I Can Make You Hot! (12 page)

Sleep 8 hours every night.

Nurture yourself: have a mani-pedi, take a bath, use a body scrub and baby oil, blow out your hair, put on eyeliner and mascara, and blush your checks.

Meet Kelly’s Food Plate

I’m sure you’ve heard all about the food pyramid (now morphed into the food plate) that the USDA created in order to guide us toward a healthier diet. I strongly urge you to eat everything on your plate so that you don’t wind up eating off someone else’s plate later on.

It’s interesting to me that the USDA’s recommendations have evolved over time. My own food plate has also evolved over time, mainly through trial and error. Every time I’ve tried cutting out carbs and eating more fat, my body has rebelled. When I skip meals, I don’t have the energy I need to do what I want or what I need to do. What I’m sharing with you is what has worked for me. I want you to eat enough food so that you have the right energy to function at the top of your game.

My own personal food image, although based on My Plate, is like a pear-shaped diamond—smallest at the tip (my breakfast), wide in the middle (a nutritious, filling lunch), and smaller at the bottom (a light meal in the evening). This is one instance when, in my opinion, a diamond really is a girl’s best friend. But, guys, if you’re buying me a diamond, make it round.

According to WebMD, adult women need about 46 grams of protein and men need about 55 grams a day. I eat meals that include a lot of protein not just because I crave it but because I know that we need protein to build muscle, and muscle burns more calories than fat even when your body is at rest. WebMD reports that, according to Christopher Wharton, Ph.D., a certified personal trainer and researcher with the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, “10 pounds of muscle would burn 50 calories in a day spent at rest, while 10 pounds of fat would burn 20 calories.” Protein also keeps us feeling full—longer than carbs or fat—and slows down the metabolism of carbohydrates so that our blood sugar doesn’t spike and then drop. It’s those blood sugar spikes that leave us feeling sleepy and heavy, and send us looking for something sugary to get us going again. We also need fat to make tissue and create certain biochemicals such as hormones, and we need carbohydrates for quick energy.

Just because I don’t eat chocolate bars doesn’t mean I can’t eat candy. I
love
candy—particularly jelly beans. You might even say that I’m obsessed with jelly beans. If you’re a fan of the
Real Housewives of New York City
you probably remember that on Season 3 I took a lot of flack for eating jelly beans and talking about processed and unprocessed foods. I was actually making light of that food snob moment. Who stops at a gas station and asks for carrots? Did you bring your organic food cooler with you on this road trip? The important point is not to be a food snob; but when in doubt choose the best option. Sometimes it’s better to be happy than it is to be right. Was I able to make my point? Clearly it wasn’t in the cards at that moment. Nevertheless, if you eat well the majority of the time, a handful of jelly beans isn’t going to kill you.

I’m not sure where my candy obsession originated. It may have been because my childhood swim coach used to give us all about a tablespoon of Jell-O powder before a meet to give us a quick energy boost. Or it may have been because I used to hide my Halloween candy under the bed so that my brother and sister wouldn’t steal it.

To this day, jelly beans, Jolly Ranchers, and red Twizzlers are still my absolute favorite treats for a sweet pick-me-up. I truly believe that everyone should enjoy a little sugar for a sweeter life.

Be curious! When you go to the supermarket, take a look around. If you see something you love, think of what you could do with it that you’ve never done before. Strawberries? Watermelon? Throw them in a salad. My daughters are both very adventurous eaters, and they’ve inspired me to be more adventurous myself. They eat quiche, bean salads, sushi…things I would never have eaten at their age.

Kelly’s Cardinal Rule

Whatever else you eat, you
must
eat a vegetable at lunch and dinner.

Although there are some things I choose not to eat—such as chocolate bars—
I don’t believe that any food should be forbidden, because the thing that is forbidden is sure to become the thing you want most. As I’ve said, I’m stubborn. When I was sixteen years old and the Elite Modeling Agency told me that I needed to lose ten pounds, the first thing I did was call a close friend who was living in New York. We walked around the city as I ate a DoveBar while telling him about the weight I “needed” to lose. Nowadays, I don’t turn to chocolate as a comfort food when I’m stressed. I eat a lot of fruit, particularly in the morning because it gets me going without weighing me down. I like to mix different kinds of berries because they look so colorful and appetizing in a bowl, over cereal or yogurt.

Color is important for a variety of reasons. Having different colors on your plate makes the meal more appealing, but those different colored foods also provide different nutrients. There’s absolutely no reason why you, wherever you live, can’t eat “colorful” foods. All over the country there are “gi-normous” supermarkets where fruit and vegetable aisles are bursting with every color of the rainbow. The days when all you could get in Dayton (no offense to Dayton intended) was iceberg lettuce and pale pink tomatoes are long gone! In fact, I love going to the supermarket in every city I visit. The variety of foods I find is just amazing.

In February 2011, I was invited by Generosity Water (
www.generositywater.org
) to go to Haiti. I’d raised money to help them bring clean water to the country and they asked me to go and see one of the wells I’d helped to build. When I got there, I was first taken aback to see so many kids eating mainly pasta and hot dogs for lunch, but then I realized that they really didn’t have any other options. They ate what was available to them to get the energy they needed. Generosity Water’s purpose in providing clean water is to make it possible for the Haitian people to farm and, therefore, eat more fresh vegetables. At the same time, clean water improves sanitation, which will lead to better health.

Luckily, most of us in America have all these things; we just need to make healthier choices among all the options that are available to us.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that abundance can be confusing—not to mention tempting. Like department stores with displays of gorgeous options, food markets are also designed to get you to buy. All that colorful, fun packaging can make the food appear as enticing as a pair of Manolo Blahniks. You can go to a market with a list and the best of intentions…and then it happens. You’re mesmerized by the unlimited possibilities, and you want it all. It’s happened to me, so I know what it’s like. If you go to a market such as Whole Foods, all the exotic ingredients from far-off lands are enough to send your taste buds on a world tour. I think it’s great to try new things and figure out how you can mix and match what’s there to make a FrenAsian or an ItaloGreek meal. But if you’re not careful, you can also come home with overloaded shopping bags and an empty wallet. So, when you go to a food store, approach it like a department store: Be conscious of the distractions, and don’t get carried away by the temptations.

Here are a few tips on how to avoid the pits those sneaky food marketers are hoping you’ll fall into when you enter their stores:

1. Always go with a list and never buy more than two items you planned on taking home.

2. Bakery items are most often right at the front of the store so that you’ll be more likely to load them in your cart right away, when you’re not too tired, out of money, or out of time after walking up and down the aisles.

3. Staples like eggs, butter, and milk are often at the back of the store so that you have to walk through tempting aisles of junk food to get to them. Instead of walking through the center of the market, walk around the perimeter where all the fresh produce is displayed (and avoid the freezers full of ice cream).