Carnie Wilson has lost 40 pounds by cutting sugar and gluten from her diet.
It’s not an easy lifestyle change by any means, and Wilson, 55, admits there are still times when she’s tempted.
“I feel like I’ve learned how to work around that,” she exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing her new cooking show, Sounds Delicious With Carnie Wilson. “Honestly. Sometimes if there’s a cake I want to try that I make, I take a bite and I chew it and I spit it out. I don’t swallow it. I know that sounds really gross and weird.”
Carnie, who is the daughter of Beach Boys cofounder Brian Wilson, doesn’t believe this unorthodox way to satiate her appetite will lead her down a slippery slope, either. She compared it to how she abstains from drinking.
“It’s kind of like alcohol for me,” she said. “I don’t take a sip. I just don’t drink. So right now, all my life, I’m not eating sugar and gluten, and I physically feel better doing that. So that’s what I’m doing with this.”
Carnie added that the change was a tough adjustment, calling it, “really fricking hard and more in the beginning. But now it’s just second nature. I just feel much better.”
There’s no doubt it takes discipline to be able to chew and then spit out cake without actually indulging in the sugar-filled treat. It helps to have some healthier options that are also tasty.
Her new series, Sounds Delicious With Carnie Wilson, features her cooking a new dish each week alongside celebrity guests. In one episode, she makes Mediterranean chicken with Lisa Loeb — adapted to be gluten-free.
“I used gluten-free flour, and it tasted great. I wanted to eat it,” she said. “There’s a way to do this. And some people can do sugar and gluten in moderation. I can’t. I’ve realized that. And that’s okay. I eat plenty of guacamole and chips. I eat corn tortillas. I have rice and potatoes. I’m happy.”
Carnie’s new lifestyle may have resulted in dramatic weight loss, but that wasn’t her primary goal.
“I just felt gross,” she said. “Just a lot of abdominal pain and just feeling bloated and gross and just completely inflamed. And I’d wake up, and be like, ‘Ow, ow. Everything hurts.’”
Her doctors said she was prediabetic, and she thought of her two daughters, Lola, 18, and Luci, 14.
“I thought my girls deserve to have me and I deserve to feel better,” she said.
Sounds Delicious With Carnie Wilson premieres on AXS TV Tuesday, April 16 at 8:30 p.m. ET. Her first guest will be Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath.
