OK! magazine interviews Carnie Wilson

OK! Interview: Carnie Wilson

Carnie Wilson is back on track. Three months after telling OK! she "hit rock bottom" when she tipped the scales at 208 lbs., the singer is now "squashing the fat" with a new workout routine and a healthy diet plan.

Gone are 15 lbs. and there are only 30 more to go before the 40-year-old reaches her goal weight. Then, "I want to get pregnant again," Carnie, who has a daughter, Lola, 3, with husband Rob Bonfiglio, tells OK!. "I'll be so healthy." And now the former Wilson Phillips member reveals how she's going to get there!

How has your attitude changed since we saw you in March?
I have a completely different mind set. I mean, I had a good mindset and great intentions back then, but I didn’t know that I had the determination and the willpower to eat the way my body is at its optimum, which means cutting out certain things that I didn’t want to cut out before. I turned 40 and something clicked in my brain. I thought to myself, well, why are you really doing this? Are you doing this for other people—well, sometimes I do because I like to inspire people but what am I really doing it for? I want to feel better. I was feeling very, very sluggish and depressed. I was really down on myself. I started having those feelings like before I had a gastic bypass where I just didn’t have any control over food and it was a frightening place to be and I was really tired of starting and then not following through, starting and not following through.

You were just trying to limit carbs last time. What happened after March?
I started doing yoga. It’s power yoga, a cardio yoga so I get cardio three or four days a week with yoga and then I exercise twice a week with my trainer for forty minute cardio, so I’m getting a lot of cardio so that sets me off to feeling better and then that helps me with food choices but I really am sort of doing a no-dairy, no-carb, no refined sugar at all. I’m on limited amounts of fruits and vegetables.

What’s a sample breakfast, lunch, dinner for you now?
Breakfast is two egg whites and one whole egg, scrambled in canola kitchen spray. I can add seasonings and herbs. And then I have two to three pieces, usually, turkey bacon, well done and then I have half a cup of berries, mixed strawberries and blueberries. Another sample of a breakfast would be, a big half of grapefruit and I sprinkle sweetener on top of the grapefruit and it’s heaven! I’ll have that 30 minutes before I have coffee or my breakfast. Lunch is a salad of chopped kale, romaine and spinach, cucumber, celery, bean sprouts. Then I make a balsamic dressing from scratch. I saute a 3-ounce patty of chicken breast and eat that with the salad. Dinner will be another round of veggies. I'll steam cauliflower, zucchini and some spinach. I'll do a piece of protein with that, like 4 ounces of Chilean sea bass.

What's the hardest part of the diet?
The evening is really hard for me. I have to force myself not to eat. I go back in my head and I see 150 pounds on the scale. So I'll fill up on tea! I'll have three cups in one night. I'm trying not to eat after 7:30 p.m.

Are you still working out with Lanre Idewu, your personal trainer?
Yes. Lanre is only twice a week now because I’ve bumped my yoga up to three to four times a week. I try to get six days of cardio; it’s very hard to do that so it averages five days a week. We have bumped up the pace; I’m really breaking sweats. We’re doing fast paced walking, elliptical, lunges and squats and band resistance for my arms, a lot of reps. We do like 150 reps for my arms and it’s a lot. My yoga incorporates everything; I get my heart rate up.

You've created some of your own recipes. How did you come up with squash spaghetti?
I was trying to find out what I could do to butternut squash and I saw canned tomatoes and garlic and I thought, "I didn’t like the thought of that," so I thought spaghetti sauce and I remembered sometimes I make bean sprouts with ground turkey and spaghetti sauce and it’s interesting. It has a very distinct flavor; you have to like bean sprouts, which I love. I thought, "Well, if I do bean sprouts with spaghetti sauce, why not butternut squash?" And last week I added mushrooms and onions.

Is your goal still 150?
Between 150 and 160. I’m going to be in a much different physical condition when I get to that weight so I think somewhere around 155, 160, will be perfect. I want to get pregnant again! So we’ll see what happens. I think this is God’s way of having me eat this way so when I do get pregnant, then I won’t be gaining weight and even if I did gain ten pounds, that weight’s going to come off plus more and I’ll be so healthy during this pregnancy and that’s going to be great. I’m going to start trying [to get pregnant] in a few months.

How are you avoiding food pitfalls? Are you keeping bad food out of the house?
I clean my whole entire pantry out and refrigerator and I have a Lola section and my section and I just don’t go in that zone.

Is Lola aware mommy is eating healthy?
Yeah. I’m kind of careful about how I talk to her about stuff like this. What I tell her is, "Vegetables are good for you. We want to be healthy and feel good." Very general. I’m not saying mommy’s on a diet — never. I’m not saying mommy wants to lose weight. I just don’t want to start that yet. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think it’s better to say, "I love these foods because they make me feel good and they’re good for me and they keep me healthy and strong."

How hard is it to juggle what you’re eating and what she’s eating?
I’m not giving in. I used to give in and finish what she had on her plate. If I had nervous energy, I would walk by and pick up anything I saw. If there was food there, I would pick it up and eat it, for, I don’t know what reason! Now, I don’t even think twice. If there’s pasta left on her plate, I will just throw the rest out. I won’t start.

What do you want your fans to know about your weight loss journey?
I want them to know that I’m feeling stronger and more confident and a little more faith with my own willpower, feeling much more in control. Hopefully somebody who was in my spot, where they lost a bunch of weight and gained some back and they felt kind of stuck and scared, sees that I’m doing it and [know] they can do it, too. It’s just you have to work at it.