The entire lead-up to this Easter, I saw countless posts about working off the weekend’s chocolate. You know the type – telling me how calorific Easter eggs are, or how many miles I’d have to run just to counteract a Malteser bunny. That’s what you get for following fitness bloggers and Instagram models, I guess.
I have a big issue with this. I’m not really religious so I’ll be completely honest, I celebrate Easter mostly for the food – tonnes of chocolate and a big ol’ Sunday roast. I’m very aware that gorging on sweet treats for a long weekend (I start as soon as Good Friday hits) isn’t exactly healthy, but it’s also not something I plan on making a habit of. I refuse to let strangers on the internet make me feel bad about it.
I totally get if you don’t want to ruin all your hard work in the gym by carelessly binging on chocolate. Good on ya 👍 But so what if someone else does? What gives anyone the right to tell me that I’m not allowed to eat my Easter eggs without feeling some sort of “shame”? Perhaps I’m not into counting every single calorie I consume on a bank holiday, or maybe I don’t fancy figuring out the complexities of exactly how many minutes of exercise it’d take to burn off my weekend of chronic chocoholicism.
I’m all for advocating a healthy lifestyle. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make up for a few extra pounds you’ve gained, that’s a great attitude towards your diet. But there’s a difference between keeping yourself healthy and making others feel bad because they don’t necessarily do things the same way as you.
You don’t know how hard someone works to get where they are. You don’t know how careful someone might be about what they eat, you don’t know how much time they might spend prepping, planning and stressing over meals. You don’t know how much someone works out, or how carefully someone looks after themselves. You just don’t know these things about a person, so it’s unfair to judge their health solely on one weekend.
So maybe we just deserved to have our few days completely guilt-free, frolicking in a chocolate haven – if we want one.
#ThisGirlEats 