7 Peace-Making Spring Cleaning Tips

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With the arrival of spring, you may have the urge to do a little spring cleaning.

If one of your desires is to make peace with food and your body, here are seven spring cleaning tips that will help you on your journey.

  1. Toss out your dieting books. Beyond books on popular diet programs, like Paleo, Keto and Whole30, this includes any books on clean eating, detoxing, cleansing, eliminating, fasting, etc.
     
  2. Unsubscribe from magazines and newsletters and delete bookmarks for websites and blogs that feature weight-loss and dieting articles and promote the thin ideal.
     
  3. Unfollow, unlike or hide any social media pages and feeds that focus on the thin ideal, thinspiration, fitspiration, weight loss, diet culture, before-and-after stories, etc.
     
  4. Throw away your scale. It’s time to stop playing the numbers game and letting a piece of junk dictate how you feel about and treat yourself. It's time to take back your power.
     
  5. Remove any calorie/gram/point-counting apps from your phone and other devices.
     
  6. Donate your clothes that don’t fit well or make you feel fabulous.
     
  7. Ditch any weight-loss supplements, pills, powders and potions.

While these actions can feel a little daunting and scary at first, when my clients follow through with even just a few of them, they feel liberated, empowered and energized far more than they ever imagined. I bet the same will be true for you, too.

A New Way to Celebrate Valentine's Day

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Valentine’s Day was always a very special occasion when I was young.

For dinner, my mom would make a heart-shaped meatloaf and individual heart-shaped strawberry Jell-O molds.

Afterwards, my dad would give each kid a shiny-red heart-shaped box of chocolates. He still sends us a box every year. I cherish this ritual.

I also love the idea of introducing a new Valentine’s Day ritual—one that doesn’t involve a bouquet of flowers, fancy restaurant meal or expensive sparkly jewelry. It doesn’t even involve another person.

In celebration of cupid’s day, I propose you take a moment to rest your hands on your heart and send your body some major love, adoration and appreciation.

After all, the relationship you have with your body is the longest relationship you will ever have. 

Love it up.

I Really Did This… (How Dieting Made Me Crazy)

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When I was obsessed with losing weight, I was hyperconscious about every single morsel that entered my mouth. 

One of my go-to snacks was sea-salt soy crisps. I would carefully count out one serving, putting 21 crisps into a bowl. This portion equated to an allowable number of calories.

I would snap at my boyfriend if he innocently grabbed a handful from my bowl to munch on. It left me unsure about how many crisps I could still eat, which caused me great anxiety.

One day, after months of eating these soy crisps, I happened to glance at the nutrition facts label on the back of the package. To my horror, the serving size had changed from 21 crisps to 17, yet the calories remained the same. I had no idea how long ago the change had been made.

I was so incensed, I fired an angry email off to the company’s customer service department. I complained about how incredibly misled I felt. I had been deceived and demanded an explanation.

I don’t remember what the company’s written response was, but they did mail me some coupons.

When I recalled this event years later, I felt deeply embarrassed and ashamed. I still can’t imagine what the person who received my email must have thought about me (hello, crazy lady!).

Dieting’s Dark Side
While I still feel a tad bit embarrassed, I now see this experience as a powerful example of the negative impact dieting can have on not only your physical health, but also your mental, emotional and social health. And when I say dieting, I mean any form of food restriction that’s not medically necessary.

Along with making you do crazy things, dieting can:

  • Intensify food and body preoccupation

  • Trigger cravings and binges

  • Reduce your ability to recognize and honor your hunger and fullness signals

  • Provoke feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, fear, hopelessness and more

  • Erode self-trust, self-esteem and confidence

  • Lead to harmful food rules, disordered eating and eating disorders

  • Slow your metabolism

  • Increase your risk of gaining more weight (up to two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost)

  • Raise your cortisol level (dieting is inherently stressful)

  • Become all-consuming, while other parts of your life suffer, like your relationships, social life, career and hobbies

These are just some of the harmful effects of dieting, but hopefully, it’s enough to help you consider whether or not it’s worth it.  

Ditching Diets Can Be Scary
It can be scary to let go of dieting, especially when it seems like everyone around you is on some type of diet.

If you’re ready to liberate yourself, you can learn how to trust your body wisdom again and return to the intuitive eater you came into this world as. I don’t have any magical powers. If I can do it, so can you.