Well with Arielle Lorre - 228: Overcoming Orthorexia and a Traumatic Brain Injury By Healing Through Nutrition & Food with Kelly Scott

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Kelly Scott is a professional chef, face of @kellyscleankitchen on TikTok and Instagram, and author of The Basics of Cooking. She joins the show to discuss how she overcame a traumatic brain injury and a nearly deadly eating disorder, through learning how to cook and sharing her passion with the world. We talk about orthorexia, how she decided to get better, her experience working in the restaurant industry (and what really goes into your food at “healthy” restaurants), how she healed acne with food, and why it’s so important to find what works for each of us personally when it comes to our health.     Right now, LMNT is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any order. Get yours at DrinkLMNT.com/BLONDEFILES.   Visit athleticgreens.com/blondefiles for a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.   House of Macadamias is generously giving my listeners an exclusive code to get 20% off your first purchase, so take advantage and visit houseofmacadmais.com/blonde and use code 'blonde'.   Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome to the Blond Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lorry, and I'm here to talk all things, wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Welcome to honestly a really great episode of the podcast, if I do say so myself. I was really happy with this conversation. I kind of expected it to go one way and then it kind of took a different turn and we delved into some really important topics I think that I don't cover a lot here on the show. One of them being orthorexia. So orthorexia is a form of of an eating disorder where there's kind of this hyper focus on eating really clean, really healthy. I think that a lot of people probably fall somewhere on that spectrum. And it was really interesting to me to hear my guests experience with that and so much more. I knew a little bit of her story from following her on TikTok, but she really has an inspiring story of what she went through and how she got out of it. So I'm talking to chef Kelly Scott. She is a professional chef and face of Kelly's Clean Kitchen on TikTok and Instagram. She has a really inspiring story of nearly

dying from an eating disorder and fearing food to becoming a professional chef and food content creator and recent cookbook author of The Basics of Cooking. You guys have to go follow her on either TikTok or Instagram. She covers the basics so well. I talk about it in this episode a little bit, but I learned how to cut an onion properly. Like you would think that I would know that. Nope, I didn't. I learned when to put oil on a nonstick skillet. Didn't know that. So so many amazing tips if you are a novice chef like myself or you're a little more experienced, there's something for everybody and really great recipes. And her cookbook as well, the basics of cooking covers all of that too, and there's videos to accompany each recipe. So I thought that was amazing. Her mission

is to teach and inspire others to cook in an easy and fun way. And she really has taken TikTok and Instagram by Storm this past year, growing her community to over 750,000, now actually more, I think, 850,000 people through her inspiring story and educational videos. So I mentioned some of the things that we talk about, but we rewind and talk about her kind of early life where she was playing college volleyball. She had a traumatic brain injury. And in that period of time when she wasn't able to play volleyball anymore, she developed an eating disorder. And we kind of explore how that came to be and why. We talk about the trajectory of her eating disorder. What made her realize that she needed to change. We talk about orthorexia. And then we talk about how cooking helped her heal that eating disorder. We

about the fundamentals of cooking. We talk a little bit about the restaurant industry, which I thought was fascinating. She was working in restaurants before she became a private chef. And I asked her what really goes down there that we might be surprised by. We talk about some cooking hacks. Oh, we talk about how she cleared her acne with celery juice. Yep, celery juice. So you will hear that towards the end of the episode. And we just discuss how to find what works best for your health, because different things work for different people. And I think you guys will find this conversation really fascinating. So please enjoy chef Kelly Scott. Welcome, Kelly. Well, hi, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you. I've gone down a rabbit hole on your TikTok.

Oh, really? Yes. And I'm excited to talk to you about like the cooking aspect of things because I have no formal training. I just throw shit together and make things up. But, you know, Your page is so valuable. Like it has just so many things like the knife skills and just kind of fundamentals of cooking that I think are so easy for even somebody who has no culinary background to learn and to like implement in their lives. And so I want to talk about that. But you have a really amazing story because your trajectory to getting where you are today was a bit of a rocky one. Right. So let's just say really.

Let's rewind a little bit. And you can just introduce yourself to the audience. And tell us a little bit about what your life was like before. Yeah, I'd love to jump in and discuss anything and everything. I'm Kelly. I'm a personal chef and business owner in Southern California. And I've been a chef for a little over five years now. But I definitely had no intentions of being a chef earlier in my life.

Basically, to start off how I got into cooking and everything in my life, My journey was I was actually a college volleyball player, and I had no intentions of doing anything of my life but volleyball. Like, that was my life. And I know it's like so cliche as like an adult looking back like 10 years from now that, like, I was so consumed by that. But it really was my life. And in that process, I actually suffered a horrible injury.

I had a traumatic brain injury in college and college volleyball. And that just completely derailed where I thought my life was going and put me in a completely different direction than I expected to go and it kind of spiraled. Can you tell us what happened? Like, how did it affect you that it was so bad that it made you have to stop? Yeah. So basically what happened at first I thought I was a concussion. So I got hit in the head with a volleyball.

