PatchCast: Sugar Addicts Crave Lansdale Blogger's Healthy Sweets

Patch launched a regular audio feature called PatchCast in which social media influencers chat about what they do, how they do it and more. Joining us this week is Erin Morrissey, the influencer behind Erin Lives Whole. If you're interested in appearing on the PatchCast, email dan.hampton@patch.com and tell us what makes you an influencer.

LANSDALE, PA — The first thing you'll notice about Erin Morrissey's Instagram feed is she has a sweet tooth. Most of all, she likes chocolate. A lot. Fudgy brownies. Gooey blondies. Squishy cake batter balls. At first glance, her feed might look more like sugar heaven than a carb-counter's paradise.

But the Lansdale food blogger is a health nut with a passion for paleo, a diet based on foods similar to what cavemen might've eaten during the Paleolithic era. This means her decadent desserts aren't only tasty, they're a lot healthier for you than the sugar-laden cakes you'd normally find in the bakery.

Many of Morrissey's recipes are, by nature, dairy- and gluten-free. She deploys alternative flours and dairy substitutes. Almond flour, coconut flour and cassava flour are mixed with almond milk (instead of regular milk) and coconut oil (instead of butter). And just as important, there's no refined sugar in her treats. If they need sweetened, she often turns to coconut sugar or maple syrup.

Her love of baking started when she was 6 years old. Morrissey helped her mom in the kitchen and quickly became her cooking protege. About four years later, what had started as a hobby developed into a passion.

"I always wanted an excuse to make a cake for someone. Or I always wanted to make cookies for someone," said Morrissey. "I just loved being in the kitchen. I still feel that same way."

As she got older, her interest in health and exercise made her reconsider how she was cooking — why not combine the two?

Like a scientist in a laboratory, she experimented.

"I basically just took that love of baking and started like making recipes with like less sugar or replacing honey instead of the white sugar. Using almond flour instead of the regular white flour. And it just grew into this thing," said Morrissey.

In April 2017, she got the idea to share her successes with others. She set up an Instagram account and began posting photos. Over the next 24 months, her following skyrocketed. Some weeks she gained 1,600 followers.

"I had no idea where they came from," Morrissey said with a laugh. "I wasn’t tagged in a post or anything."

She reached the 10,000-follower mark — the point where brands started reaching out to her for sponsored posts — about eight months in. At first, she wasn't charging much at all.

"I remember being like, ‘Oh my gosh! I just made 50 bucks,'" she said. "This was something that was my passion, now I’m making money off of it!"

Early on, she also posted in exchange for free stuff. Mostly food. (And sometimes way too much food, as she notes in the PatchCast.) But then, as she tells it, something "clicked." If she could keep growing her account, she could charge even more. Maybe even make a full-fledged business out of it.

"It was kind of like a spark to me, like ‘Wow, you can turn this into a reality,’" said Morrissey.

So she did.

In May 2018, she decided to chase the dream. She left her job as a marketing communication specialist for a software company in Newtown Square to pursue a full-time influencing career.

So far, it's working. Her Instagram posts typically notch about 4,000 likes per photo. Between her sponsored posts, blog and website advertisements, she earns enough each month to pay the bills — at least enough that Morrissey feels comfortable moving into an apartment with her boyfriend in Philadelphia's Graduate Hospital neighborhood.

Sure, being a full-time influencer means the hours are long (often 60-70 hours a week) and often requires working weekends. But Morrissey loves it. More than anything, she loves interacting with her followers, exchanging recipes and ideas. They help each other.

Morrissey left corporate America to do her own thing. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

"I'm paving my own path,"she said.