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Marlie Cohen has to pinch herself on a fairly regular basis these days.

After graduating college with a film degree her father helped her land a job at his real estate leasing company, but Cohen quickly learned it wasn't her cup of tea. She'd spend much of her time reading blog posts about health and fitness, but felt stuck in a sterile environment where she couldn't move around as often as she wanted.

"I would honestly daydream at my office of doing what I'm doing now, and it just felt so impossible," she says. "There were so many moments over the past couple of years that I've had to pinch myself, because it felt like it could never possibly happen."

Long before the term "influencer" entered the popular lexicon, Cohen started making healthy changes to her lifestyle, occasionally writing about her journey. "I would start these websites and blogs then delete them and not tell anyone about it, and this went on for a few years," she says.

Cohen says she felt like she was living a double life, working in an office tower by day and obsessing over health and fitness at night. In 2015 she started an Instagram account, @Kale_and_Krunches, along with a website that demonstrated how to maintain a healthy lifestyle in a corporate environment.

"I was micro blogging on Instagram, sharing things like 'I work in an office, I get my workout in at six a.m., I pack my lunch, here's how to meal prep,' and just started sharing tangible tips on how to be healthy and fit when you're at a desk all day," she says.

About a year after launching her healthy lifestyle brand Cohen sought to take things a step further. For nearly two years she spent her evenings and weekend pursuing spinning and personal training certification and attending an online nutrition school. At the same time she was also teaching early morning fitness classes, but still didn't consider health and nutrition a viable career option; at least not one that could match her corporate salary.

Then brands started reaching out, offering her big money to participate in influencer campaigns. "I thought the emails were spam," says Cohen. "Why would anyone want to work with me? I don't understand. I ignored them in the beginning."

After finally responding to an email from a sporting goods retailer (which Cohen believes only reached out because another influencer dropped out last minute) she realized that a comparable salary in health and fitness might be a viable option after all.

"They paid me a good amount of money just to show up to a store opening for an afternoon," she says. "That's when I was like, 'huh, this could actually be financially viable, and maybe I could leave my job if I put my full time energy into it.'"

Cohen gave herself exactly one year to get her ducks in a row, including finishing her certification, building her client roster, securing some teaching positions and building a plan to leave the corporate world once and for all. She also started saving money to cover her start-up costs while finding ways to reduce her spending.

"The best thing I did was prepare as much as I possibly could and pay for as many things as I could while I was still in my corporate job, making a stable income," she says.

"Instead of putting money aside to save for my business, I invested specifically in what I knew would be upfront costs. I built my website, completed my health and fitness certifications and purchased equipment while I still had a salary. I also started teaching before and after work to build a client base so that on day one of leaving my office job, I had a studio to teach at or client to train."

In reflection, the success of the company relied on her long hours and ability to balance priorities during that period of time. But it wasn't easy, and she couldn't always see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I was working at times when most of my friends in corporate roles didn't have to work, starting my day at 5am and finishing my day at 10pm," she recalls. "I was essentially working twenty four-seven."

Cohen says it was grueling, but the sacrifices paid off, and on January 1st she officially left her corporate job to pursue her healthy lifestyle brand full time.

Today, Cohen has over 40,000 followers on Instagram, and her YouTube videos have been viewed more than 100,000 times. Over the two years since quitting her focus has evolved from maintaining a healthy lifestyle in an office setting to the early days of entrepreneurship to getting in shape for her wedding. Now much of her content is focussed on parenting, alongside her new co-star and daughter Lily.

Though she still has to pinch herself each time she's offered an opportunity to work with a brand she loves or to speak at a high profile event, she doesn't consider those moments to be the most rewarding part of her job.

"The number one thing is when I get a daily message saying 'you made me want to workout today,' or 'you helped me get through the night when I couldn't sleep with my baby,'" she says. "If I ever feel like I just want to give up, I'll go into my direct messages and hear from someone who says I've made a difference in their lives. That's all the motivation I need."