6 Small Resets That Are Making One Food Network Star Feel Like Herself Again

There’s something about spring that makes you want to get your life together. Not in a dramatic overhaul way. More like a low-key reset where you buy flowers, move your body, and stop being so mean to yourself. 

On All on the Table, host Katie Lee Biegel is having one of those seasons. After 12 years and over 500 episodes hosting The Kitchen on Food Network, losing the show last fall, navigating perimenopause, and spending years not feeling like herself, she’s finally on the other side of it—and she’s not gatekeeping a single thing about how she got there.

She started a GLP-1 and it freed up her entire brain

For five years after having her daughter Iris, Biegel was carrying extra weight that wouldn’t budge no matter what she did. “I was exercising like five days a week. I was really mindful of what I was eating. And it didn’t matter,” she says. “I just kept gaining weight.” Her doctor explained it was hormones and age working against her and suggested a GLP-1. She was skeptical at first, and for the first few weeks nothing really changed, but then things started to click. The weight came off slowly, sleep got better, thinking felt clearer, and most importantly, the constant negative self-talk just…stopped. “Freeing up that brain space of not talking poorly to myself has been incredible,” she says. “It’s like that whole chunk just got taken away and I can think about something else.”

She’s dancing in the dark and doing her best thinking there

Biegel goes to a class called Forward Space in Soho. Dark room, club lights, loud music, no phones. “I do some of my best thinking in that class,” she says. “It’s an hour without any distractions…you’re in the dark and you’re just kind of in your own head and simultaneously getting out of your own head.” Her advice for anyone who doesn’t have access to a class like that:

• Go into any room in your house—bathroom, bedroom, whatever
• Close the door and turn off the lights
• Throw on great music and just dance

“Even if it’s for three minutes, just do that and I promise you, you will feel better afterwards,” she says.

The chicken Marbella story that changed how she handles negativity

While dancing in class, Biegel’s brain drifted to a memory from her Food Network days. She had wanted to make chicken Marbella on The Kitchen and a network exec replied-all to every producer on the show saying “our audience is more chicken parm than chicken Marbella. Prunes are polarizing.”

Even years later, replaying that moment in her head started pulling her mood down. The chest got tight, the stomach started churning, and suddenly a perfectly good dance class was being hijacked by a bad memory. But this time, instead of staying in it, she flipped the thought entirely. “Let me feel bad for [the network exect],” she thought. “What was going on in her life that she felt it necessary to scold me in front of the whole production staff?”

Biegel says her mood shifted “instantly” after that.

She ties it to a story her yoga teacher once told her about a guy loudly eating almonds during a lecture. Instead of fixating on how annoying it was, the teacher thought, “Isn’t that nice? He’s enjoying his almonds.” Biegel says she uses that reframe constantly now. The annoying email, the rude comment, the thing you can’t stop replaying—you actually get to decide how long it lives in your head.

She’s building something new at 44 and finally loves it

After The Kitchen ended, Biegel went through an identity crisis. “Who am I now?” she kept asking. Her husband Ryan encouraged her to start a YouTube cooking show called It’s Not Complicated, and at first she kind of resented the whole idea. “I can’t believe I’m having to learn to do something new now,” she recalls thinking. “I feel like I’m at the age where I shouldn’t be having to build something new.” 

But somewhere along the way, the resentment turned into excitement. Building something from scratch at 44 started feeling less like a setback and more like the most creative freedom she’s had in years. No network exec telling her prunes are polarizing. No one vetoing her ideas. Just her and her kitchen and whatever she wants to make. “I’m feeling like I felt back in my 20s and my early 30s when I was trying to build my career,” she says. “I feel like I’m getting to do that again, which is actually really fun.”

A spring dinner party reminded her why she fell in love with food

Biegel went to a dinner hosted by legendary chef Danielle Boulud featuring an all-spring menu. She chose the vegetarian option and was blown away. A jumbo green asparagus with foam. A perfectly boiled egg with gold leaf. A lion’s mane mushroom steak with morel mushrooms. “It actually got me excited to cook,” she says. “It made me want to go to the farmers market and explore what’s out for spring.” Sometimes all it takes is one beautiful meal to remind you why you love what you do. If your kitchen energy has been feeling flat lately, here are some ways to shake it up:

• Go to a farmers market with zero plan and just buy whatever looks good. Let the produce decide what dinner is.
• Make something you’ve never made before. Not a whole elaborate meal. Just one new thing. A sauce, a side, a vegetable that feels slightly suspicious.
• Watch someone cook who genuinely loves it—whether that’s a YouTube video, a cooking show, or even a friend. Enthusiasm around food is contagious and sometimes you just need to borrow someone else’s for a minute.

She bought Trader Joe’s flowers and it changed the vibe of her whole apartment

Biegel stopped at Trader Joe’s on a whim after seeing Nancy Meyers’ daughter posting about their flowers on Instagram. “The flowers are so inexpensive,” she says. “I went home and made flower arrangements. It looks so pretty.” It’s the kind of thing that takes five minutes and costs less than your morning coffee but somehow makes your entire apartment feel like a Pinterest version of itself. If the goal this spring is to feel a little more alive without overhauling your whole life, start with a $7 bouquet on your kitchen counter and see what happens from there.

Listen to the full episode on All on the Table with Katie Lee Biegel, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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