I tried to be the perfect wellness influencer — and it almost killed me

New York Post

4 days ago

Being a wellness influencer nearly killed Lee Tilghman.
From 2014 to 2019, she shared her rainbow-hued smoothie bowls, eight-step skincare routine, #selfcare rituals and thirst-trappy fit pics on her Instagram, @LeeFromAmerica, which had more than 400,000 followers — a significant number for the time. At her height she made $300,000 a year via sponsored posts, and nearly every item in her light-filled Los Angeles apartment was gifted from a brand.
Yet, behind the scenes Tilghman was not well at all.
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8 In her new memoir, Lee Tilghman opens up about the toll being a wellness influencer took on her health.
Olga Ginzburg for N.Y. Post
She suffered from disordered eating. She was anxious. She was lonely. A critical comment on a post could send her into a spiral of depression and paranoia. She spent 10 hours a day tethered to her iPhone
'It was soul-killing,' Tilghman, 35, told The Post, taking in the New York City skyline from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
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She chronicles it all in her wild, self-aware, new memoir, 'If You Don't Like This Post, I Will Die' (Simon & Schuster, out now).
Tilghman recalls growing up in suburban Connecticut, getting her first AOL username at 12 years old and downloading Instagram the summer before last year of college, in 2011.
Her first photo — of herself at a flea market in London during study abroad — got zero likes.
After college, she moved to Manhattan and became a 20-something party girl, documenting her exploits on Instagram. She worked as a waitress at the trendy Chalk Point Kitchen, but, for the most part, she opted for drugs over food.
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Then, one morning, after waking up from a cocaine bender, she opened Instagram and came across an account from an Australian named Loni Jane. This gorgeous, fit specimen had 'ombre-blonde hair,' a 'year-round tan' and a vegan, raw diet. 'I wanted that life,' Tilghman recalls in the book.
8 Tilghman was initially a party girl, posting sexy snaps of nights out to Instagram.
Lee Tilghman/ Instagram
She stopped drinking and began exercising. One morning, after a run, she made a smoothie with avocado, banana, coconut and kale that was so thick, she couldn't drink it from a glass.
She poured it into a bowl, sprinkled some seeds on top, and posted it on the 'gram.
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The likes rolled in. She began posting these 'smoothie bowls' nearly every day, in every color of the rainbow, with a bounty of toppings arranged like works of art. The clothing brand Free People interviewed her about her culinary creations for its blog.
'I was like, 'Okay, this thing is popping off.'' Tilghman recalled. 'Every time I posted a smoothie bowl, my following would grow. The comments would be crazy. People had never seen them before.'
She left NYC for LA, to chase Instagram stardom. The term 'influencer' had just begun bubbling, and savvy millennial brands had just started seeing pretty young women as inexpensive ambassadors for their products.
8 Then, after a cocaine bender, she changed her ways and focused on healthy content. She started posting images of colorful smoothie bowls that quickly took off.
Lee Tilghman/ Instagram
Tilghman went all-in. When a follower DMed her and told her that fluoride caused 'brain damage,' she stopped using toothpaste with it — and promptly developed six cavities. When her roommate told her that bananas had a ton of sugar, Tilghman cut them from her diet. (She still made her smoothie bowls with them, since the bananas helped make the liquid thick enough to hold all the toppings; she just threw it out after snapping a picture.)
Tongue-scraping, dry-brushing, double-filtered charcoal water, body oiling, fasting: Tilghman tried it all.
'I did two twenty-one-day cleanses back-to-back,' she writes in her book. 'I got rid of gluten, dairy, soy, peanuts, and sugar. I paid [a Reiki-certified healer] the first half of an $8,000 coaching package, which included breathwork, moon circles, and unlimited text support.'
The more she tried — and the realer she got, posting about her struggles with PCOS (a hormonal condition that can cause bloating and irregular periods) or her past struggled with anorexia — the more followers, and brand sponsorships, she got. And the more brand sponsorships she got, the more time she had to spend posting. And the more time she spent posting, the more time she spent on the app, and the more she hated herself.
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8 Soon, she was getting attention from brands and posting smoothie bowls daily.
Lee Tilghman/ Instagram
She would often take 200 photos before finding one where she looked thin enough to post on the grid — often with some caption about self-acceptance and self-love.
Her self-absorption and food phobias eventually alienated her from the rest of the world. She was so terrified of gluten, of soy, of sugar that she couldn't go out to eat.
She once dragged her mom all over Tokyo — during a sponsored trip — in search of a green apple, because the red ones in her hotel had too much sugar. She was so obsessed with getting the perfect Instagram photo that she couldn't have a conversation.
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'I put my health [and Instagram] above everything, including family and relationships,' she said. 'If your body is a temple and you treat it super well and you eat all the right foods and do all the things, but you don't have anyone close to you because you're trying to control your life so much, it's a dark place.'
8 She left NYC for LA to pursue wellness influencing.
Lee Tilghman/ Instagram
It all came crashing in 2018, after she announced she was hosting a wellness workshop — and charging $350 for the cheapest tickets.She was accused of white privilege, and her apology post only elicited more scorn. Some sponsors pulled out.
Shortly after, her apartment flooded. She looked around and noticed that with the exception of her dog, Samson, every single thing in her place — including her toothbrush — had been gifted by brands looking for promotion.
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'I was a prop too—a disposable, soulless, increasingly emaciated mannequin used by companies to sell more stuff,' she writes. 'We all were—all the billions of us who thought we were using Instagram when really it was the other way around.'
8 Followers loved her fitness content, but behind the scenes, Tilghman was struggling.
Lee Tilghman/ Instagram
8 One day, she realized that every item in her apartment, save for her dog, had been gifted by a brand.
Lee Tilghman/ Instagram
In 2019, she got rid of it all, deleted Instagram and went to a six-week intensive treatment center for her disordered eating. There, she had to throw out all her adaptogens and supplemental powders.
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'I felt like an addict when they're so done with their drug of choice that they can't wait to throw it away,' she recalled of her first day without the app. 'It was amazing.' Though she did admit that she couldn't stop taking selfies. 'I would be at a red light and just take 15 selfies — it was weird!'
During the pandemic, she moved back to New York and did social media for a couple companies, including a tech and a perfume brand. She sporadically updated her Instagram in 2021, but really came back in earnest this past year, to do promotion for her memoir.
'I've been gone for so long that I have this newfound creativity and appreciation for it,' she said of her new, goofy online persona. 'The whimsy is back.' She also has a Substack, Offline Time, and has just moved to Brooklyn Heights with Samson and her fiance, Jack, who works in finance.
8 Tilghman is no longer an influencer, though she has used Instagram to promote her new book. And, she says, she would consider doing sponsored posts in the future.
Olga Ginzburg for N.Y. Post
She says that her book feels even more timely now than when she started working on it four years ago. Despite all she's been through, she doesn't rule out influencing completely.
'I mean, listen, living is expensive,' she said. 'I'm not opposed doing a sponsored post in the future. I actually said that to my audience, a couple months ago. I was like, 'Guys, I know I just wrote a book about not influencing anymore. But, rent be renting.''