And that doesn't seem like it would be that hard. But when you're at a high, like D1 level playing that it hits you. at such a high speed that it's actually really bad. So I got hit in the head. I kind of blacked out. And this was right before an important game too. I blacked out, came to, and I was like really out of it. Like when you get a bad concussion, you can't think straight. I knew instantly had a concussion too. This was probably my fifth concussion. Wow. Yeah. Lots of, lots of brain injuries. You wouldn't think with volleyball. You really wouldn't think. Yeah. And I think like football and really high contact sports. basketball, stuff like that.

But volleyball, like a lot of concussions and head injuries. And usually it's not taking that seriously either because volleyball is, you know, not as high impact. You know, you get hit in the head of the volleyball, whatever. But I knew instantly it was a bad concussion and I was freaking out and was like sobbing in the locker room, all this stuff. And my coaches came in. They were just like, you're going to play. And I was like, okay. And they kind of convinced me that I was fine.

It was just like a minor headache and kind of pressured me because they like implied that if you don't play this game, you're never going to probably play again, basically. That's very common in college athletics. So I played. I played the next day. And I was like, something's wrong. Like this is really bad. And that's when I went to my physical therapist and we went to the doctors. And from there, it just kind of cascaded into this more than concussion.

It was actually bad brain in terms. How do you recover from that? So it was an interesting recovery process. I tried to come back to play volleyball for over a year. So it was a year of I went to countless brain doctors. I went to brain rehab. They have actual physical therapy for your brain. So I'd go in weekly and do these brain exercises where it's a lot of eye tracking and crazy

movements that you have to try to like basically connect like the brain to your body. And even after those, I would be like almost passing out after those. like just walking on a treadmill too, I would just be like people would have to be next to me to make sure I was like standing straight up and like not fall over. Yeah. And so I would just go countless doctors all over the southeast, countless rehabs for about a year and a half before finally I was like, I can't do this anymore. I was just too taxing on me. I was seeing like my friends and my teammates play still and it was just too hard emotionally, physically to keep doing it. And I was in like a horrible, horrible depression too.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what happened after that? So this thing that you thought you were going to do for your life, it was your whole life, it suddenly kind of ripped away from you. Absolutely. And you mentioned that you went into a depression. So what else shifted in your life at that time?

Yeah. So at that point, I was obviously like super depressed. I, my value in my life came from my performance and what others thought of me and how well I was doing because, I mean, I was raised in a competitive household. So I was like, if I do well and play well, I'm going to be liked. So at that point, I was like, I have no passion. My friends are like still on the team.

So I became very depressed. And I remember one day I was like, you know what, if I don't have any control over what's happening to me and what's healing, I'm just going to control what I eat, what, how well I'm going to treat my body in that sense and like how well I'm going to look. So if I can't if I can't feel good, I'm going to look good at least because, again, I was measuring my worth based on what others thought of me. So I was like, well, I'm going to look good. And that's when I fell into really bad eating disorder.

And within four months of me, like, just deciding I was going to, quote, unquote, look good. I lost 45 pounds, which is— Wow. And I didn't have 45 pounds to lose either. Yeah. Like, I was already, like, a lean volleyball player. I had muscle. But I became, like, extremely emaciated.

and just basically my life like crumbled around me. One of my all-time favorite wellness practices that really changed the game for me is adding electrolytes to my water. And I was traveling last week and let me tell you this is such a game changer, especially when you are flying. I don't know about you, but usually when I fly, it feels like no matter how much water I drink, I land and I'm shriveled up. I have a headache. I'm nauseous. and I just feel super dehydrated, but I bring Element with me everywhere I go, and it alleviates all of that. So Element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don't.

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we try to fix our hormones, fix our fluid retention, all of that, but we ignore maybe what is at the root of it or what could be causing it kind of trickling down to cause these symptoms that we're experiencing. So I find that replenishing electrolytes really helps me with a lot of that, especially the fluid retention piece. My nutritionist told me to do this years ago, and it was such a game changer. Element can also help prevent and eliminate headaches, like I said, muscle cramps, fatigue, sleeplessness, and other common symptoms of electrolyte deficiency. So my absolute favorites are the orange salt. That's like my go-to. I love the citrus salt. I love the raspberry, the watermelon, basically anything fruity, but they have so many delicious flavors. I have friends

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Since we are talking about fueling our bodies in this episode with nutritious ingredients, let's talk about nutritious snacking. A lot of people ask me what I like to snack on. And it really varies throughout the day, but I keep it really simple. And one of my absolute favorite snacks, which you probably already know, are macadamia nuts. And it's not just me, health experts, high performance athletes, and esteemed doctors have all been talking about macadamias. And this is why macadamias are the lowest carb nut. They have more healthy fat than even avocado, and they are rich in the rare omega-7s that no other oil or nut has. So macadamia benefits are totally unique. In fact, a recent study showed macadamia oil has more beneficial effects to overall human health than olive oil or macadamia oil. Its omega-7s have been linked to natural collagen production. We love that. increased skin elasticity, we really love that, and anti-inflammatory properties and fat loss.

