“Fast fashion is like fast food”—here’s why I quit both, and what happened next

I was sprinting through Madrid Atocha with a flaking croissant in one hand and a flimsy shopping bag in the other when both betrayed me at once.

The pastry collapsed into sweet shrapnel. The bag’s handle gave way, spilling a brand-new top onto the station floor like a flag of surrender.

I remember kneeling there, cheeks pink, thinking: these were quick fixes for bigger hungers—calories for a tired body, novelty for a tired brain. Both promised relief in minutes.

Both lasted even less.

On the train, I stared at the smudged receipt and the oil stain on my coat and realized I’d been feeding two appetites with the same strategy: speed first, consequences later.

Fast fashion, fast food—different checkout lines, same dopamine rush.

That afternoon, somewhere between Toledo and Cordoba, I quietly decided to quit both and see what would happen if I chose substance over speed for a while.

The same playbook in different aisles

Once you notice the overlaps, you can’t unsee them. Fast food is engineered for a hit — salt, sugar, fat, crunch — then a crash that begs for a refill.

Fast fashion is engineered for a scroll — micro-trends, overnight shipping, “new drops” that make last month’s perfectly good shirt feel like last week’s fries.

Both rely on volume and velocity. You keep returning because the satisfaction window is tiny by design. The marketing even sounds alike: limited time, limited edition, don’t miss out.

And I didn’t want to miss out.

That’s how I ended up with a closet that looked full but felt thin, and a travel diet that was all spikes and slumps. When I framed them together—a wardrobe like a drive-thru menu, a diet like a clearance rack—the experiment wrote itself.

What if I built a closet like a thoughtful pantry, and meals like outfits meant to be reworn? What if I let appetite and style slow down enough to hear themselves?

How I quit (and what I allowed)

I didn’t make a dramatic speech to my closet or my stomach.

I made a rule that fit inside a carry-on: no fast-fashion brands, no impulse “it” pieces, no late-night app binges; no fast-food chains, no “I’ll just grab something” at midnight.

I gave myself two lifelines so it felt human, not puritanical.

For clothes, I allowed secondhand, vintage, and local designers I could meet or research—pieces with traceable stories.

For food, I allowed street stalls and neighborhood spots where a person cooked my meal, even if it was quick.

I told friends so I’d have to answer for my “just this once” moments, and I made a small ceremony of my last drive-thru coffee and my final “two-day delivery” splurge.

Then I set a timer: ninety days. Long enough to push past the novelty, short enough to feel like a trip with a return date. I promised myself I could bail if I turned boring. I didn’t bail.

What changed in my closet (and on my skin)

The first surprise was sensory. Fabrics felt different.

Cotton that actually breathes. Wool with weight. Linen that wrinkles like a memory instead of like tissue paper.

When you stop buying for the screen and start buying for the skin, your bar recalibrates. I found a Lisbon tailor who shortened sleeves and knocked back my shoulders so a jacket stopped fitting me.

A cobbler in Porto resoled my loafers so they clicked instead of clacked. I learned to read seams like maps—are they finished, do they lay flat, can they be let out or taken in?

I bought fewer things and wore them more, which meant I finally noticed which silhouettes moved with my life instead of snagging on it.

Getting dressed felt like cooking from a stocked pantry: I knew where everything lived and how it worked together.

When someone complimented my outfit, it was rarely about a logo; it was “that cut is so you,” which feels quieter and somehow deeper.

What changed on my plate (and in my energy)

I thought quitting fast food would make life inconvenient — it made life rhythmic.

On travel days, I ate a real breakfast and packed nuts, fruit, dark chocolate, and a little tin of olives because I am, apparently, someone’s chic grandmother.

In new cities, I shopped markets the way I window-shop boutiques: what’s fresh, what’s in season, what’s the stallholder excited about?

I cooked simple food in rentals — tomatoes and garlic whispering in olive oil, pasta that didn’t need a personality quiz, pan-roasted vegetables with a squeeze of lemon.

When I had no kitchen, I found the places with one person and a grill, or the bakery with four ingredients and a line of neighbors.

My afternoon crashes got rarer; my suitcase snacks stopped sounding like cellophane; even my sleep shifted. It wasn’t saintly. It was practical.

