I Ate Like Christina El Moussa for a Week and It Wasn't the Worst
When Flip or Flop star Christina El Moussa recently told People that food was the "last thing" on her mind during her stressful divorce, I was 100% sure she was not my type of person. Kind of like people who "forget to eat" or who think ice cream "isn't breakfast."
So when I looked at a rundown of what she actually eats in a day, I was a little surprised at how reasonable her diet seemed. Could it be? Or would I, upon closer inspection, find out that her idea of a delicious dessert consists of a measly four almonds?
Day 1
I'm less than 30 minutes in and already a little panicked. You see, El Moussa works closely with her friend and nutritionist Cara Clark when it comes to planning her meals. And Clara Clark toldE! that while a lot of people will take an occasional week-long break from their nutrition plans, El Moussa "never ever goes off plan." She also limits gluten and dairy, and though Clark is quick to say that she "doesn't fret about having creamer in her coffee or a slice of cake," I'm a little worried about coffee creamer and cake being placed together in one sentence like this.
That aside, today's meals are pretty easy to follow - El Moussa starts every day with overnight oats and chia seed pudding, and since I already like the latter (made with almond milk and a scoop of Quest Nutrition protein powder, and topped with blueberries), breakfast is a breeze. I follow in her footsteps for lunch (one of her go-tos is a kale and quinoa salad with avocado, cherry tomatoes, and feta or goat cheese) even though I was in a rush this morning and didn't make it ahead of time. I'm loving El Moussa right now for not adding anything out-of-the-ordinary to her salad - the local deli had a salad bar with all of the ingredients.
Her snacks aren't anything I'd expect from a celeb either. No unicorn fingernail clippings or anything - just nuts, a rice cake with peanut butter, green juice, and the like. That said, she's got about 8 inches on me and does more than just the corpse pose part of yoga, so I don't need as many calories as she does. I skip the snacks today and move straight to dinner - TACOS! I can feel my six-pack emerging with every bite.
Day 2
Chia seed pudding is a pretty "set it and forget it" meal, and I very nearly do this morning. I briefly entertain the idea of replacing the pudding with a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, but I come back to the apartment for it. My arteries thank me.
I usually work from home, but today I'm in an office. An office that has a drawer full of snack bags of Cheese Nips. Since free snacks are pretty much the only upside to have to wear a bra and pants to work, it's pretty hard to walk away. But El Moussa eats nuts as a snack, so I eat nuts as a snack. They're pretty good, and the crunch even drowns out the sound of the Cheese Nips calling my name.
For lunch, I grab a Cobb salad, another one of El Moussa's favorites. I'm not a huge fan of Cobb salad, especially since learning - embarrassingly recently - that it's named after a guy named Robert Cobb and not corn (as in "on the cob"). It's underwhelming. I resign myself to the fact that today is a sad desk salad day. After all, we can't just go around having tacos all the time! Can we?
We can. I can. And I do, for dinner.
Day 3
The third morning in the row that has started with chia pudding. Third morning in a row that has started with a whole bunch of farting. I remain unfettered. For lunch, I decide it's time to finally confront my enemy: salmon. I usually find it pretty dry and tasteless, but celebrities appear to have access to some kind of special, delicious salmon because, damn, you cannot read a celebrity food diary without salmon being in there. El Moussa included - in fact, "she pretty much eats salmon every day," according to her nutritionist. (Which means I already blew the first two days. Oops!)
I will say this: It's not the worst. El Moussa is very serious about her salmon not being cooked in butter, so I go with some jalapeño olive oil to give it a little flavor. It does, indeed, have a little flavor. I add some greens in cilantro dressing to it. I eat while reading the news. It is the saddest desk salad.
Rather than console myself with tacos, I set out to conquer the spaghetti squash for dinner. It's my first time making it myself, and I foolishly opt to cut it in half before baking it rather than after. If you're thinking about doing this, just keep in mind that the spaghetti squash is very, very hard to cut before it's been cooked, so it helps to have a little arm strength, a sharp knife, and a Xena Warrior Princess scream. I need new arms now, but it was worth it - the spaghetti squash was amaaaaazing after 40 minutes in the oven and sprinkled with salt and parmesan cheese. Definitely adding this to my regular dinner rotation.
Day 4
I'm mixing it up this morning! Mostly because I forgot to prep the chia pudding last night. Breakfast today - peanut butter on a rice cake - is technically a snack for El Moussa, but I figure we have different ideas of what a serving of peanut butter looks like, so it evens out. (I know rice cakes are considered a loser diet food or whatever, but I actually think they're super underrated.)
On my schedule today is a facial, a pedicure, and Netflixing until my eyeballs hurt, so I keep things low-key/lazy for both lunch and dinner - AKA leftovers. Wood chips salmon over greens for lunch, and more spaghetti squash for dinner.
I'm having a serious craving for something sweet, and while El Moussa does have one glass of wine and a Justin's organic mini peanut butter cup two nights a week, I'm pretty sure I met my peanut butter quota this morning. I do go with the glass of wine though.
Day 5
In the interest of variety (and because I forgot to prepare my chia pudding against last night), I turn another one of El Moussa's snack - a green smoothie - into a meal. (If you'd like to hear all about how I'm the first person to ever discover that smoothies are delicious, right this way.)
I polish off the spaghetti squash for lunch, but it's hard to enjoy it when I know what's next: salmon. I try to think of what I can do to make it tastier, but considering that El Moussa doesn't even allow hers to be cooked in butter, I think she'd frown upon salmon being lightly sprinkled over a three-pound bowl of mac and cheese. I decide it's only sort of cheating to swap in sodium-heavy smoked salmon for baked salmon. You're reading this in the future and you can't stop me, which makes it all the more delicious. I'm drunk on power and nitrates.
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