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They are the absolute best. So House of Macadamia's products don't ever go on sale, but they are very generously giving my listeners a code to get 20%. off all purchases. This is an exclusive offer just for you, and it's for a limited time. So all first orders will receive a cold-pressed extra virgin macadamia oil that's truly one-of-a-kind valued at $20, totally complimentary when you use the code blonde at checkout. Just go to house macadamias.com slash blonde to begin indulging in health. Again, that's houseof macadamias.com slash blonde. How did you feel? Did you feel like you were controlling things and were you happy

with the weight that you were losing? I don't know if that's like an okay question. No, that's absolutely. Actually was the only thing that like made me happy, funnily enough. And I've gone through lots of like therapy and EMDR to like process this and why I handled this trauma that way. But that was the only thing to pull me out of a depression and like live for something. So through losing, weight and finding myself like looking quote unquote good and like people like noticing like me again. That was the only thing to like wake me up and like make me feel good. So it did feel amazing at the time. And I didn't know when I was in it like when this was happening that how much of like a toxic cycle I was in and how this would affect my life in a negative way because it was the only thing

that was bringing me joy at the time. I can relate to that a little bit. I'm not sure how familiar you are with my story. But I've been in recovery for nine years and my issues were different, although I did have raging bulimia when I was in my addiction to drugs and alcohol. But I hear a lot of people in recovery say that when they look back, even though, you know, in retrospect it was terrible. At the time, they feel like it was the only thing that kept them alive and kept them going because, you know, it's a different kind of addiction to, an eating disorder, but it's still something that you kind of fixate on and it becomes your coping mechanism and your medicine in a way. And it's something that you're so reliant on.

Yeah. So how did you get to a place where you realized that you needed to change? What were the people around you? Like were your family alarmed? How did that unfold? Funnily enough, no one around me said anything. Wow. And I looked like a skeleton. I looked like. I look at pictures now and I'm like, that doesn't look like a human. Yeah, I saw a picture on your TikTok. Yeah, it's crazy how different I looked. And my family and friends, like, come about, were, like, concerned, but no one ever said anything directly to me. And it wasn't until I remember I was taking a nutrition class and we did a day on eating disorders.

And it was like, these are the signs, X, Y, and Z. And they had us track our food for the class. And I realized I was eating like 1,200 calories. day. And I'm six one, so I should be eating like 2,200 calories a day if I'm not even active. And I was like, okay, this isn't normal. And I like, I like went up to my teacher and she was like, I was like, is this like disorder eating? And she was like, I think like it wouldn't hurt to go see someone. And so at that point, I was like, okay, well, I'll just see someone to see. Like I don't want to like take it too far. And I was also seeing signs like at this point, it would hurt to sit down

because my bone, like my butt was so bony. And like my heart. would flutter a lot, which is usually what happens. People have heart issues once they get too thin. So I was seeing signs, and I knew that it wasn't completely healthy, but then part of me still was like, oh, but I really want to keep going because it's like the only thing of making me happy. But I did decide to go and seek out a therapist and nutritionist. And the nutritionist was the first one to tell me that, no, this is not normal. And that if you keep going this way, that you're going to die. And there was even one session with her. I like, walked in and she weighed me every time just to keep up and I had lost weight like from the week

before and she was like I'm afraid that if you walk out of this doctor's office you're not going to live so at that point I was like shit okay well I can't die in my family like they'll be like I didn't care about myself dying it was just like I can't let my friends and family see me fail so that's when I decided I would try to work out of it and work towards at least getting healthier to the point where people wouldn't be worried about me. It's interesting, though, that you said you didn't want to fail. It's kind of like that competitive nature that you probably had from volleyball your whole life was transferred over to this other thing.

And it's so interesting how, like, we can't really have the compassion for ourselves. Like, you didn't want to do it for yourself. You wanted to do it for other people. Yeah, performative. I didn't want to see let my family in front. down, you know, and then them to look down upon me because I was such a perfectionist at the time. And my value only came from what others thought of me. So I was like, okay, well, we can't let that happen. Yeah. I saw, I think, yesterday that Glennon Doyle, did you see this?

I did not. I love her. Yeah. Well, she, I think it was Glennon Doyle. Yes, it was her. She came out and said, I have this announcement to make. I've been diagnosed with an eating disorder. And I saw a lot of comments and backlash online where people were like, this is so attention-seeking. How did you not know that you had an eating disorder? And it's interesting to hear that you had kind of a similar experience where you were like, is this? Like, I think people just assume that people know what they're doing. But for you, it seemed like at the time it was more of a coping thing. And, you know, you were transferring the control that you had with volleyball to this.