The quick fix had been costing me time on the other side — blood sugar wobble, cranky focus, the “I’ll start over tomorrow” loop.

“Slow” saved time by smoothing out the day.

The math I wasn’t expecting

I kept notes because that’s who I am: tiny spreadsheets, messy in the margins. In three months, I bought six items of clothing, all secondhand or from small makers, and I wore each one more than fifteen times.

Cost per wear fell off a cliff in the good way.

Returns vanished, because there was nothing arriving at midnight to disappoint me at noon. On the food side, the headline wasn’t that I spent less (sometimes I spent the same) — it was that I wasted less.

Fewer half-eaten boxes, fewer weird condiments abandoned in rental fridges, fewer “I was too tired so I ordered” receipts. My errand time shrank because I wasn’t hunting for a “dupe” or a “deal.”

Planning once—closet, menu—freed up brain bandwidth for actual work and actual play.

And the stuff I did buy and eat? It kept paying rent in delight.

It’s hard to quantify confidence, but when your clothes fit and your energy doesn’t crash, it shows up everywhere, from the way you walk into a meeting to the way you linger after dinner.

Style and appetite, but make it joy

I worried that quitting fast things would make me precious. It did the opposite.

Joy got simpler.

Instead of chasing a new silhouette every week, I fell in love with my uniform and let accessories travel.

A scarf from Palermo over a navy tee. A ring from a flea market in Paris that makes my hands look like they plan poems.

The “newness” itch moved from trends to textures: a heavier cotton, a softer knit, a shoe that makes rainy streets feel like a stage.

Eating followed suit.

I stopped grading meals on novelty and started grading them on “Does this taste like someone cared?”

That includes me.

The best dinners were often the least photogenic—stews and scrambles and bowls that held me the way a well-cut coat holds your shape.

Respect for my body arrived quietly, not as a slogan but as a series of choices that said: you’re worth good inputs and patient outcomes.

When convenience called (and how I answered)

There were wobbles.

A delayed flight, a missed train, a rainstorm that turned my straight hair into a personality. Old me would have panic-bought a flimsy umbrella and a flimsy sweater, and a flimsy sandwich.

New me learned to borrow and to prepare. I carried a packable rain shell, a tote that folds into itself, and a tiny mending kit with a friendly needle.

I kept a “grace rule” for true emergencies—if my blood sugar cratered at midnight in a place with no options, a drive-thru burger was medicine, not a moral failure—but I didn’t need it often.

For clothing cravings, I keep a “novelty hour” in vintage stores: try things, learn, leave without buying unless it’s excellent.

I also made friends with rental services for weddings and big events, because the world still throws us dress codes that require a costume.

Having a plan keeps the experiment from feeling like a personality test I’m doomed to fail.

The ripple effects I didn’t predict

Quitting speed didn’t just change my closet and plate — it changed my pace.

I read more because I wasn’t shopping. I walked more because I wasn’t Ubering to pick up something I didn’t need.

Conversations got better because markets and small boutiques are staffed by people who know their stock and their seasons—and people like to talk about the things they love.

Travel days felt less like sprints between sugar highs and retail hits, more like strings of small, grounded decisions. I started to see myself the way I see cities I adore: layered, imperfect, worth returning to.

And other people noticed.

Compliments shifted from “Where’d you get that?” to “You look like yourself.” That’s the line I didn’t know I was chasing. In the end, quitting fast fashion and fast food didn’t make me austere; it made me specific.

Fewer inputs, clearer signals, better stories.

If you try it, start here

You don’t need a manifesto.

Pick a window—thirty days is plenty—and two simple rules: no fast-fashion brands, no fast-food chains.

Tell a friend so you’ll have a witness and a walking buddy. Stock a basic pantry and a basic wardrobe: the three outfits you actually wear, the three meals you actually cook.

Add one market visit and one tailor or cobbler trip. Keep a tiny log of how you feel by 4 p.m. and what you reached for when you were tired.

If you break your rule, call it data, not defeat. I did.

Then notice what happens on day twenty when your hands go to the same jacket that always works, and your feet take you to the same stall where the tomatoes taste like August even in September.

You’ll look up, mid-bite or mid-stride, and realize the experiment isn’t about deprivation. It’s about editing out the noise so you can hear your life. And that, truly, is delicious.