Maya Leinenbach

Maya Leinenbach (born 2004) is a German social media personality, businesswoman and cookbook author. Originally from Saarwellingen, Saarland, Leinenbach became vegan in January 2019 and began posting vegan recipes on her Instagram account, "FitGreenMind", that same month. Despite being German, Leinenbach primarily speaks English in her videos in order to communicate with more people internationally. In 2020, her account gained more popularity when she began using Instagram reels, and one of her first reels went viral. In 2021, she published her first cookbook, with a second one being released in 2025. After graduating from high school in 2023, she moved to Stuttgart to focus on her career full-time, and co-founded the limited company "FitGreenMind".

Early and personal life

Maya Leinenbach was born in 2004 in Saarwellingen, Saarland. She launched her Instagram account, Fitgreenmind, in January 2019 when she was 14-years-old. By October 2020, she felt frustrated as she was not making progress despite working a lot to improve her videos, but this changed when she began posting reels instead, shortly after Instagram introduced them. She initially did not speak or show herself in her videos, but began doing so when she switched to reels. Regarding her work routine, she explained in a 2022 interview that she filmed her videos on Saturdays, edited them on Sundays for four or five hours and wrote the captions and recipes after school on weekdays, in addition to answering messages during breaks. Early on in her career, she sold two ebooks of recipes on Elopage. She did not release it on Amazon as she believed that the company was not very sustainable, which was important to her. In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Leinenbach posted a reel of her cooking pierogi, saying that she chose them as they "exist actually in every culture with small variations". That same year, she reached 2 million followers on Instagram. She explained that when she was in high school, she did not consider going to university as she knew that she could pursue her food blog full-time when she graduated, although she noted in a 2024 interview that she would consider studying a degree related to the human body. That same year, she moved to Stuttgart and focused full-time on her social media channels, working with her manager and her marketing consultant, who she has worked with since 2020. That same year, she visited London and reviewed her favourite restaurants to eat as a vegan.