Today we’d like to introduce you to Ella Magers.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ella. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I was seven years old. I got in the car after school. My mom had picked me up to take me to gymnastics practice and asked how my day was. I told her we had learned about Daniel Boone (for those of you who don’t know, Daniel Boone was one of our first American folk heroes who carried around a shotgun and wore a raccoon hat). I was confused. “Daniel Boone was supposed to be a hero, but he was not, mom,” I said. “He was a mean man. He killed and ate animals.”
My mom was honest with me. She said, “Well Ella, we are just fortunate nowadays. We get to go to the grocery store to buy our meat.” And it was at that moment that I connected the food on my plate with the animal that it was.” I was horrified! I told my mom, “I’m not going to do that anymore.” And I never ate meat again. I was extremely fortunate to have the loving parents I did… They let me be me and gave me a lot of autonomy to explore my place in the world.
Not only did I stop eating meat, it was like I knew my purpose in life. I look back at the writing I did in school, and every chance I got I was writing about how it made no sense for us to eat animals. Why would we kill another living being when we can easily live without causing that suffering? I simply couldn’t understand how anyone could love their dog and then turn around and eat a pig. I saw all creatures on this earth as equal in their right to live. And I saw us, as humans, the only animals who have the ability to consciously choose whether or not we eat other animals.
Now, these strong beliefs came with a lot of weight, especially as I started getting older and started researching the truth about animal agriculture. PETA was already a strong force at that time, and I sought out information. What I discovered was so much worse than the image of Daniel Boone shooting Bambi. The undercover photos and videos of animals in factory farms felt like a knife in my gut. It was like I could feel the suffering of the animals and it tore me apart.
When I understood the cruelty in the dairy and egg industries, I immediately went vegan. I was fifteen. In my young mind, knowing it was my mission to save animals, I thought that if only people knew what was going on behind the closed doors of factory farms then surely they would go vegan like me. I didn’t see myself as different. I just thought I had discovered something other people were unaware of since the information back then was not readily available. So I set out to let people know the truth.
I was a leader in a local animal rights group, organizing protests before I could drive. I would leaflet every chance I got. I sat in cages on the sidewalk demonstrating the cramped conditions of chickens. I wore buttons on my shirt at school, asking people to boycott companies that tested on animals. I remember going to protest an annual pigeon shoot. My animal rights group and I drove over 8 hours to get to this event. We had tents set up outside the shoot to give care to wounded pigeons.
After a while, I came to understand that many people simply did not WANT to know. So yes, I was right that many people were unaware of the extent of the cruelty. But I was incorrect in thinking that all it would take was for me to show them. This was a tough realization. It was bigger than just understanding that most people were not open to going vegan. It was the understanding that I was in a small minority of people who saw things as clearly as I did, but that certainly didn’t stop me.
I knew I would be fighting for animals until the day I died. It was just a matter of HOW I was going to go about fighting. Don’t get me wrong… I believe we absolutely need those on the front line of this bloody battle. People to risk their freedom and even their lives to go undercover to expose what goes on behind the closed doors of factory farms.
One of the obstacles I found, was that that people ten not to want to let go of their defenses. It would make them wrong. It would mean experiencing negative emotion, including guilt if they chose not to change their ways. Change is uncomfortable! Discomfort, however, is an investment in personal growth. Discomfort is the price of achieving not only a happy life but also a meaningful life. It’s about wanting to make conscious choices. It’s about wanting to align your actions with what you truly value in life. It’s about not allowing yourself to say, “I love animals” and then turn around and eat their dead bodies.
What I learned, was that someone has to be ready and willing to open their minds and hearts. Someone has to choose to care about the impact their choices make on other living beings and on the world, and be ready and willing to make a change. Believing that your voice matters certainly helps. Over 20 years after I led my first circus protest, in 2017, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus has taken animals out of their acts. That’s a huge deal, and it happened in my lifetime!
I would call the vast majority of my adult life, up until just a year ago, a period of life-experimentation and self-exploration. I experienced a lot of joy and excitement but also dealt with a lot of shame and frustration. I did some crazy things and was involved with some crazy people. I feel like I’ve really lived and had experiences that, although I would never wish them on anyone else, I don’t regret. Every experience provided me with an opportunity to learn and grow, and I can look back and see just how resilient of a human being I am.
It took years to figure out, but I finally learned how to unlock the power we all have within us to write empowering stories for our lives. Let me explain. It started with my first serious boyfriend in my teenage years. He was an alcoholic and drug addict. I was 18 and just started college. One of the most memorable nights of my life was, unfortunately, a night of horror when he went on a drunken rampage. I think it was on that night that I wrote my story about being “unworthy” and “not good enough.” From there my self-image went downhill.
