After leaving Gwyneth Paltrow's company, Goop, in 2020, former second-in-command Elise Loehnen is redefining her relationship with her body.
Loehnen tried many cleanses while working for Goop. After leaving, she's sworn off ever doing one again. She explained in an Instagram video,
"To me, it had become synonymous with dieting and restriction, and I felt like I was not in a healthy relationship with my body, where I was always trying to punish it [and] bring it under control. I needed to break a tendency to be critical and punishing. To chastise myself. All of it. I stopped weighing myself completely."
Now, she said she's "eating like a teenager for two years and enjoying it." However, eating freely has its own drawbacks, as she elaborated,
"I realized that I've kind of deserted how my body actually feels — as much as I've enjoyed two years of eating whatever my young kids want. And that I'm clearly being called back to a place somewhere in the middle because my stomach often hurts."
Still, Loehnen acknowledges that diet and cleanse culture is, more often than not, incredibly toxic. She's sought to find cleanses that are less restrictive, and that handle her physical and mental health with care. She's recently found a broth cleanse that allows for extra snacks, which she said was just perfect.
"I thought I would hate the whole thing but I decided to do it differently. I didn't weigh myself, before, during, after, and I chose the version that lets you eat extra veggies and proteins as you want. It didn't feel restrictive, at all, I wasn't hungry, and I felt much better after. What's more exciting is that I didn't retaliate by eating badly immediately. It just released me into a new, slightly healthier lane."
Loehnen feels that she's now struck the right balance of cleansing without restricting herself.
"I refuse to punish myself with food, or hold myself under the weight my body seems to want to be anymore. I don't have the energy or the interest, thankfully. (And more importantly, I've come to realize that I really like my body and am grateful it is mine.) Hopefully I've broken that cycle for good."