And you didn't really know if it was a quote unquote eating disorder or not. Yeah. And that's usually because a lot of like people think of eating disorders of only like anorexia or bulimia. And there's a lot of in between. There's binge eating. There's orthorexia, which I identify with orthorexia, which is just the wanting to be perfect with your health. And so if you don't fall into the typical anorexia or bulimic, people usually don't see it as disorder eating. And you're more likely to fall through the cracks and not get categorized.

or not get the help that you need to, which is really sad. But I think it's good more people are talking about it now because there's so such like a wide spectrum of what disorder eating looks like. Yeah. And I think it's so important that you say that because I think orthorexia is rampant. It's on the right. It's like I think one of the most common and like rising issues of this day, especially in the culture that we're in because everyone wants to be like your perfect health. There's so much information on this and that. And so if you're not doing all of these things to be healthy, you're like, quote, unquote, unhealthy.

So a lot of people fall into the orthorexia category, which, yeah, you know, it might be into health, but there's a certain extent where it's too much. Right. Like you think you're being healthy, but it's actually, like, so restrictive. Yeah. And you don't even realize that. I definitely was, went through a phase of that years ago where I was like, I had this whole list of things I wouldn't eat. And how did you begin to heal? I'm always curious how people recover from eating disorders because for me, like with drugs and alcohol, you don't have to do drugs and alcohol three times a day. Right. You know, like there's no moderate.

You just stop, like abstinence, but you can't be abstinent from eating, obviously. So I always think that must be so much harder. So how did you begin to recover from the eating disorder? So it's definitely a slow process because I was working both with the. a therapist and nutritionist, but a lot of part of me didn't want to do it. So when people are recovering from eating disorders, you usually don't want to do it because there's another voice in your head telling you to clamp on and continue this eating disorder. So you have to completely rewire your brain. So I was working with a therapist to help rewire that,

nutritionist, to start incorporating more foods. And the main thing for me was I actually, it was like, I'm just going to cook for myself and hopefully like cooking eventually. And A lot of it started with the fact that I didn't trust anyone to cook for myself. So I was like, I'm just going to cook everything. And through cooking, I was probably like a six-month process where I started to actually enjoy cooking and trying new foods and like experimenting in the kitchen. And that's when I was like, oh, wait, cooking and eating is like a lot of fun, even though I was starting it just because I didn't want other people to cook for me.

But then I started to become super passionate about it and having a lot of fun in the kitchen and realized, oh, I like this, like more than starving myself, basically. And it's that when you decided to go to culinary school? So it probably was like the start of my passion for it. It took me another year before I decided to go to the culinary school because when I graduated my undergrad, I was still like in the eating disorder phase and I started to like cooking more and like eating more, but I decided to take a gap year and I was actually going to go to law school. So it wasn't until six months into my gap year when I realized, to that I wouldn't, if I was in law school, I couldn't cook every day and, like, eat like I do. And I was

like, well, that doesn't seem very fun. I think, like, I'd rather go to culinary school and just, like, chase my passion instead of chase what, like, the world was telling me I should probably do. I have been traveling for the last couple weeks. Nothing very exciting, but I was visiting family and then dog sitting for my parents. I saw a lot of friends. And now I am in the city. And I have I've been eating most of my meals out. I've gone to a lot of dinners. I've gotten a lot of food to go. That's just kind of how it is when I'm in the city especially. And I'm eating a lot of things that I don't normally eat at home, not because I don't love them, but because sometimes they don't love me back. I'm talking a lot of cheese, pasta with cheese, a lot of butter. I had these carrots the other night that had brown butter and some kind of cheese. I had goat cheese, ice cream. I had pasta with like pecorino, just. all the things. So in the past, if I did this, I would probably have a little bit of a food hangover, but having my AG1 first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, I feel like really alleviates that kind of hungover feeling that I can get sometimes when I eat a lot of things that I don't

normally eat if I'm eating a ton of sugar, a ton of dairy, things like that. So AG1 is made with 75 super high quality vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients that. deliver benefits like mood, immune system, and sleep support, sustained energy, and so much more. I have really noticed a difference in my digestion, my gut health since taking it. It's just this one thing that has so many benefits. It eliminates the need to pack a bunch of supplements when I'm traveling, which I love. I love their travel packs because they're so convenient. And it just really helps your whole body thrive. AG1 is more than greens.

It's really your key health products like multivitamins, minerals, pre-end probiotics, and more working together as one. So if you want to take ownership of your health, today is a good time to start. Athletic Greens is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athletic greens.com slash blonde files. That's athletic greens.com slash. blonde files and you can take ownership over your health today. There's such a big difference in how you

feel overall, your overall health, everything when you're cooking for yourself. Like I noticed such a huge difference. Even over the summer and early fall, I was ordering out one to maybe two times a day. And even if I was eating quote unquote, you know, healthy stuff from healthy restaurants or whatever, I still felt like shit. I had skin issues. I had gut issues and I was like, what is happening? And then I got food poisoning and it was a blessing in disguise because I was like, no more. And I started cooking for myself every meal again.

