Gwyneth Paltrow's ex-Goop CCO says doing cleanses like ones promoted by company ‘distorted’ her body image

A former executive at Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is speaking out about body image and wellness remedies like the one the company promotes, stating that for her, they did more harm to her body than good.

While reflecting on her time as Goop’s chief content officer — a position she stepped down from in October 2020 — Elise Loehnen took to Instagram Live on Tuesday to explain the many types of cleanses she had tried during her time at the holistic lifestyle. Despite the fact that Goop promotes its own remedies for its audience, Loehnen touched on the moment she had had enough.

"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," Loehnen explains in an Instagram video, adding that she has since "decided to foreswear any cleansing."

Loehnen stepped away from her executive gig to begin penning a book and even started a new podcast, titled, "Pulling the Thread."

Loehnen did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ requests for comment. 

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"I'm not weighing myself. I'm allowing myself to eat beyond what's necessarily prescribed by the cleanse," Loehnen said. "But I'm just trying to get to a place where I can again be in conversation with my body as those conversations had become distorted."

"'It didn't feel restrictive, at all. I wasn't hungry, and I felt much better after," she added. "What's more exciting is that I didn't retaliate by eating badly immediately. It just released me into a new, slightly healthier lane."

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She maintained that since leaving Goop and eschewing the body cleanses, Loehnen has been "eating like a teenager for two years and enjoying it."

The former startup lead pressed in the video’s caption that she’s "definitely 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," adding, "I needed to break a tendency to be critical and punishing. To chastise myself. All of it. I stopped weighing myself completely."

"When I talked with my friend @ellenvoramd on ‘Pulling the Thread’ recently, we explored diet and she reminded me that wellness culture can be toxic AND that eating an abundance of overly processed foods can also be toxic," Loehnen wrote. "And I realized in that moment 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."

The newly-independent creative further explained that she instead shifted her focus and the way she maintains her body to alleviate the stressors and anxieties that can come with dieting.

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"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."

"I refuse to punish myself with food, or hold myself under the weight my body seems to want to be anymore," she added. "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."

An October 2021 report from Business Insider suggested some 140 members of Paltrow’s Goop staff had allegedly left the company since 2019 and further accused the 49-year-old actress of underpaying her employees by about 40% compared to similar roles at other companies — despite the fact that since early 2019, Goop had raised nearly $135 million and amassed a valuation of more than $430 million.

According to the outlet, Paltrow also allegedly developed a penchant for playing favorites and turning "sour" on those she once championed at Goop.

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"It's obviously cool to work for a celebrity," one former employee told Insider of the company, which had a headcount of about 250 employees in 2019. "[Paltrow] definitely had her favorites."

Four former employees further told Insider they experienced an exhausting workplace culture that was heightened by business pressures they felt were brought on by the pandemic.

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Goop originally began in 2008 as a newsletter before it blossomed into an entity that confused many when it started selling clothing, health supplements and candles that supposedly smell like Paltrow’s vagina for $75 a pop.

Reps for Goop and Paltrow did not immediately respond to Fox Business’ requests for comment.