'Lose 7 Pounds in 7 Days' author reveals food intolerance symptoms and solutions

Can a food intolerance make you fat and cause symptoms such as bloating, fatigue and brain fog? Celebrity nutrition and fitness guru JJ Virgin believes that the answer is "yes," and she's created a diet based on her theories: "The Virgin Diet: Drop 7 Foods, Lose 7 Pounds, Just 7 Days."

In an interview with Fox News about her book, JJ explained that by dropping seven key foods from your menus, you can shed up to seven pounds in just a week and eliminate symptoms ranging from exhaustion to memory issues to gas pains. Which foods are the culprits? Gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, corn and sweeteners (both sugar and artificial sweeteners). "These seven foods are the very foods that people focus on putting into their diet in effort to be healthy," JJ explained to Fox News. "When I start to show them the issues that soy could have on their metabolism," dieters "are blown away." In addition to adding on the pounds, these foods can wreck havoc on your joints and skin, according to JJ.

However, JJ emphasizes the distinction between a food intolerance and a food allergy. If you suffer from gas, bloating, headaches and brain fog, you may be experiencing "huge signs of food intolerance," says JJ. Her book explains how to eliminate the seven most common food culprits from your diet and then introduce them one at a time. By following this approach, "you might find this food is hazardous to your health, and it’s part of the reason you feel so rotten, and you can’t lose weight," noted JJ. But don't stress about deprivation. JJ also offers tasty swaps for foods that you need to eliminate. For example, you can enjoy almond butter rather than peanut butter or brown rice cakes rather than popcorn.