And it just transformed the way I feel. And it sounds like you had kind of a similar experience, although you were dealing with something different, where like what changed for you when you started cooking for yourself? I think what changed for me. was just finding the joy in cooking and eating again because it was always pretty joyless for me, especially during that time. And I started to feel good because I was still eating like healthy. I would never eat like anything crazy at that point because it was too scary. But it started feeling really good too. Because like you said, if you cook for yourself, not only like you feel better because there's higher quality ingredients, but I feel like there's more that goes into your meal

than just a typical like takeout meal. So I was feeling good. I was having fun doing it and finding more joy in it, which really changed the game for me at the end of the day. What are the fundamentals of cooking that you think everybody should know? That's the great question. I feel like any, like the, I have six fundamentals. I would say six, which I know is a lot. But roasting, just like stuffing in your oven, saute, grill, raise and stew.

And then fry, but fry not so much. Because you can do like airfire and stuff like that. But the fundamentals, if you can like just know the science behind it and why things are the way that they are in the kitchen, like, why do you saute a chicken breast over a huge roast of beef and stuff like that? Then you can cook like any recipe out there pretty much. What are your favorite things to make? That's a great question. I get this question all the time. You have so much variety.

Everybody go to her TikTok. and on your Instagram as well, but your TikTok, it's like where you have so much amazing content and so much variety. I mean, I learned how to correctly chop an onion and I learned nice skills. I mean, like I said before, I just wing it and I just kind of put things together, you know, how to cook a live lobster. Like there's so much variety there. You can kind of find anything. So if you're just cooking for yourself, what are you making? Like, what's a typical day?

A typical day for me. So I do tend to eat more healthy still. But I try to do like one night a week for dinner. I try to do like a fun meal. And last yesterday, for example, I love cooking like beef and like short ribs, like high quality grass-fed short ribs are my favorite thing to do. And I feel like it's very relaxing and cathartic to just go through that process. But anything with like meats are very fun.

I love doing sauces because my favorite part of a meal is usually the sauce. Me too. Yeah. If you have a good sauce, it transforms like a whole dish. So that's been my favorite. especially the past, like, year or two doing that. I was a former saucy at a restaurant, so I was able to, like, learn, like, the techniques of sauces. And that just completely transformed, like, the whole game for me.

What is a sauce that everybody should know how to make? I think an easy pan sauce. So, like, so you're, like, sauteing some chicken in a pan. You have all the golden bits that are really delicious after. If you could do, like, a white wine butter sauce, that's super easy, de glaze with some white wine, throw in some things like garlic shallots and it comes together in like 10 minutes. And I think it's like such a good way to elevate the dish and make it more interesting, even if it's a simple like chicken breast for dinner. And everybody, she has a new book coming out that has video, right, for every recipe. This is amazing. Tell everyone about that. Yeah, thank you. So the book is called The Basics of Cooking. And I came up with the idea because I wanted to create something that was not just a recipe book, but actually like taught.

the fundamentals in a way that was easy to understand. And so it breaks down all the fundamentals. So the kind of ones I discussed earlier, the brazing, stewing, all of that. And it breaks down the science of it. It gives it like fun recipes to go with it, but also video content. So there's a whole video library. When you buy the book, you have access to it that will cook through the book with you and kind of explain all the things that you need to know and like the fundamentals and science behind it. so you would be able to cook any recipe. And so, like, linking the video content was important for me because I'm a very visual learner. That's probably why I love, like, TikTok and, like, Instagram Reels for cooking videos

because it's easier to comprehend, like, how to do something first just, like, reading a recipe. I, like, love recipe books, but I, like, wanted something that was more of, like, a crash course in cooking. Yeah, I think it's genius. Like, I don't know if anybody else has done this, but I feel like in this day and age, too, everybody is becoming visual, you know? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And especially with short form video or even long form video on YouTube. Like, it's just, I think it's so much more engaging to follow along there.

There's nothing worse for me than a cookbook without the even even the picture of the recipe. I'm like, what am I making? I'm like, there's no picture. I'm not cooking it. I'm not making it. There's no way. But yeah, that's definitely why I love to connect the two because it's more of a learning process. if someone has questions of, oh, how is X, Y, and Z done?

You can just go to the video and see it. Plus, there's all pictures in there as well because, like you said, I hate when there's a cookbook without pictures. And you're blowing up on TikTok. It's fun, yeah. Yeah, how? I'm in my flop era, everybody. I'm on my 2000 views video. Flop era.

