Sharon Duursma is a healthy lifestyle advocate and since this year, actively promotes it on Instagram. Her followers are regularly delighted with creative food recipes and useful health and life tips. However, it has not been easy.
Read about how food has helped Sharon with managing her long-term illness and providing an opportunity for living a richer life.
Name: Sharon Duursma
Age: 29
Location: Born in Enschede,
now Leeuwarden
Occupation: Assistant manager,
student of food & herbology
Hobbies: Yoga, photography, cuddling with her
guinea pigs
Have you always been into healthy living? How did it start for you?
For as long as I can remember I’ve been struggling with my health. Doctors are still searching for a diagnosis, but it’s been clear that food has a massive influence.
When I was a teen, I had to use a wheelchair and mobility scooter, I tried plenty of therapies but nothing helped as much as changing my diet (which has been trial and error as well). Practicing yoga is also very helpful to manage the pain. I will probably never be as fit as regular people but now I don’t use my wheelchair anymore, have a bike and have a job where I’m standing the entire day. Which is something I could have never imagined 15 years ago.
Where do you get inspiration for your recipes?
Everywhere! I have a lot of cookbooks and find plenty of inspiration on Instagram and Pinterest, but I also love visiting events about food and healthy living, do workshops and took an online vegan cooking course by The Happy Pear. Inspiration also comes from family recipes and old favorites and trying to make healthier versions. When there’s no inspiration at all I look at which produce is in season and challenge myself to cook with something out of the ordinary.
What would you advise others who want to eat healthier and live more sustainable?
Find your motivation. For me it is easy because I simply remember being in a wheelchair, for most people it is probably not that extreme, but it helps when you know why you are doing it. Be a bit specific, not just “being more healthy” but for example not getting struck by heart problems that run in your family or getting diabetes when you’re older.
Also, don’t be a perfectionist, often diets and lifestyle changes fail because you want to do them exactly right from the start. For example, you want to go vegan, but then you crave cheese, you eat it and feel like you’ve failed. That happens a couple of times and you think being vegan is impossible for you and give up all together. But when you say you want to go mostly plant-based, then when you eat that cheese, you won’t feel as bad about it and overall stick to the diet for a lot longer.
Then the longer you eat healthier and live more sustainable the easier it gets because you learn so many new things and find new favorite foods.