It was like I felt that, beyond my mission of fighting for animal rights, I really didn’t matter. For the next 15 years, I worked in the fitness industry and struggled behind closed doors with a distorted body image, disordered eating, depression, anxiety, and severe insomnia. Women were amazed by my strong, lean body and I was a walking billboard for the anti-stereotypes of what a vegan looked like. I inspired more people to start the transition to plant-based just by keeping myself in tip-top shape, than anything else I could say or do.
I therefore put a ton of pressure on myself to be the shining example of a healthy, fit, vegan. This meant I couldn’t share any of my struggles. People looked for reasons to challenge the vegan lifestyle, and I thought if I showed weakness, I would be giving those people ammunition. This contributed to the development of disordered eating patterns. I would restrict my food intake, count calories, track macros, and walk around hungry 95% of the time — the other 5% I was binging, alone. I remember eating an entire jar of peanut butter on multiple occasions.
The pressure I put on myself also led to body dysmorphia. I saw and felt fat that wasn’t there. After a devastating break-up from my fiance, I remember challenging myself to see if I could get below 100 pounds. I’m not one to lose a challenge, and I managed it. I’m 5’7”. My own food intake and weight were something I had control over. And with so much else out of my control, I think that gave me comfort. It wasn’t until 2016, many years after I had built a name for myself with my brand, Sexy Fit Vegan©, that I made it my mission to change my story of being unworthy and not good enough. I was ready to heal myself, and I self-coached my way to self-love.
As Brene Brown says, the antidote to shame is vulnerability, so I pushed past my fears and got vulnerable. I decided I wanted to be rid of shame so badly, that I would not just share my struggles with close friends and family. I went all out and shared my story with the world in 2017, starting with a series of blog posts, “My Journey from Disordered Eating to Plant-Empowered Living.”
From sharing came a sense of empowerment like I’d never experienced before. I finally felt free and embodied authenticity. Don’t get me wrong, the negative self-talk doesn’t just disappear all of a sudden. It’s a process. It’s a part of my journey that will take years and years to master, if ever.
I still observe the self-destructive thoughts creeping in about my body and myself. I still get the urge to isolate myself and binge on vegan junk food at times when I feel down. The difference is that I no longer let my feelings take my power away. I am no longer a victim or my own worst enemy. I started approaching myself with curiosity and compassion. I became confident in observing the defeating thoughts when they came up while introducing thoughts that align with my new story of worthiness and self-love and acting on THOSE healthy thoughts instead.
From there, I developed the Plant-Empowered Coaching Program to serve people who not only have the desire to transition to a healthy vegan lifestyle, but were also struggling with shame, an unhealthy relationship with food and their bodies, and are engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors. The new program is based on true transformation through empowerment and self-love. It’s built on the basis of aligning your actions with your values.
The Plant-Empowered Coaching Program teaches people to approach themselves with curiosity and compassion, and to accept and respect themselves and their bodies. The program coaches people down the path toward not only a healthy and happy life, but also a free and meaningful life. The program leads people to a place where they become the inspiration for others and make a positive impact in the world.
For the people we work with, feeling powerless over food is just a symptom. The countless diet plans and training programs they’d been beating themselves up over, were attempts at putting Band-aids on wounds that needed major surgery. This leads me to where I am today! Continuing to spread my message of veganism through empowerment, through aligning your actions with your values, and by rewriting your story with self-love as the foundation.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Although I started out my business focused on helping people become educated about the benefits of adopting a healthy vegan lifestyle, I now focus on helping people who are either vegan already, or who know they want to make the transition.
My niche got more specific in 2017 when I started focusing on the empowerment angle for helping people start to make conscious, mindful, and intuitive choices about food and fitness… Choices that are aligned with their values and based in self-love. The 6-Month Plant-Empowered Coaching Program is currently my main focus.
My team and I empower women who struggle with a poor body image, are consumed with thoughts about diet and weight loss and want to transition to a fit, vegan lifestyle. We help our clients work through shame in order to step into their power and end the self-sabotaging cycle keeping them stuck. We coach people to a place where they make healthy and sustainable lifestyle choices based on love instead of hate for their bodies and themselves.
I love seeing people unlock the power they already have within them throughout the course of this intense and effective program that provides all the training, coaching, and support they need to achieve a true mind-body transformation. Our clients not only become strong and confident for themselves but also become an inspiration to everyone around them, thereby spreading love and compassion to the world.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I’ve lived in Miami for 16 years, and in recent years the city has started to become more and more vegan-friendly. It was slow to come compared to many other major cities like New York and L.A., but I really enjoy being a pioneer in the vegan movement. The market is not yet saturated, so I think Miami is a great place for vegan entrepreneurs to run their businesses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sexyfitvegan.com
- Phone: 305.791.1052
- Email: ella@sexyfitvegan.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SEXYFITVEGAN/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sexyfitvegan
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sexyfitvegan
- Other: https://sexyfitvegan.com/plant-empowered-coaching-program
Image Credit:
Anthony Golston, Michael Reh
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