I'm like, what is happening? So with strategy, I, and it's funny enough because, like, I was looking at my time home today. It was one year ago today when I had my first. like big video on TikTok. That's crazy. Yeah. And my thing was always, I'm just going to provide value for people. So there's like a few different ways on TikTok. I can be entertaining. You can be educational, X, Y, and Z. And so I was like, you know what, I'm just going to provide value and stay true to myself. Because there's a lot of food videos out there that don't align with kind of how I like do things.

So I was like, I'm just going to be true to myself, provide educational videos. And it seems that people have received them well and they are helping people, which is my main goal at the end of the end of day, is to help people cook or find passion in cooking, kind of like how I did, and just get them to be able to do things that are more manageable in the kitchen. And I think that has resonated with a lot of people because my things aren't super hard to do. They're easy dishes to do, but they're explained in a way that anyone can do them. Yeah, that's why I love it. I totally agree with all of that. You mentioned that you were a saucier, and I saw a video that you did on TikTok about vegetable oils. So right now, you're a private chef, right, in addition to

creating content and now being a cookbook author. But I saw this video where you said that even if they say they're using olive oil, they're using vegetable oil. So we're not trying to scare anyone about anything. I'm like, I eat everything. Yeah. But since you have experience in the industry, can you like tell everybody about that. Gosh, I absolutely can. And it was a shock to me going into it, especially someone who was so healthy beforehand, going to work into restaurants, even in quote-unquote healthy restaurants, seeing their practices and kind of saying they're, like, pretty shady, actually. Like, they will say they're using quote-unquote healthy oils, olive oils, avocado oils,

but they're actually using vegetable oils or cutting it with other stuff and just taking a lot of shortcuts. So that's one of the- Cuts. That's like a drug dealer cutting the cocaine. Literally. Like baking soda. Yeah.

Literally. Like, what are you doing? It's oil. Exactly. What else? There's all kinds of things, just like lying about ingredients saying, like, for example, a nice cut of meat is something else. They're usually losing the lower quality types of meats. There's just a lot of shortcuts. And even in I've worked at like, quote unquote, healthy restaurants too. And they still take these shortcuts because it means it's expensive. And people don't want to pay necessarily and they want to make a profit. So they're definitely willing to, uh, cut a lot of things that don't align with like my values. Because I think it's important for transparency and everything that I do and like feed my clients, which is why I went more the private chef route after working a few years in the restaurants because I just want to be, have that transparency, especially with people who might have health goals or allergies too. That's big thing too. A lot of places are lying about how they do things, which is bad for people with allergies. So it's pretty, It was eye-opening when I first started working in restaurants and realizing this is why a lot of Americans in general have issues because how we cook our food and deal with ingredients and stuff like that. What are some hacks if you have any or just tips for people if they're like, okay, I don't want to be ordering out every dinner, but I'm so busy. I don't have time.

Do you like to prep your food or is there anything, any advice that you have for people who are crazy busy and feel like they don't have time to cook? Yeah, well, I think there's a few routes you can do. You can obviously get like a private chef if you can afford it. But I love a good meal prep and there's like two ways that I think are like the best ways of meal prep. And you can dedicate like a Sunday afternoon and do like a few easy meals where you just cook a few proteins, have a good sauce that can go with stuff and have that set where you can mix and match stuff. So it's not as boring where you're having like the same meal every day. Another way I like, I personally do this is I'll cook a dinner and have extra like four times of portions. So I'll have some for lunch and maybe the dinner in the next day.

I'll always have some leftovers. But it makes it interesting because I could like cook dinner in the next day and have something different. So I think the issue comes when people have the mundane meal, lunch dinner every single day is the same. So incorporating more like sauces and stuff and things. that make it more interesting. But I think my favorite way to do is dinner, a bunch of extra portions, so you have stuff for the next few days. And then you have that time for the next two days where you don't have to dedicate it

to cooking. Have you had any crazy requests being a private chef? Crazy request. I have a lot of people come to me with crazy diets. It's probably the thing, especially in Southern California. I've seen every single diet possible where people. like won't eat any night shades, which are like tomatoes, bell peppers, all of that. I had one client who would fly in from Vegas and come pick up my meals frozen and fly back

because she had such a crazy, like, strict diet that she wanted to fall. That was like very, very niche. And I was like one of the food people. I was like, yeah, I'm down to cook it for you. So that was the craziest where she would like fly in for. How niche was it? That must have been crazy. It was very, just crazy because she had a lot of allergies.

But it was like she didn't eat nightshades. She didn't eat certain salts. There was probably like five things she could eat. So it was like chicken stock, chicken squash, and like maybe a few other things. And it was just like, how could you make that interesting with not like being super boring? So that's where I came in and try to help her there and keep it interesting. And she did love them. We worked together for about a year.

Wow. But yeah, it was crazy because she was coming in, fly in for the day, get on the fight. come pick up her food, go back to the airport. Wow. Yeah, which is wild. Well, I mean, I think what you're putting in your body is going to reflect in every aspect of your life and your wellness. I know that something else you've been vocal about is your struggle with acne. Sitting across from you, your skin is flawless.

