My name is Mellissa Sevigny, and I use my culinary powers for good here at I Breathe I’m Hungry by creating delicious and satisfying low carb & keto recipes and free keto meal plans. If you’re looking to lose weight, feel amazing, AND eat some of the best food you’ve ever tasted – you’ve come to the right place. I’m glad you’re here!
Curious about me and how I Breathe I’m Hungry got started? Read on!
A native of Connecticut, I lived in Belize for almost 2 years, and on the island of Roatan in Honduras for over three years with my amazing husband (aka Mr. Hungry) and our now 16 year old son (aka. Hungry Jr.)
We lived in Central America for a little over 5 years, and while it was sometimes frustrating and isolating to live on an island in a third world country, it was an amazing experience for our family, and we have made life-long friends as a result. Living in Central America also expanded my culinary horizons, and I was able to taste and experiment with new recipes (like this Belizean Stewed Chicken) using that knowledge – which I love sharing with you here on the website.
We moved back to New York in 2021 and are currently living in the Hudson Valley about an hour north of Manhattan. We purchased an old (c. 1870) colonial and have been renovating the main house, carriage house, and estate grounds for the last 2 years.
It’s a long process and an emotional rollercoaster, but we are enjoying it for the most part.
To see more photos of our home, garden, spoiled cats, travels, and of course, lots of Keto recipes, you can follow me on Instagram @ibreatheimhungry.
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
Food and cooking has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. My grandmother gave me my first cookbook when I was just 4 years old (I still have it) and it was around that time that my mother started letting me help in the kitchen, teaching me how to make pancakes and spaghetti sauce from scratch.
When I learned to read, I read cookbooks for fun and started experimenting in the kitchen on my own from the time I was around 10 years old. My very first job at 16 was as dishwasher in a local restaurant where I worked my way up to prep cook within a year. I learned so much there about food and cooking, but also that the chef life in a fine-dining restaurant wasn’t for me. While I loved the rush I got from the fast paced dinner services, and knowing we were putting out good food, I saw the havoc the stress and long hours wreaked on the personal lives of those I worked with and didn’t want that for myself.
Since then I’ve worked jobs in the corporate world, and as an occasional personal chef and caterer, as well as cooked for hundreds of people at a time on volunteer construction projects, but my favorite way to feed people is by sharing my recipes here on I Breathe I’m Hungry. Then they can be made over and over, and shared with your loved ones too.
I started I Breathe I’m Hungry on a whim during the summer of 2011 – mostly as a way to stay in touch with friends and family back in Connecticut after we moved to South Carolina. I’ve always loved entertaining, but when people would ask for the recipes I’d just shrug, because it was usually a little of this and a little of that. I thought a blog would be a good way to catalog my recipes, and would force me to record the ingredients while I was cooking. It was also a new place to focus my photography efforts, which until then had been primarily flowers and macros.
In January of 2012, I planned to post a week of low carb recipes, mostly to appeal to the New Year’s resolution dieters. I decided to start eating low carb again myself a few days into it, since I was already developing recipes for the website. I’d done low carb with good results a few times in the past, but inevitably I’d quit after a few weeks because the food was boring, or it was too hard to eat differently from everyone else all the time. Being surrounded by pizza, pasta, bread, etc. was just too difficult for me after awhile, and I would be so sick of steak and bacon and eggs that I would eventually cave in, and that would be the end of it.
When I started really applying myself to creating interesting and delicious low carb and keto recipes on I Breathe I’m Hungry, the response was amazing. I found out quickly that you guys had the same problem I did! So many of you had been having trouble sticking with a low carb plan, even though it was working, because you were bored with the food. That motivated me to keep experimenting, and here I am 11 years (and millions of page views) later!
Early on I published The Gluten Free Low Carber (an Amazon Kindle best seller) as well as several seasonal e-zines, and my work has been featured multiple times in Shape, Women’s Health, Reader’s Digest, Woman’s World, Low Sugar Living, Go Gluten Free (I’m also on their Advisory Board), as well as several other printed and multiple online magazines. (You can view a full list of publications and features on our Press page.)
My first “real” book Keto for Life (Victory Belt Publishing) was published on May 29th, 2018 and hit the best seller list on Amazon the very next day. You can all the details here about what to expect inside Keto for Life, as well as order on Amazon and other online outlets. Keto for Life is still available at all major book retailers.
My latest book, Squeaky Clean Keto, is available online from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indie Bound, and is also sold at other major book retailers.
Knowing that my recipes on I Breathe I’m Hungry are helping so many of you reach your goals through low carb eating, really makes me happy. So many of you have had amazing success following my free Keto Weekly Menu Plans – I love reading your comments and emails, and I have so much fun creating new recipes and meal plans with you all in mind. It’s almost like having you all over for dinner at my house – but wow, that would get expensive! 😂
I try to reply to all comments on I Breathe I’m Hungry (though I’m not always successful,) so please don’t take it personally if I miss yours when things get a little hectic. You can find me over on the IBIH Facebook page, and you can also hang out with me over on Pinterest and Instagram, and if you want to get behind the scenes insight on IBIH and what we’re up to! I look forward to seeing you over there!
If you are looking for support from like minded keto peeps, you can find them over on our closed IBIH Facebook Community.
Oh and don’t forget to sign up for email updates from I Breathe I’m Hungry so you’ll never miss a new recipe or post!
Welcome to IBIH!
Feel free to contact me by email at sevigm@yahoo.com about working together, and/or to get a copy of my media kit. I will do my best to get back to you right away, but my inbox can get a little crowded and the internet is often unreliable, so if you don’t hear from me feel free to remind me in case your email gets lost in the shuffle!