Carla Hall at 61: ‘Menopause Feels Like an Upgrade’—Her Secrets to Joyful Living (EXCLUSIVE)
The celebrity chef opens up about food, fashion, fitness and finding joy in her 60s
With her signature funky glasses and catalog of comforting Southern-inspired recipes, Carla Hall is one of the most immediately recognizable celebrity chefs, and in going from a Top Chef contestant to a host of The Chew and a regular presence on the Food Network, the TV personality and cookbook author has earned a loyal fanbase who can’t get enough of her quirky charm.
Hall’s latest project is a partnership with the nutrition app MyFitnessPal, and she just hosted an exclusive cooking class in New York City on behalf of the brand. Woman’s World was lucky enough to attend (and pick up some much-needed chopping skills from Hall!) and the chef sat down with us to talk about her journey from finance to food, how her bold fashion sense inspires her cooking, the joy she’s found in hitting her 60s and more.
Carla Hall’s MyFitnessPal collab
“Whenever I partner with a brand, it has to be something that’s tied to my life,” says Hall, who has been using MyFitnessPal for years. Working with a brand dedicated to meal planning and user-friendly recipes felt like a natural fit, and she created eight nutritious new recipes for the app. “I love the sheet pan omelet,” she says. “It’s passive cooking—you just put it in the oven, and it’s done. You can have it for breakfast, you can put it on bread, you can put it in a wrap. You can use it in all different ways.”
Why protein matters more as you age
Hall takes cultivating a healthy lifestyle and staying fit seriously. “I’m always thinking about my protein plan. I even ask my mom, who has dementia, what her protein plan is, because I know that it’s so important as you age,” she says, adding, “As a caretaker, you have to realize what you can take off your plate and what you can outsource. As women, we’re such caretakers and we think so much about everybody else that we can forget to think about ourselves,” and noting that she’s used MyFitnessPal to make meal plans for her mom.
When it comes to her workout routine, “I’m not concerned about my weight on a scale. I’m concerned about my body fat percentage and my muscle mass,” Hall says. “I do strength training, interval walking training and stretching. My husband is a yoga and meditation instructor, so that also helps.”
From finance to food: Carla Hall’s career pivot
Hall has had an unusual career path, as she worked in finance and modeled before following her passion and becoming a chef. “I quit a job that seemed safe and steady, where you could pay the bills and look like you’re on the right path because it wasn’t making me happy, but even working in accounting, I got something out of it,” she says. “I’ve had highs and lows, but the lows put me where I am now. When I look back, I think about how my grandmother always said, ‘It is your job to be happy, not to be rich.’”
Hall still has a modelesque presence, and her artsy style sets her apart from her peers. She sees her fashion sense as deeply connected to her cooking, saying, “My body is my canvas, and I love mixed prints. With food, my plate is also my canvas. I like mixing textures and flavors and showing people how to bring something unexpected to a dish, and with my mixed prints, I’m bringing something unexpected to an outfit.” “I have 80 pairs of glasses,” she adds with a laugh. “I call them my ‘face art.’”
On menopause, confidence and joy at 61
Hall took time to find her ideal career path early on, and she has a full plate (both literally and metaphorically!) as a celebrity chef. “Everything that I do now is something that I really want to do, so that makes things easier,” she says when asked how she finds balance. “Nobody has true balance, but it’s about choices. Are you going to be resentful of your choices or are you going to be joyful about your choices? And I’m very joyful about my choices,” she adds.
At 61, Hall says, “With every decade, I’ve gone through this magical door of understanding myself, having more confidence and feeling empowered. I would never give up the wisdom of aging for the body or the skin that I had 20 years ago. It’s all about owning who I am and owning the blessings of feeling good.”
“I heard somebody describe menopause as an upgrade, and I was like, ‘Yes!’” she says. “It feels like an upgrade because I’m so much more confident in what I know. I love aging, and I love talking to people who are older.”
“If I had to go back and give myself advice, I’d say, ‘Say yes when you can, no when you need to and I don’t know when you really don’t know,’” Hall observes, and given her distinctly delightful energy, we think all her advice is definitely worth following.
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