And I know that you healed it right through celery juice. It was crazy. Yeah, I know if you've talked on being on Spiro and I've been on Spiro and I've been on Spiro, too. So everything you've said about your skin resonated with me as well. But it was, I've always had some acne struggles, especially when I was a teenager. But recently as like a adult, I just like got the worst acne about a year ago. And it was just like cystic, hormonal acne, all my jaw and cheeks out of nowhere. That's what happened to me this summer. I feel like that's happening with like a lot of adult, like adult women in our age range. And it's

very interesting because like it didn't used to happen before. So I'm like, what's in the water you guys? But I had done acutane twice before. I had been on Spiro before, and it worked well for me, but I knew I wanted to try to get to the root problem. So I had heard about celery juicing. And I was like, what do I have to lose? I have cystic acne everywhere. Like, I might as well just try it. I was like, I'm going to give myself three months.

If it doesn't work, I'll stop doing it. And so I would celery juice every morning. And after a month, my acne literally cleared up. That's it was. crazy. It was crazy. It was like night and day. Just like one day I woke up and it was just like no more breakouts. And I was like, this is crazy. It was the only thing I changed was the celery juice. And I was like, this is insane. So I was like, I'll keep doing it until it stops working. And so I did it for about a year. And then I felt like what it did for me. It brought my inflammation down. I also

had like gut issues and like digestion issues, which is huge with acne. And so I really think it just calmed to my body down for one time. It was a very stressful time. And, like, it was a very stressful time. like my body was inflamed. And that was the thing that needed to kickstart my health again. And so I really think through doing that, I was able to clear up a lot. And then eventually, I was able to stop doing it because it is a lot to do celery juice. You were doing a lot too, right? Like 32 ounces, 32 ounces, which that's like four bunches of celery. So it was like a job every morning juicing and just like drinking. And it doesn't taste good. No. Horrible if you've ever tried. It's like I tried and I've the most that I can do like very reluctantly 16 ounces.

That's a lot. And I feel like shit after. Yeah. It's a lot. But it's kind of amazing. And I heard you say like you don't agree with everything that that's like a medical medium thing. Yeah. But I think it's valuable to hear that. And you know, a lot of people ask me like how do you kind of sort through everything that like people recommend when they come on the show like different experts and stuff. And I'm a big proponent of just trying things and seeing what works for you. And, you know, even if there's something like celery juice where people are like, there's no science to back it up. Like when you are struggling with something, whether it's your gut health, your skin, you know, your hormones, whatever it is, you get to a place where you've tried so many things where you're desperate and you're willing to do anything. including drinking 32 ounces of celery juice.

And like, who's to say that it's not going to work for you, you know? Exactly. No, completely agree. I'm a big fan of trying whatever and, like, not judging what other people might say because everything has a crowd where it works for them. And like a cellar juice thing, yeah, it doesn't have science to back it up. It doesn't make sense, like, on the books. But why are there so many people where it helped with their skin,

it helped with their gut health, X, Y, and Z? So I'm big into, you know, trying everything out for yourself and then making the decision there because, like, health trends change so frequently. Like two years ago is keto. Now it was like the diet where everyone's like big into fruits and stuff like that. So it's just changed so much and you find like what works for yourself. And I think that's the best way to like go about health trends and like finding your health. Yeah. Like try different things.

Let's name it. Let's call it a triitarian. Yes. What do you think, Anna? Yeah. Let's see if we can make that stick. But yeah, I mean, different things work for different people. And maybe the thing that worked for you before, it doesn't work for you now.

Like, I've gone through that. And people are like, well, I thought you were doing this. And I'm like, yeah, I was a year ago. Yeah. And then, you know, we deal with different challenges. Yeah, your body changes. Your circumstances changes. I don't have to do celery.

anymore, thank God. But yeah. Do you do coffee or macha or anything in the morning? I do not. So I don't do any caffeine. I am become like a jittery psychopath when I do coffee. I do like a good latte every now and then. But my body just doesn't react to it.

I wish it would. I love coffee. Yeah. But I just become like shaky and kind of crazy. Anxious. Yeah. Anxious. Alert and anxious.

Yeah. Very, very anxious. Yeah. So, you know, in the beginning of this kind of trajectory, you said that you were getting value from your achievements. And then you were getting value from the way you looked and things that you could control. So how did that shift over the course of the last many years as you've been recovering and you have this amazing career? Have you been able to find value in other places? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I was able to shift. that mindset through lots of therapy and just self-care and trying to just like learn more about myself before it was all very performative and I just wanted people to like me and thought people would like me through my actions and like performance basically and through therapy

and kind of just working through that trauma realizing that that's not where I want to have people value from anymore. And so now I think it's just more important to surround yourself with people who genuinely see me versus the people, maybe like the popular crowd, for example. And I find that I find a lot more joy in helping others versus having others think I'm cool or like me. So I find that that is more authentically myself. And I think my life is just like a lot happier and I get more joy out of that and just care a lot less too. Like I literally don't care what people think as much as I used to. And it's just so freeing when you are able to live like that. You have to not care what people think about you. No. To be on TikTok. Literally.

