I Can Make You Hot! (9 page)

Eating Kleenex to make yourself feel full does
not
work.

Strict diets of any kind do
not
work. (Rules are meant to be broken.)

Starving yourself does
not
work.

When it comes to food choices, I’ve probably made every mistake in the book. A real biggie occurred when I was about to give birth to my daughter Sea. I remember it clearly to this day. I was sitting on the red leather couch in our apartment and I felt my first contraction. I immediately screamed to my husband, who, having gone through it before, went to the gym. I’d been told that you should eat light when you’re about to give birth, so I decided I needed to eat and ordered Chinese chicken soup with noodles. But what I got was more like chicken with vegetables and rice—swimming in tons of brown sauce. Back from the gym, Gilles watched me eat the entire thing. Hours later, he watched me throw it all up, and took me to the hospital where I was put on an IV drip because I was dehydrated. The moral of this story is that you can’t eat whatever you want at any time, even though you want it. You just can’t; sorry to disappoint. I’d overloaded my already overloaded body and it rebelled. The second time is always a charm and I knew what to expect. So before giving birth to my second daughter, Teddy, I had a turkey sandwich and she came flying out before the doctor had even arrived.

I’ve been on crash diets; I’ve been on juice fasts; I’ve tried to get through the day eating nothing more than an apple. I can tell you from personal experience that none of those options are healthy—and they don’t work. Now my best way to detox is just to avoid eating any unhealthy foods for a few days.

I’m stubborn—I admit it. If someone tells me no, I have to try it. Everyone had been telling me that I wasn’t the juicing type and I would hate it. Well, they were right. When I started the juice fast, Season 2 of the
Real Housewives of New York City
was airing and the ladies’ strategy was to team up against me. I don’t like confrontational women; I like team players. When I was accused of being a “bitch” on national television, I was really upset. My response was to find comfort in Mexican food and margaritas for lunch and dinner three days straight. When I realized my “Mexican fiesta” was unhealthy and was not solving any problems, I decided to juice on a liquid diet from Liquiteria in NYC. Basically, greens, carrots, and beet juice is the concept. The reality for me was no chewing, no caffeine, and headaches (!) for three more days, which was almost torture for me. It’s not that I’m against juicing; I actually love green juices. It’s just that I don’t believe in using juices as substitutes for food. The human body is not meant to run on liquids alone. For me it’s all about balance, and to keep my body in balance, I need to
eat
real food. When I don’t eat, my body doesn’t operate well, and I don’t like the way I feel. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have a green juice after a run, but I’ve learned—by making the mistake—that I don’t function well without real food in my diet.

The Kelly Green Diet

This is how I get back on track after I’ve overindulged. I do a minicleanse, which I call the Kelly Green Diet. I have:

2 green juices in the morning

a KKBfit lunch including protein, vegetables, and carbs with 1 green juice

a KKBfit dinner including protein and vegetables

Between meals I drink only water with lemon juice to help flush out my system. It works for me. Just because you overeat at one meal (or more) doesn’t mean you have to punish your body. Don’t scold it; nurture it.

On the last day of my juice fast, I took my older daughter to a Yankees game where we gorged on sushi. (Yes, they have sushi at Yankee Stadium.) As a result, I was stuffed and blinded by carbs when A-Rod came up to bat and hit a home run. Was I able to savor that A-Rod moment with my daughter? Absolutely not. I was in a food coma. Will I ever let myself be thrown into a Mexican food frenzy again? No! Lesson learned: I made another stupid food choice, and because of that choice I missed that home run moment with my daughter. From now on, when I go to a Yankees game I’ll have a small hot dog instead…. I want you to do the same: Be present, so that you don’t miss a moment of whatever life throws your way.

When you’re HOT, food is not your enemy. When you know what’s going to fuel your day, you can stop obsessing about your carrot intake and concentrate on what it is that’s going to make you a great person in life and enable you to do the things you love. I care more about your life plan than your meal plan. Did you go to the beach this summer? Do you hang out with your friends? Have you put on some great music or danced to your own tune?

Lonely breeds loneliness. Get out there and make it a point to be around people you like who like the people you like and the activities you like. Toxic friends and toxic activities are not hot.

I like to think of my life plan as a “Kelly pie.” Food is just one small wedge of the pie. The rest of the pie is made up of family, friends, fun, work, sleep, and charity, which means doing something for another person without being asked and without being compensated. If food is all you think about, you’re missing out on the rest of your life. I don’t want you to spend your life thinking about food.

My ideal twenty-four-hour life-plan:

How would you divide up your own pie? Following are some hints to help you get started:

1. Celebrate your own health. We take health for granted.

2. Get up in the morning and say, “I’m so grateful to be where I am and look the way I do,” no matter what your size is.

3. Tell yourself you look HOT, because you do.

4. Believe in your ability to make good choices today and every day.

5. Be mindful of what you eat. If I have to be mindful of what I eat, so do you. We’re in this together.

Kelly’s Cardinal Rule