Adina Akhmetova is a vegan babe from the UK and currently following her travel dreams in Bali. She has the most beautiful instagram feed, TheVeganGirlBoss. Adina's colorful and aesthetically pleasing feed caught my eye and I instantly pressed the follow button. So naturally, I asked her to be a guest on "What I Eat" and was so excited when she agreed! I hope you enjoy her post as much as I did!

My name is Adina. I'm a vegan blogger based in Birmingham, the UK, currently staying in Bali, Indonesia, as a part of my Southeast Asia adventure. I motivate people to create their dream lives and be brave enough to quit jobs they don't like – which I did myself in December last year, and never looked back. I do what I love – share my vegan lifestyle and inspire people for positive change.




I started my blog on Instagram not long ago for the sole purpose of showing how easy it is to be vegan, and now I can proudly say that I've created an amazing community of like-minded people that strive for making this World 100% cruelty-free.

My story of becoming vegan is more of a hectic one. I used to be one of those people who starved all day for the sake of some popular diet movement – always unhappy with my body image, lethargic, unmotivated. One day (about 6 years ago) my mom found a book about green smoothies, after reading it in half a day, she wouldn’t stop talking about it. Her excitement got me all interested too. So I read it, and had the same reaction, after which we both spontaneously went raw vegan for almost 2 years. That book was mostly about health benefits of raw vegan / fruitarian lifestyle and the downsides of eating highly-processed, cooked foods.

During that time, we opened our own raw vegan fitness cafe (first in Kazakhstan), which is now managed by my mom, as I decided to live in the UK. Being raw vegan for 2 years taught me a lot, I learned that we don't need meat, dairy, or any other animal products (as well as cooked foods) to have good health and athletic body. But my story didn’t end there. I went to travel the US at that time, where I started eating animal products again. Just like that, after being raw vegan for 2 years, eating epic portions of fresh fruit and vegetables (when you're raw vegan, you gotta eat a lot of food to maintain proper calorie intake), enjoying all the health benefits, I switched back to animal products. I had no idea about animal cruelty, or environmental impact of animal agriculture back then, the only thing I cared about was my image in the eyes of others, the way I looked, the way my body looked – in other words, coming from the history of eating disorder, raw vegan lifestyle was another type of diet for me. And as any diet usually does, it had awful consequences for my health. I went from athletic raw vegan to a very unhealthy, overweight meat-eater in less than half a year. I was bingeing on everything I was restricting myself to. I was at my heaviest weight at that point, and after trying to be positive about it, I simply blamed it all on everything else but my food choices, and decided to move somewhere else. That's when I met my hubby Razvan and we moved to England together. Vegan movement in England is one of the biggest in the world, so on one rainy evening we watched a famous vegan documentary Cowspiracy, which changed us forever. We literally went vegan overnight, and since then we haven't consumed any animal products. It was 3 years ago.

Now I am happier than ever reaping all the benefits of vegan lifestyle, I learned to be more conscious about everything I do in life: from eating mindfully to wearing sustainable, vegan clothes. I am manifesting my own reality, while enjoying every second of cruelty-free living. Now let's get to my usual eating day here in vegans' paradise – Bali!

Many hotels / villas here in Bali provide vegan breakfast, which includes seasonal fruit plate, and some coffee/tea/fruit juice to go with it. I usually have all the fruit I can in the morning, as I need something light and full of carbs before heading to the gym for my 30-minute crossfit workout. I get exactly that from the guys owning the villa I'm currently staying at. Also, I never forget to drink 1L of water first thing in the morning.




After the workout I normally spend some time in the swimming pool to cool off, read, do some content creating, and then head straight to one of many vegan places in Ubud. Today I visited Earth Cafe & Market - 100% vegan restaurant, and their food just blew my mind! I've ordered Earth Salad (as I've been craving greens like crazy lately), and the portion was just epic!




After a healthy lunch I almost always head to the beach, which takes approximately 1.5h by bus / scooter / taxi, I'm using this time on the road wisely by listening to helpful podcasts. My favorites at the moment are "Kalyn's Coffee Talk" by Kalyn Nicholson and "Achieve your goals" by Hal Elrod. By the time I get to the beach I usually get quite hungry, so I have a snack. Baked corn with some salt. They sell it everywhere in the beach area.




After I enjoyed sunset on the beach, I normally head back to Ubud, where I treat myself with something heavier than just salad – pizza, pasta, burger or stir-fry! Here’s an amazing vegan pizza at Atman Kafé in Ubud, which is super-affordable and so yummy!




Besides all that I drink approx. 3-3.5L of water daily, because staying hydrated is the secret to always having good mood and tons of energy!

That’s pretty much it for today. Life is good, especially if you’re living abundant vegan lifestyle! I hope you enjoyed my food adventures in Bali!