Most Popular Posts of 2024 - Did you find me via one of these posts?
MOST POPULAR POSTS OF 2023:
- 1200 Calories From A Dietitian - the amount of people still coming after me on this post is what motivated me to podcast.
- Air Fryer Chicken Tender NO Breading - who knew chicken could be controversial?
- 3 Ingredient Pulled Pork - at least pork has a history of controversy ha ha
Key Moments for HH!
Hungry Hobby saw a little growth this year, with an additional 200,000 views, bringing the total to over 2.9 million views for the year—setting a new all-time record! I published 87 new posts, which is a bit lower than last year, but that doesn’t surprise me considering we moved states. This included 25 new recipes and several recipe updates—about half of the one-per-week goal I set last year.
What I will say, though, is that the recipes I published felt very authentic to me. It wasn’t just about search traffic; it was about sharing what I actually love to make again and again. It was about me being adventurous with the air fryer and the slow cooker. Specifically the slow cooker, I needed to get more recipes going for that! I’m especially proud of my sesame slow cooker chicken—I turn to that recipe again and again.
On the nutrition client side, I completed the Advanced Practice Module from the Institute of Functional Medicine and am now listed on their website as a functional medicine practitioner. I continue to utilize functional medicine in my `utrition practice and see stellar results.
This year was really a “proof is in the pudding” year for me. Every training I attend emphasizes, “start with the gut” over and over. And I always thought, sure, okay, but if they have hormone issues and no GI symptoms, shouldn’t we start there?
Well, this year, a long-term client of mine with PCOS took a leap. Without significant GI symptoms, she decided to invest in GI MAP testing, a leaky gut test, and ultimately food sensitivity testing (based on her positive leaky gut test). We identified gluten as a major culprit (not the case for everyone), and her progress was incredible. Her symptom score dropped from the upper 90s to 15. Food noise disappeared. Everything improved.
She’s now fine-tuning things, but that experience really showed me how much gut health can have a system-wide impact, even in less obvious cases. Autoimmune conditions and gut symptoms tend to have more direct links, but this case really opened my eyes. She’s even planning to repeat her DUTCH test soon because now that her gut and overall health have improved so much, fine-tuning her hormones should be easier!
2024 Word Review: Flexibility
I couldn't remember what I wrote last year, so clearly it stuck with me. I had to look it up and here is what I wrote:
"The initial word I thought of was trust. Trusting everything will be okay. I’ve been blogging for over ten years now, and there have been a lot of ups and downs. Things inevitably break on the website, and when that happens, I typically lose my mind. I spin into panic, which does no good because I usually can’t fix it. I just have to find the right person to fix it. (And try to afford the fix.) And that requires patience and waiting to find the right person and for them to respond. This past summer, the month the baby was born, my Pinterest traffic plummeted to almost zero. Eventually, I figured out that my VA was breaking some Pinterest rules and pinning the same image from other bloggers multiple times, which looked spammy. Once I stopped pinning, the block was removed, and my traffic started to bounce back. But in the moment, it was super scary. I ended up hiring a professional Pinterest management company to help manage my Pinterest account.
This upcoming year, starting in just a couple of days, something big is happening in the blog world. Google is deprecating (getting rid of) third-party ads. What does that mean? It means instead of getting ads on websites for things you’ve just searched for. You’ll get content-specific ads. As you can imagine, content-specific ads don’t perform as well as user-specific ads. Therefore, advertisers are likely to pay far less for the ads on websites. Because of this, many websites are turning to subscription models, requiring you to have a subscription or consent to signing in to view certain content. These strategies will offset the significant revenue offset. There isn’t much I can do for Hungry Hobby when it comes to this except encourage readers to utilize Grow saving on the site. This allows me to collect first-party data vs cookies. I couldn’t explain the technicality of this if I tried, but it’s a way to offset some of the revenue loss while allowing users to save recipes and posts across all sites that run grow. Of course, users consent to the release of certain data and are provided an explanation.
