You know the clothes.

The ones that sit in our closet that no longer fit, but we keep around with the hopes that they’ll fit again…  

…if we start to workout.

…once we’ve healed our relationship with food.

…once we stop binging.

It’s natural to want to fit back into them. Getting rid of clothes that no longer fit can bring up a Dairy Queen Blizzard of emotions.

But, we have to get REALLY real with ourselves about how they are making us feel.

Do they make you wish you were smaller?

Do they remind you of a desire to have a different body?

Do they create guilt or pressure around food or movement?

In my book, Body Image Remix, I write about the importance (and turmoil) of getting rid of clothes that don’t fit to improve your body image…

“I had stopped my excessive dieting and exercise, and started to work on making peace with my body. I had gained some weight since I’d begun to feed myself like a grown-ass woman, which meant that none of my clothes fit. I kept hanging onto them, in the hopes that I would return to my skinny self, but the process of opening my closet only threw me into temper tantrums and drove me to return to my obsessive, unhealthy ways.”

Can you relate?

My suggestion is to get rid of them or at the very least get them out of sight.

Keeping smaller clothes with the “hope” of fitting back into them only continues to reinforce that your body isn’t good enough as it is.

It also reinforces that weight loss is on the horizon (which can stall healing your relationship with food and your body).

FEEL the FEELS of whatever comes up around this. The mourning process is a necessary step to freeing yourself of the pressure to shrink.

We have to put a stop to anything that is making us feel like we’re not good enough as we are.

It’s hard enough living in a culture that reinforces it.

We don’t need our closets doing it too.