They're savages on TikTok. They're like another like Instagram you'll get some haters, but TikTok's a whole other breed. Yeah, because I feel like, and I've said this before on Instagram, the people who are seeing your content for the most part are people that follow you and know the different facets of you and, you know, videos will go viral and you'll get some trolls or whatever. But on TikTok, the people that are seeing your content are the people that follow you. And then just people randoms who are scrolling and know nothing about you and they just want to, like, fire off comments on everyone's videos. Oh, yeah. It's crazy because, yeah, it's like Instagram, you have more of that community. because people you actually see people you follow.

Whereas TikTok for your page, you can't see anyone. So you don't know who's going to pop into your comments. There's a lot more savage on TikTok too because it's not necessarily your core community. Because it's never the people who follow you are invested in your story that are saying these awful things. It's always the people who just stumble across you and don't actually care. Yeah. How do you tune that out? I, at first it was very difficult starting because I'd never received.

you've seen such crazy, like, out there comments, especially when they talk about your appearance and, like, your voice as a woman. I get comments on my vocal fright every single day. Oh, yeah, every single day, which I'm like, whatever. But I just, like, don't read the comments anymore. Especially TikTok. I'll read more Instagram because they're usually not anything crazy, but I just try to not read the comments anymore. And I literally just don't care anymore, which is the only way I think if as a content creator you can deal with social media. is by not caring because a lot of these people will never say these things to your face. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah, it's more so the culture, I think, of the platform itself. Like, that's how people behave and it has nothing to do with you. But yeah, I think you have to have, like, really thick skin nowadays. Yeah. Because everyone's going to have an opinion. Exactly. Yeah.

Especially with food. I feel like people are so dogmatic about food and, like, diets and stuff. So I can just imagine the People with food, yeah, it'll say, oh, you're doing it wrong, you're not a chef, X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, you don't have to do it this way for it to like taste good. And also a lot of times it's like my version of stuff. They're like, oh, this is wrong.

You didn't add this in Crudian. I'm like, okay, well, you can go make your video and do that then. Yeah. And if everybody did it the exact same, that would be so boring. It would be so boring. Yeah, it would be so boring. And no one would be making fun videos on TikTok or Instagram. you know so it's just like you just got to tune it out and kind of laugh at it now I'm like it's kind of

funny if I see a crazy comment I'm just like this is kind of funny that people would put time and energy into commenting then also that's engagement so whatever go comment exactly yeah yeah I think it's actually kind of a compliment that somebody is taking the time out of their day to engage with your content and write whatever snarky comment or a DM or whatever yeah exactly it's just like okay Giving attention, that's fine. Yeah, and it's like you said, it's better engagement. Okay, I like to ask my guests one thing we should stop doing today and one thing we should start doing. And I've never had a chef on my show.

So let's do something around cooking. Okay. I think one thing you should stop doing is following maybe like trends too much, like food trends. The butterboard was huge. It was hilarious. The butterboard, do you remember the butterboard? It was like this huge. Like instead of a charcutory board?

It was, yeah. People were spedding butter on trays instead of like charcutory. It was just like very funny last year. And I think instead start doing more like cooking more things and being creative in the kitchen and just kind of like throwing stuff together and seeing what works and what doesn't work and going from there. Because that's when you create like fun dishes that you probably. probably wouldn't have before. So, like, creating a dish, like maybe you have a recipe that's in your repertoire and changing it into something that is more up your alley or more creative. And that's usually where my, like, most fun recipes come from is when I'm just kind of winging stuff together

in the kitchen and kind of just throwing stuff together. And usually it comes out with, like, a pretty fun creation. So I think just having more fun in the kitchen, not making it so mundane. That's when we don't want to cook. I find is when it just, like, feels like a job. So having more fun. basically. Is there a favorite recipe that you have from your book? I'm sure everybody's going to ask you that question. I love, I have a curry in there, that coconut chicken curry. Yeah, it's dairy-free, gluten-free. It is absolutely delicious. It's easy. One pot one. It's in the stew section. Okay. And it is my favorite. I love a curry. So that one's my favorite. But another one is also the sweet plantains. Oh, this one? Yeah, that one. It's just very flavorful, super light and healthy, too. It's just great.

So, yeah. Tell everybody where they can find you. Yeah, so you can find me any social media at Kelly's Clean Kitchen, TikTok, Instagram, and my website, Kelly's Clean Kitchen.com. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you liked it, and if you liked the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way. And it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can have. head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to areaallory.com. And I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Ariel Laurie. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Hectic's

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