This is going to be a big deal. And I think in my life stage, adjusting to three kids, I have to be ready to be flexible. Will I be able to keep up with these changes? How flexible will I be when I learn what changes are needed of myself, Hungry Hobby, etc, to keep up? This year, when I see things changing or not going the way I thought, I want to bend, not break. I want to accept, research, and act with less anger and emotion and mostly fear. I want to be flexible when it comes to what is needed from me to make HH work and my family function. Three kids will make you flexible, but it’s the emotion that comes along with flexibility. For me, I’m often flexible but angry and afraid. I want to be flexible with grace and trust. So, that’s my word of the year or I guess, phrase of the year. Flexibility without fear. "
Well, I moved states, so I think I was pretty damn flexible. Ha ha. I wouldn’t say I was graceful or that it was without tears, but I did it. I accomplished it. I’m living it.
As for blog changes, Google never did implement their depreciation of cookies, but eventually, they’ll do something like that. Instead, they changed their search results to favor user-generated content (think Reddit, social media, etc.) and large publishers, effectively kicking out the small publishers. I did feel the effects of that update, but it wasn’t career-ending (not yet, anyway) like it was for some bloggers you may know and love.
2025 Word: ?
I keep saying "F&!K IT" is my word for 2025—jokingly, but also kind of not. But when I run that saying through ChatGPT, I can’t come up with anything that has quite the same emphasis. As I read last year’s post, I realize I’m still looking for the same thing I was last year. I’m looking to be more agile and to cope with change better—or maybe not even just cope, but embrace it.
Like, I don’t know—jumping on a new platform before it becomes oversaturated, not being afraid to try before I have something entirely figured out, moving faster, and making mistakes along the way. Not freaking out when my business seems in jeopardy. I’m a small business running mostly on ad revenue and clients referred from magic internet land—that will always be in jeopardy. Always. It’s kind of amazing I’ve done it this long. Take it or leave it, but stop freaking out, Kelli.
Also, when I remember how much making reels intimidated me, I want to kick myself in the face. It wasn’t that hard. Or when I remember posting on TikTok and getting a huge response, but then never doing it again, I want to kick myself in the face. I’m just so adverse to putting in the time to figure something out in case it's not worth it, to being a beginner, to facing failure, and on and on.
Over the holidays, I reached a mental limit (yes, also known as a breakdown) where, instead of tears, it was laughter and a "screw it" mentality—because there are just too many things to care about. And it’s taking a toll on my mental and physical health. I’ve basically been injured in one way or another since we moved to Texas in August, and I 100% think it’s my body trying to cope with mental stress. Moving away from family has obviously been stressful. There are good points, but it’s been a hard year.
And this next year is already full of challenges building for us, many of which I just can’t share here publicly on the internet (haha). Everything is okay, but it won't be without challenges.
I read the book Fail First, Fail Often, which has been insanely helpful. I highly recommend it—even as a parenting book. I’ve started telling my kids, “If you want to get good at something, you have to be really bad at it first, and you have to want to get good. Anyone who is good at something was once bad.” It also emphasizes how research will often sway you negatively, so each negative should be worth three positives.
I’m also re-reading the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. It’s a re-read and helpful, but not as good as the Fail book. However, his chapter and rant about how many things there are to care about really resonated with me.
And, you know, I’m reading lots of fantasy romance too (insert winky face).
So, what’s my word? What word resonates with the "screw it" philosophy? I honestly have no clue. So, ya know, taking suggestions from the peanut gallery and all my internet friends! What's your word?
- I do have some business goals—they’re very lofty. AKA very basic and not ambitious.
- Keep the blog alive: Dare I say even aim for a percentage or two of growth year over year? I’d be happy if it performed the same, but hitting that 3 million mark would be fun! In an uncertain world, I’d be thrilled just to stay afloat.
- 52 recipes updated and new: I’m already behind, but I still love cooking—especially trying new things!
- Try podcasting for at least 3 months: Focusing on cooking and functional nutrition, with a goal of 12 episodes.
- Consistency on social media channels I manage myself: Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
- Consistently add value for my email list!
- Try something new every week, or at least every month: Rumble? Reddit? What else is out there on the fringe? Ha ha.
Personal Goals:
- Gain muscle: Any amount will do—I just need more muscle. Ha ha. I’m not talking about fat loss; I’m talking about muscle gain.
- 2024: Flexibility
- 2023: Appreciate
- 2022: Growth
- 2021: Strength
- 2020: Relationships –> Yes, my first word of the year was relationships in 2020, the year of intense pandemic lockdowns.
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