Hi there, welcome to The Fit Cookie! I’m Sarah, a food blogger of 12+ years and a food allergy mom. I share allergy friendly recipes, balanced living tips, and family travel.
Our mission
Our mission at The Fit Cookie is to help people with multiple food allergies enjoy food and cooking again, with some travel, wellness, and lifestyle content sprinkled in as well.
We hope to provide hope and encouragement for people dealing with multiple food allergies who might feel lost when it comes to cooking, especially if they are newly diagnosed and not sure if they’ll be able to bake again.
With our recipes, we aim to use simpler ingredients that don’t cost a ton of money or are hard to find. Living in Wyoming, we don’t have easy access to stores like Whole Foods or Sprouts (the closest Whole Foods is 4 hour’s drive), so we usually cook with ingredients we find at places like Walmart and online stores like Amazon, Vitacost, or Thrive Market.
How The Fit Cookie was created
The story of our website starts back in 2011 (and actually earlier) when we were struggling with multiple food allergies with our two children and myself, and trying to navigate our way around food and home cooking.
I really enjoyed baking, and when we discovered that my kids had multiple allergies to foods like peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, and dairy, and I had developed allergies to dairy, soy, eggs, etc. I struggled with finding ways to hold on to my love of baking and still make recipes that fit all our food allergies.
At the time, I tried to find recipes online and it was tough finding ones that worked for everyone so I often remade other people’s recipes and tried remaking some of our family recipes, like my grandma’s raisin griddle cookie recipe (also called Welsh cakes).
After a while, I decided to try my hand at starting my own website and posting recipes I had figured out how to make well or remade, and my dad helped me come up with the name The Fit Cookie to combine my love of cooking and fitness. I had done some writing at the time for a website for a little extra money, so I got familiar with WordPress. On October 30, 2011, I got my website up and running on the free WordPress platform and The Fit Cookie was officially born.
When we first started, I was also teaching group fitness classes (who remembers Zumba!) and getting my personal training certification, so I started a second blog called Fit Betty dedicated to health and fitness. I have no idea how or why I came up with that name, but it stuck 😂
Over time, I started focusing more on food and less on fitness and I merged my 2 websites to make things easier to run. I eventually stepped back from teaching fitness classes and training clients when I ended up having to get hip surgery, so after that, I started blogging full-time, but I have tried to maintain my fitness certifications so far because it’s hard to let those go and I have decided to keep the fitness content on my site up for now!
Fast forward to today, my website has evolved into a business that supports our family income, but it has not been anything close to an “overnight” success, especially since I’m a bit of an introvert and don’t like to show my face on camera that much. That makes social media interesting…
Despite the slow growth of our website and business, I love this work, tinkering in the kitchen and coming up with new recipes that taste amazing and fit many food allergies. As well as learning new photography, videography, writing, and editing skills. I plan on creating for years to come!
Blogging has changed a ton over the years, and our content has evolved a lot. I try to improve my older posts and recipes, without losing some of the history of our website, no matter how genuinely cringy those old photos are. It’s always nice to see how far we’ve come over the years looking at my old photos and posts!
About Sarah Parker
I was born in Montana and raised in Wyoming, where currently live with my husband and our 2 children. My husband is a police officer of 20 years, and our kids are getting older, with my daughter now in college and my son graduating high school in another year. Someone pray for me, this transition in life toward empty nesting is such a weird time as a parent!
I’m an introverted “xennial” trying to navigate the changing world of social media for my blog and business, which means I often don’t like to show my face on social (sorry!), but I still remember Instagram back when it started and it was fun. Please bring that back, Meta!
We love the outdoors exploring, hiking, paddleboarding, biking, etc. Landscape and nature photography is a hobby of mine as well, and we love to travel when we get the chance.
My food allergy journey started when I was a child, I started having problems with dairy so we cut out dairy gradually, but my sensitivity got worse as well so I eventually had to cut it out completely by my late teens. Over the years, I developed new allergies and intolerances (including eggs and soy), and one of my most recent (and most severe) is a pumpkin seed allergy that started in 2014 and resulted in hives that took weeks to completely resolve even after being on steroids for 18 days.
I can still eat pumpkin puree, just not the seeds. It’s such a weird and random allergy that developed after I started eating pumpkin seed protein powder almost daily.
In addition to multiple food allergies and intolerances, I have IBS and several other health issues, so my diet can be pretty limited, but I try to keep it varied.
It feels like we’re always in a state of adjusting our diet with our changing allergies, but the beauty of a journey is not just the destination, but the time spent along the way. I hope others can be encouraged by our experiences and find hope for challenging circumstances through The Fit Cookie.
About our recipes
The majority of the recipes on The Fit Cookie have been created and tested by me (Sarah) unless otherwise noted in the recipe card. We have a few guest posts or recipes created by others, and some that are re-makes of other bloggers’ recipes (especially early on), but most are created and tested by us.
You won’t find AI-generated recipes with sketchy results here!
