Living lighter isn’t just about losing pounds of fat on your body, according to health coach Heather Aardema. This article dives into how to live a lighter life by reducing the clutter in your life – mind clutter, body clutter, and home clutter.
This week I interviewed Heather Aardema, health coach and founder of the School of Living Lighter, for my podcast Real, Brave, & Unstoppable.
The School of Living Lighter is a weight loss methodology grounded in minimalism, functional medicine, and cognitive behavior. Heather helps her clients lighten their lives by reducing the clutter in their lives. But not just physical clutter–Body clutter, mind clutter AND home clutter.
What I love about Heather’s work is that she doesn’t just help people lose weight. She really helps them change their lifestyles through looking at their whole lives holistically. So, it’s not just about counting calories (she calls that mind clutter) or following a diet. It’s really looking at how you can shed “pounds” in all areas of your life.
In today’s world, with so many people holding themselves to unrealistic ideals in terms of body size and shape, it’s refreshing to see someone doing work that makes it about overall health. And not just physical health. Mental and environmental health as well.
As a coach myself, I know how important it is that we look at the thoughts we have in relation to things because our thoughts create our actions (and thus, our results). So many people think their circumstances dictate their results. But in fact, it’s really their thoughts about their circumstances. I help clients every day look at the thoughts they have that are creating undesirable results in their lives.
Heather calls this mind clutter.
An example of mind clutter could be counting calories. Of course, it depends on the person! If you enjoy counting calories, great. Do it. But, if counting calories is an obsession and causes you to focus your energy on anxiety and worry about what you’re eating, this is definitely something that will feel heavy, as Heather would say.
Another example of mind clutter might be your thoughts about your body.
Chances are, you’re comparing your body to some standard that’s honestly pretty random when you think about it. So your thoughts about your body aren’t really helpful to your overall picture of health. That’s mind clutter.
How much lighter would you feel if you could accept and love your body for where it is right now? That doesn’t mean you have to be resigned to letting it be what it is forever. Even elite athletes have seasons where they put on weight. As they approach their competition season, they get their body back to a place where it’s ready to compete at the level they are asking it to.
So you, too, can love and accept where you are in this moment and still want to get healthier.
Body clutter is something that so many of us have these days. Whether it’s consuming calories that don’t do our bodies any good, sitting all day, or ingesting toxins in the products we use, Heather says that body clutter becomes excess pounds that get in between you and the life you want to live.
Home clutter looks like a lot of stuff that you don’t need. Heather also talks about home clutter as too much screen time and consuming media that makes life feel heavy. All of this equals sensory overload which makes it impossible for life to feel light and free.
I’m personally not a huge fan of diets, however, I love the “diet” Heather promotes in her work. She defines “diet” as a lifestyle, which I wholeheartedly agree with, and her diet of choice is the JOMO diet.
The JOMO diet is Joy of Missing Out, as opposed to FOMO, or the Fear of Missing Out.
In the JOMO diet, you’ll look at all the reasons why not consuming something (remember, this isn’t JUST food!) is a GOOD thing, rather than a negative. If you can train your brain to look at all of the benefits of not consuming something, this becomes easy.
The example Heather uses is gluten. For her, gluten doesn’t make her feel good. Her JOMO reasons are things like not waking up swollen, not being obsessed with food, and not having brain fog.
In terms of cost versus benefits, it’s much more joyful for her to miss out on gluten. She feels so much better.
Currently, I’m working on my relationship with alcohol. I have a very all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to consuming it. I enjoy alcoholic beverages and I don’t drink them for the effects of feeling intoxicated. But there is something comforting about drinking a glass of wine that makes it difficult to say no when others are partaking. It’s also difficult for me to stop at just one once I’ve started.
This adds unnecessary, empty calories to my day, and I often get angry at myself for not being able to say no or to stop at just one. So, consuming alcohol adds calories AND negative thoughts. Body AND mind clutter.
My reasons to miss out on alcohol might be, losing weight, feeling better about myself (i.e. ditching the self-punishment sessions), feeling proud of my ability to stay in the present and focus on what my body really wants instead of succumbing to the short-term gratification my brain is looking for, as well as being headache-free when I wake up in the morning.
Also, I might find more reasons once I decided to remove it from my life, or was successful in moderating it better. It would be a good experiment!
So many people are all-or-nothing when it comes to dieting. They dive off the deep end into a diet that’s way too restrictive. Anything that feels restrictive isn’t sustainable and you’ll likely just end up gaining the weight back. Heather advocates choosing one or two things at a time to remove from your diet, whether it’s gluten, dairy, alcohol, or something else. The idea is to see what happens when you take it out. If you feel better, you’re likely going to find all kinds of JOMO reasons!
Heather shared so much wisdom on this episode of Real, Brave, & Unstoppable and I’m so glad she was willing to come on the show. I highly recommend you check out the podcast episode HERE.
If you’d like to learn more about Heather and her work, visit the School of Living Lighter HERE.
Here’s to YOUR lighter life!
Prefer to listen? Click HERE to listen to the accompanying podcast episode on Real, Brave, & Unstoppable!
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