Good Vibes Zoe
When you look at Zoe’s Instagram you don’t see ‘allergies’, you see someone who is obsessed with food, an aesthetically pleasing feed, a bubbly personality and to be absolutely honest, I always come away hungry. Zoe only started her Instagram in May 2020 and it has boomed from there. Her photos are colourful, vibrant, exciting and just good vibes!
I had been talking to Zoe for a while, because of our love for Lotus Biscoff spread. She was very funny and lovely in our first interactions, and she puts out incredible recipes on her feed, you just can’t stay away.
She came to my first Happy Hour event and it was lovely to see that she is the same in person, as she is online. I really wanted to know more about her story.
Zoe was diagnosed with food allergies at 18 months. She reacted to peanut butter from the air. She was actually covered in the media because of her allergies. A newspaper article was written by the Telegraph about that first allergic experience. The article was written in 2003 when Zoe was 4 years old. It is so important to have the media shine a light on allergies, in a positive way; (plus she was on the BBC as well).
When she first started school there was one other person who had allergies in her class. She told me that both of them were moved to the ever-famous, Allergy Table. When her mother found out, she went to the school and demanded that they no longer exclude them. I see where Zoe gets her confidence from!
From a young age, Zoe loved cooking with her grandparents and making delicious meals. From the age of 11, she started experimenting in the kitchen, solo. Her passion grew like wildfire, and she then proceeded to take some cooking classes (which were really good with allergies).
Recently, Zoe has become a high-powered worker with a job in insurance, in London. Before the pandemic, she hadn’t been able to cook as much as she would have wanted. She was buying food out all day, from places like M&S, cafe sandwich shops (where she did inform them about her allergies), and restaurants. She admits that she can’t be bothered to prepare food at home for work, (which I can understand, it does take some effort).
Since the pandemic, she has had a lot of time at home and in the kitchen. She was excited to make fun, Zoe-safe meals which were healthy. She began lockdown with a goal to implement a healthy lifestyle and, she did it! She wants to show people that eating with allergies can be fun and it can be healthy too. It has truly changed her life.
Zoe reacts to nuts, fish, shellfish, pulses, seeds, coconuts, banana, kiwi, avocado, raw eggs, mushrooms and some animals
She loves working in insurance by day and being creative at night!
Upon meeting Zoe, for 5 minutes, I realised she has a natural confidence in her; it is raw, innate and I wanted her to talk about how that has come to be.
As you can tell, I am nuts about Zoe (get it? her Instagram handle is @nutfreezoe…ok), let’s move on….
Here is her story, enjoy!
Zoe’s Story
“Good Vibes Only”
My parents believed in me, they let me lead and make the decisions I wanted for myself. Growing up I was surrounded by sociable, confident people and seeing this led me to my confidence today.
I am the youngest in my family, and growing up with my sister her friends were always around, I didn’t want to feel left out of the fun. I made sure to put myself out there and socialise with them. I learned early on, that confidence is just believing in yourself, which mainly comes from experience. Getting out of my comfort zone with older children, I was self-assured in knowing that confidence isn’t something I had, it was something I was creating.
A lot of people with food allergies find school really difficult, and challenging; whereas school was one of my favourite times in my life. It was fuelled with fun, friends' parties, ambition, and freedom. I made amazing friends - who knew about my allergies early on - we shared the same morals and outlook on life, “good vibes only”. We grew up together, sharing the awkward school ‘discos', getting in first relationships, heartbreak, exams, movie nights, and so much more. It’s where I learned to be me, fall in love and develop my happy & positive outlook, it is where I started to create my innate confidence.
After school, I didn’t follow the path that most people take. I never wanted to go to university, which wasn’t a common feeling. I worked very hard in school, but my results never showed that. I wasn’t very interested in one particular subject and there was nothing I had any interest in studying for a further 3 years. I was really motivated to start working straight away. Most people don’t go against the grain in this way, we are taught that Uni is how we can get the job we want/need. However, making this big of a decision so young, and feeling very strong about it, built my confidence to another level (and it paid off).
I took a course for business acumen, employability, and interview skills at a Business Apprentice Programme and met a lot of new people and learned invaluable skills to start my new journey into the working world. I found a job that I was super fortunate to have, and I was very lucky for the people in my new team. I am working alongside people who are amazing, hard-working and kind, which has given me such a boost; they truly make me feel like I am a vital member of the team. Feeling sure of yourself and your abilities is an amazing feeling. I know I am capable and ready for any of life’s challenges.
MEET THE TEAM
My sister is four years older than me, I was surrounded by her and her friends (mostly men) at a pivotal age of me finding myself. Being around older people, who accepted me, provided me with the experience I needed to learn from any situation, positively and negatively (some experiences have not gone the best). Being able to approach a new experience head-on and put me in new situations has benefited me immensely and got me to this life today.
Once you tackle one situation, there is always another. At the beginning of the year, my confidence in my body was lacking. I was very ill in February, it shocked me how my health has such an impact on my confidence and happiness levels. I got to the point that I felt unhappy in the way I looked and felt, which affected who I was, and how I showed up. I decided to find a love of fitness and implement a healthy relationship with food. It was a wake-up call, one that I needed, one that really showed me who I was and my inner fighter was released. I got healthy and felt good about myself. I worked out every day and cooked my meals from scratch. I was a fresh version of myself and once again, I had reached a whole new level. It is not just that my body has changed drastically (which it has), but it was clear to me, what a lack of confidence makes me feel. Trusting the process, showing up every day to work on me, pushing through my limiting beliefs, is how I started to create another layer of confidence.
Reading this you don’t see my food allergies, and that is because having allergies have made me who I am today but I never let them control my life. This is who I am, I am a person behind the allergy. Allergies have given me qualities I admire, such as discipline, responsibility, empathy, love, positivity and, most importantly, resilience. Whilst I am grateful to those traits, my allergies are not something I think about constantly. I am aware of them, I am careful, I take necessary risks, but they don’t control me, they actually do quite the opposite. Being an allergy reactor makes me want to do more, make more of an effort, push further out of my comfort zone so that I know for the next time that I can face this situation again, and again. I know for many it can be a real struggle, and you may feel scared, overwhelmed, awkward, feeling like a burden, but I would always urge you to just face those feelings straight on.
I eat out a lot, but I am responsible and chose where to go, wisely. There will always be a risk with allergies, but there is a risk in anything. If I stopped myself in all of these scenarios, I would have ended up with a life I didn’t want and my confidence lacking. I see living with allergies in exactly the same way; you can’t let them stop you, or take away your confidence. Living with this mindset is what helps me choose to be positive in all situations and therefore I am extremely confident. Please, love the life you have with whatever challenges you face, you only have one, don’t you want it to be amazing?
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PLEASE REACH OUT TO ZOE AND LET HER KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
Zoe
Instagram @nutfreezoe
