Gwyneth Paltrow's Ex-Goop CCO Said Cleanses 'Distorted' Her Body Image

After seven years, Elise Loehnen left her position as Goop's chief content officer in 2020 after deciding to pursue a book deal and new podcast project. However, the cleanses she had to participate in as an employee of the wellness company ended up having a negative impact on her own wellbeing, so much so that Loehnen revealed that she "decided to foreswear any cleansing" after quitting and began "eating like a teenager for two years and enjoying it."

"To me, it had become synonymous with dieting and restriction," Loehnen said in a candid new Instagram video where she talked about the way these cleanses "distorted" her own body image.

"And I felt like I was not in a healthy relationship with my body," she said. "Where I was always trying to punish it [and] bring it under control."

Loehnen then went on to add in the caption that her "full rebellion" against any kind of cleanse was "kind of fun," especially since it was "healthy in terms of letting go of ideas of what my body should look like as a 42-year-old who has had two kids."

"I needed to break a tendency to be critical and punishing. To chastise myself. All of it. I stopped weighing myself completely," she said.

After a recent conversation with her friend Dr. Ellen Vora though, Loehnen came to the conclusion that while "wellness culture can be toxic," so is "eating an abundance of overly processed foods," which made her realize that she "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," Loehnen continued, before explaining that she decided to try cleansing once more. The only difference was that she picked a cleanse that wasn't about constant weight tracking or liquid-only consumption, but a cleanse that allowed her to eat solid vegetables, proteins and snacks as well.

"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," she said. "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."

Ultimately though, Loehnen's relationship with her diet and body has evolved into something much healthier and more balanced than before, as she said she now "refuses 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," she went on the write. "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."

Watch Loehnen's video below.

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A post shared by Elise Loehnen (Fissmer) (@eliseloehnen)

Photo via Getty / Rachel Murray