Padma Lakshmi Changed Her Body Perspective for Her Daughter

Padma Lakshmi has always been vocal about the fact that she gains weight during the Top Chef season and then goes through a detox to lose the weight after. But now the host has explained that her daughter’s own body consciousness led her to relax a bit about her size.

She explained that now her detoxes are a little less serious and she just keeps clothing around in different sizes.

“It’s no sweets, no red meat, no wheat, no alcohol, no fried food, no dairy except for cottage cheese or low-fat yogurt. But this is a milder version — like, I can fall off the wagon one day a week. It’s a more relaxed version now, because I don’t care as much [as I used to]. I don’t need to be a size 2. It’s OK.

“Rather than kill yourself to get into the lower size, you look skinnier in the bigger size. No one’s looking at your labels. It used to be about being a certain size and fitting into clothes, but now with Top Chef, I have clothes in every size in my closet, from a 4 to a 14.”

Padma explained that her seven-yea-old Krishna was starting to make comments about her own figure.

“Every message I telegraph about food and our bodies is important. If I need a bigger dress, so be it. That one day — or any day — on the red carpet isn’t nearly as important as making sure my daughter doesn’t measure her worth by her dress size.”