and they definitely do the trick.
What does a day in the life of you entail?
A day in the life of me is hard to put on paper right now as I not too long ago got the okay to return to work on a return to work plan, building up my hours slowly with no consecutive days so I’m working with that and hope to get back to full time work but it’s a slow process.
I usually wake up around 7, start my morning with a warm cup of apple cider vinegar and lemon, I head to the gym or for a run around the river and then refuel with a delicious smoothie bowl.
I still see some of my therapists for rehab but hoping to soon be discharged and move on from it all, seeing friends, yoga, brunching has probably become to regular haha, I work on Inhale healthy which gives me something to continuously work on, I’ve been doing a massive clean out which I find therapeutic, I spend a lot of my time going to health and wellness events, networking and love learning more and more about all things health.
I don’t have a set routine every day which might be appealing to some but I crave structure and routine, I guess right now I’m almost at the beginning of a new chapter and I am so excited, but I have learnt along the way that nothing can be rushed and I’ve learnt the ins and outs of patience. I love the saying ‘I am happy with what I have while working towards what I want’ and that’s exactly what I am doing. I can’t change my current circumstances so I’ve learn to embrace it and
I’m still working on myself and getting back to ‘normalisation’ but I’m beyond ready to dive back into life again when the time is right.