Ree Drummond's Wellness Journey Includes Chocolate Cake and Totchos: "I'm Not Good When I Deny Myself"

Getty Images / Bobby Bank

"Give me this, a clear to-do list, a glass of wine … and I'm just fine," Ree Drummond says about this ultra-easy Sheet-Pan Gnocchi from her brand-new cookbook out today (buy it; $20.99, Amazon). Because yes, after dipping her toe into the keto diet, The Pioneer Woman has allowed everything back on the menu—yes, including potatoes and wine—and this is actually part of her healthy living mindset.

She visited the TODAY Show team on Monday to demonstrate how to make four of her favorite recipes that showcase this stage of her wellness journey.

"I was wearing 'pandemic pants' this time last year. The wedding was a great inspiration and motivation, but once I started exercising more and getting healthier, it felt so good that I just kept going. Now that I'm over that hump, it's just about maintaining and enjoying," Drummond tells TODAY co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Carson Daly in the first of two segments.

As she taught the hosts and viewers how to make her Buffalo Chicken Totchos, a tater tot twist on nachos, Daly asked, "Have you changed what you cook because of your wellness journey? Has it put you on a different path?"

Related: Ree Drummond Says She Eats THIS Food Every Day

"No, I have teenage boys, college students, Ladd...so I have to make food that everybody loves," Drummond says. Adding our favorite part and the comment that made us give her a standing ovation: "I'm not good when I deny myself whole categories of food. I'm just kind of learning to eat a Rhode Island-sized piece of cake rather than a Texas-sized piece of cake."

Moderation and the 80/20 rule for the win!

The cake she mentions is her Top-Secret Chocolate Cake, by the way, which she showed how to whip up next. The secret? It's a "doctored up," with a boxed mix, according to Drummond, and is so delicious that it literally had co-host Hoda Kotb scraping her plate with her fork so she could savor every last crumb.

Score all of Drummond's TODAY Show recipes here, and if you, too, love Drummond, you can cook like her with these five kitchen tools.