Guest Series # 2 - The Calorie Games

I am super excited to bring to you all another guest to the Rawing Meg blog space, she goes by the name of Bee. I actually went to the same secondary school with this lovely lady, and have been closely following her own journey - both in person, and online, through her Insta page '@the_porridge_princess'. She has come so far, and is doing some amazing things, preaching an important message to her followers and her daily life. If you, too, have a story you want told - reach out! I would love to host you here on this channel. Thanks again Bee, and to you all; have a read below for Bee's story.

- Rawing Meg xx

“If I skip eating until dinner then I can have a full pizza because I have earned the calories.

Perfect this Moro bar is only 280 calories so I can have it instead of a meal.

If I burn 400 calories exercising then I can eat an extra 400 calories of whatever I want because it’s like those calories never existed…”

How many of the things above have you told yourself before?

If you were anything like the high school me, calorie counting was an everyday part of life. Gone were the days of carefree childhood eating when the number of carbohydrates failed to matter. Every calorie mattered because you were just a food calculator - calories in calories out - regardless of what the food was made up of. How could eating a 540 calorie big Mac be any different to eating a 540 calorie big bowl of beans, rice and veggies?

To me, calories are now irrelevant. I got a PM the other day asking how many calories my porridge bowls were. Uh, drum roll please... the answer is irrelevant!

After obsessively calculating every calorie I ate, I could look at a food and know its caloric break down. In fact if I wanted to I could still calculate my daily intake from foods because I looked at them so often that I learnt the numbers off by heart. I would skip lunch, or have a rice cracker, if I knew I was going to have a big dinner; and made sure I burned off enough calories to justify eating.

This calorie mindset is one that many a person has battled. At the start of my health and fitness journey, my life revolved around calories. I would under eat and over exercise because I thought that being in a constant state of calorie deficit was the only way to be #fitspo. I didn’t see the distinction between whole food calories and junk food calories. It was not until I wrapped my head around the fact that it isn’t simply the calorie count that matters that my healthy eating passion arose, followed by the creation of my Instagram account.

I never got to the stage where I was classified as having an eating disorder, I was just too underweight to be healthy and obsessed with the number continuously decreasing. My hair started falling out, I had to nap every afternoon just to get through the day and I was constantly bloated no matter what I ate. Despite looking skinny I definitely wasn't healthy. This was not helped by my increasingly worse cystic acne. My mindset was if I was going to continue having my cystic acne then the least I could do to be liked was to be skinny.

I loved being told how skinny I was looking because that must mean I was doing something right. Being told this just meant that I was closer towards my goal of looking like the "perfect female body".

Looking back now, I want to shake my insecure self and say healthy living does not need to miserable!

You can exercise and refuel your body with nourishing whole foods regardless of the exact calories. You do not need to burn off absurd amounts of calories and under eat to reach your goals. In fact, I eat around two times the amount of calories I was eating and I haven't gained weight. If anything I am fitter looking than I was beforehand.

Take a scroll through Instagram and there it is. The promotion of diet culture, the applauding of being so small that your waist becomes disproportionate to your body. Is that what we want future generations of young girls to see? Do we want to spread the message that your worth is based on your appearance and that being skinny is the only way you can truly be happy? Unfollow those Instagram accounts that make you believe this and follow those that promote body positivity and eating to fuel your body.

If you take anything from this I hope you realise that calories do not define you, YOU define you. If you eat 2000+ calories a day of healthy food, that will do your body a hell of a lot more than treating it like garbage and not caring for it the way it needs and deserves.

It is quality over quantity and the first step towards taking control of your own eating mindset. So, delete your calorie counting apps and take back your lifestyle (not diet) into your own hands.