Clean up your social media feed
This post is inspired by a message I received from someone following my Instagram account. It made for a sad read, and I could feel the struggle through the screen as I was reading it. To summarise, it basically said that they’d seen and heard so much negative information about everyday food and diets and now they didn’t know what is right, what is wrong, who to trust or how to get out of the fear that they have around food.
This advice was around foods that are seriously nutritionally great. They add sooooo much good stuff to the body, yet she was scared to touch it. The shocking thing was that some of this information had come from a nutrition ‘professional’ (I put professional in quotes because anyone giving that kind of information out should not be allowed to use the word professional – do your homework when you hire someone folks!).
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One great thing that you can do for yourself today, that will have an instant impact, is to get some of that crazy nonsense out of your eye line altogether. Out of sight, out of mind is how the old saying goes. We spend so much time on social media now, and that’s not going to stop, but you can protect yourself when it comes to the information you are exposed to.
remove negative social media feeds
Clean up your social media feeds. Remove those celebrities trying to sell you quick fixes. Their juices and teas and stupid injections are nothing but money making hype. Get rid of those people who are trying to convince you that their diet is the best one. They all say that they are scientifically proven, are ‘not a diet’, and that they the one plan that replaces all before them.
Even mute those friends who are always shouting about their weight related issues. You don’t have to delete them, but you also don’t need to see their weight losses or gains, their clothes sizes, the new product that they’re selling, or the award they got from their slimming club this week (urgh!). You’re not a bad friend for doing that – you’re protecting your mental and physical health.
It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher In tHe Rye
Curate a positive social media feed
Now make it a positive place to be and replace them with people who will guide you in a gentle way, giving you honest and trustworthy information. There are so many recommendations of incredible sources of safe nutritional information that I would love to share with you. Here are some of my faves (in no particular order). These are mostly websites, but you can probably go through to their social media feeds from there, or just look them up by name on the social media apps if you prefer.
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Laura Thomas owns the London Centre for Intuitive Eating
Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, creators of Intuitive Eating
Pixie Turner, non-diet nutritionist
Caroline Dooner – The F*ck It Diet
Christy Harrison, non-diet dietitian
Maeve Hanan, non-diet dietitian
Rhiannon Lambert, nutritionist, not strictly non-diet but doesn’t talk about dieting. Just gives very sound, friendly advice on nutrition.
Dr Joshua Wolrich, HAES aligned doctor
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So how about you take a few minutes RIGHT NOW to delete those accounts that are just making you feel crappy. Go…….