Why I Stopped Macro Counting

I started my fitness journey about 2 years ago with BBG. I thought I had to follow the strict meal plan that came with BBG…it was 1,500 calories a day. By the end of every day I was STARVING. However, everyone else on Instagram raved about how great it was so I continued. I followed the BBG trend for a while but soon found myself following another; macro counting. I felt like everyone and their mom macro counted. The larger fitness accounts I followed all macro counted and they looked SO GOOD. I thought that in order for me to look like them I had to get in on this macro counting deal. I paid multiple different people to calculate my macros and hired different coaches to help me get started.

So here I am: I’ve got a coach, my food scale, my calculated macros…I was READY to look like these fitness stars.

Not quite.

Macro counting DID work for a while for me…but soon it became an obsession and a “blame game.” I was obsessed about fitting my macros in every day. Even if I didn’t want to eat 20 more grams of carbs I would force myself because I had to “hit my macros.” I stopped going out with friends and family to eat because it became too stressful to try and calculate macros. I also began to blame my macros for everything…for example if I wasn’t seeing the ab progress I wanted I automatically assumed it was because my macros weren’t calculated right. Or if one day I woke up super bloated I’d immediately blame it on the fact it was “high” carb day.

I never really stepped back and realized that these behaviors were not healthy.

I began abusing the “cheat meal.” I would use this as a free for all day to just binge. I would resort to my negative binging habits for the day and things just would go downhill. But I’d justify the binge with “tomorrow is leg day it’s all going to the booty.”

But it doesn’t all go to the booty…

I particularly blamed my macros for how I looked/felt when in reality it was because I myself wasn’t putting in the work. So, I started a “cut” to try and lose the “fat” I thought I had. The cut made me put on more weight because I completely slowed down my metabolism.

I soon found myself in a downward spiral with macro counting. I stopped going out to eat, I was obsessed with hitting my macros perfectly, I was abusing cheat meals, justifying binges with workouts, blaming macros on how I looked/how I felt, I thought I had to “shred” or go on a “cut” when I gained too much weight….

Macro counting became toxic for me and I knew I needed to stop.

I was not “using” the tool of macro counting for any of the right reasons. In fact, it was fueling my eating disorder.

But I had to stop before it landed me right back into restricting or binging every day.

I realized that my mental health was more important than my ab definition. I realized that I was never going to look like the fitness Instagram stars so what was the point of trying to copy them. I realized that macro counting wasn’t for me…and it may not be for you either. Don’t force yourself to do it unless it's for the RIGHT reasons.

It’s just not worth losing your mental health.

xoxo, Sarah