We have some wonderful neighbors with food allergies who help us with taste testing as well, and we try to read and use reader feedback to constantly improve our recipes and cooking instructions. We are grateful for everyone who has helped us grow with honest and constructive feedback over the years!
Recipe testing with multiple food allergies is honestly a science experiment sometimes, which is probably one of the reasons I enjoy it so much (science was my favorite subject). But my goal is to provide amazing recipes that fit special diets that actually turn out well and have clear instructions. So constructive feedback is helpful for us!
While we label some of our recipes vegan, paleo, vegetarian, raw, etc., I do not adhere to these specific diets. I add these labels to my recipes for quick reference by those who are on special diets.
About our workouts
We don’t post a lot of workout content on our website anymore, but I have decided to keep most of our workouts on here in case people are interested in checking them out.
While I no longer teach group fitness or do personal training, I have maintained my certifications over the years. I am still currently an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach, and a Revo₂lution Running Certified coach.
I used to be a certified Zumba instructor (as well as Zumba Kids and Zumba Toning), a former PiYo certified instructor, and a former yoga instructor.
A lot of the workouts I have posted in the past are workouts I created for my classes or workouts I created for myself. Since I have physical limitations and injuries (FAI, hip surgery, knee surgery, etc.) and I used to train clients with multiple health limitations, I usually tried to include modifications to make workouts more accessible for different abilities.
If you have any questions or just want to chat, leave a comment or contact me!
Disclaimer: The information provided on TheFitCookie.com is designed for informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace medical advice or medical care. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems or illnesses without consulting your doctor. Always consult a physician with any questions or concerns you might have.
can the no bake df,gf, cheesecake be frozen?
Hi Jan, the no bake cheesecakes we have on the website don’t do very well when they’re frozen and thawed. When we’ve tried this we’ve noticed that the texture of the cheesecake changes and it’s not as smooth once it has been frozen then thawed.
I was reading all your soy free options. I have a 14 year old son who has EOE and we happened upon soy being a trigger. Numerous scopes and never clearing his GI Dr asked if I realized all the Gluten free foods I was supplementing had pea protein in them along with other legumes in certain items and that this all fell within the soy family. Do you having a soy allergy/intolerance struggle with other foods like this in the soy family? It really makes it a lot harder to find soy free options if you add pea protein and all other legumes to the list.
Hi Rachel! I personally do have problems with too much pea protein. I can have it in small amounts in things like the dairy free butters and similar items, but I definitely can’t have pea protein in larger amounts, like in plant protein snack bars or shakes. Interestingly, soy and peas are legumes like peanuts are, there can be some cross reactivity there as well. I can have peanuts fine, but my son has a peanut allergy. He tested positive for a soy allergy at one time, but he has never reacted to soy. However he has started to react to pea protein in large amounts. He’s fine with it in smaller amounts like I am (like in the butter), but I gave him a plant based protein shake a year or 2 ago and his mouth hurt when he started drinking it. So we avoid any larger amounts of pea protein with him. My daughter also has peanut allergies and she seems to be ok with the pea protein shakes, but I don’t buy them anymore.
I’d visit with your doctor some more and maybe visit with an allergy specialist who can help with the questions of cross reactivity. I think it’s different for everyone, we are able to have it in small amounts but not a lot. You might be able to do other kinds of protein like collagen powder, brown rice protein powder, or pumpkin seed protein depending on what your other allergies and personal health issues are. It’d might be helpful as well to see a nutritionist that specializes in food allergies as well!
You have greatly reduced my stress level! I’m on my last round of Christmas baking and this family has multiple allergies! Trying to find recipes and adapt them was not working well. So THANK-YOU. I’m looking forward to trying several of these recipes.
So glad to hear that Pat! I hope you love our recipes 🙂
How can I order your camping book? I don’t care for ebooks.
Hi Ida, at this time, I don’t have any actual books published. I just have a few ebooks right now. But I’ve been considering writing a cookbook in the next couple of years, so stay tuned!
Hi,
I can’t seem to find your email and have a quick question about your blog. Could you email me?
Mike
Hi Mike,
You can get more info about my blog through my “Work with Me” page or by sending an email to: fitbettyblog(at)gmail(dot)com
Hey Sarah, I was gonna say the devils thumb lol. The last time I was there I wss with you and your fsmily ehen grandma brought Lesli and I to visit. I love your website. I might try some suggestions 🙂
Haha, it has been a long time! Thanks for stopping by, Ashley 🙂 If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask
Devil’s Tower? My guess because I’m a rock climber as well and have been eyeing that spot 🙂 Your blog looks awesome, we have a lot of the same interests! I found it searching for people who are doing ZWOW workouts… I’m trying to see what kind of results real people (not Zuzana) are seeing after doing them for a while, haha.
Thanks Alyssa, I am so glad you stopped by! Yep, it’s Devil’s Tower. We live really close, so its on our to-do list : )
Hi Sarah!
Great blog!! I’ve just recently started blogging myself. Do you allow guest bloggers? Thanks!!
Hi Carolyn! Drop me a line at [email protected] and we can chat!