If you know me at all, you probably know that I’m FIERCELY anti-diet. I love food. I love wine. I love dessert. And everything in between.
Plus, diets make you overweight and unhappy (more on that in another post).

I also really like feeling good in my body, having high energy, feeling focused at work so I can kick ass, and just being super happy. And it’s crucial for me.

I can’t function unless I feel good, and I’m guessing you can’t either.

I love food AND feeling good so much that my entire mission is to teach women how to stop dieting and start living so they can finally lose weight and feel amazing without restricting themselves or giving up their favorite foods.

BUT, there’s ONE time I break my own rules, and it’s when I’m talking to someone who loves fast-food and highly-processed food.

In this case, I recommend completely depriving yourself. Yep. Seems totally opposite my approach, right? It is, but for good reason.

If you’re eating fast-food or other processed toxic junk, I recommend going cold turkey. McDonald’s, Burger King, Snickers, M&Ms and other processed foods are specifically designed to be addictive. So it’s hard to get off them and you just keep eating them and feeling like shit.

This is not just about looks. When you constantly eat processed foods you lose your focus, feel exhausted, can’t go to the bathroom right, and feel like a general mess.

I LOVE a good burger, fries, and chocolate bar, but I always go for the real thing: Pure chocolate sweetened with real sugar (none of the fake stuff) – or better, coconut palm sugar – and grass-fed burgers from great local places, high-end steakhouses, or made on the grill at home.

Here’s what highly-processed food – like fast-food – does to your body:

1. Messes up your ghrelin and leptin levels. Ghrelin signals your brain that you’re hungry, and leptin signals when you’re full. When your body is clogged up with addictive toxins, you’re always hungry, yet never totally satisfied after eating.

2. Makes you gain weight. The body doesn’t know how to process fast-food because it’s not actually food, so it just stores it as fat. It knows what to do with whole foods, including meat, bread and cheese (unless you have a severe intolerance or allergy).

3. Screws up your hormones. For women especially, hormones play a huge role in weight regulation, skin health, and digestion. Chemicals from fast-food and other processed food throw your hormones off balance and lead to skin breakouts, bloating, and indigestion.

It feels so hard to reduce your fast-food and processed food intake because the people developing the recipes intentionally make them addictive so you keep buying and eating more and more.

I don’t talk about “big food” and “big pharma” much, but this is one instance where it’s important to wake up.

This is a business, and it’s not designed with your health or happiness in mind.

The only approach here is to go cold turkey and replace your usual chicken nuggets, big mac, and fries with high-quality versions.

Here are three specific tips to help you go cold turkey:

1. Crowd out. Instead of focusing on all the things you CAN’T eat, focus on what you CAN eat: Grass-fed meat, lots of vegetables, whole grains, delicious juice and kombucha, real chocolate, and anything else that’s not highly processed. I’m not recommending anything restrictive here.

2. Get moving. When you run, do yoga, or dance, you start to really FEEL your body, and you might notice that something’s off. If you’ve been eating a lot of over-processed foods, when you start bouncing around in the gym you’ll probably notice you feel heavy, and you’ll naturally want to feel lighter.

3. Load up on warm lemon water. Sip warm water with lemon throughout the day to naturally rid your body of the toxins you’ve been taking in. Simple and effective.

AFTER you go cold turkey and your body recalibrates, you’ll probably be able to handle processed food once in a while if you really love it and want it.

For example, here’s a secret about me: I have movie theatre popcorn, candy, and soda about once or twice a year. And I’m healthier than ever – based on how I feel, and what the doctor says.

But honestly?

It’ll probably make you feel sick, and a nice grass-fed cheeseburger or stovetop popcorn with real butter will taste and feel SO much better.

When you eat real food, your body and taste buds are able to tell you when to stop, and what you need at the next meal.

Instead of going back to the crack (fast-food) meal after meal, your body will naturally crave some kale or sweet potatoes when you’ve had enough of the rich stuff – like burgers and fries. Make sense?

Do you eat fast-food or super processed food now, and do you feel addicted?

Share in the comments below, and tell me if you’re ready to go cold turkey, and why. I’m here to support you and hold you accountable.

Photo: Emily Ratajkowski by Terry Richardson