Carla Hall Talks Menopause, Rejecting Botox, and Being Excited to Turn 60: ‘I’m All Into This Decade’ (Exclusive)

Carla Hall lives by a surprising motto: “You can always just quit,” she says, laughing on a Zoom call from her home in Washington, DC.

This philosophy has allowed Hall (59) to reinvent herself again and again. Before he became a A top chef fan favorite in 2011 (she competed in seasons 5 and 8) and co-host on The Chew Hall was a CPA at PricewaterhouseCoopers for seven years.

“I really did not enjoy your work,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I quit because I said, ‘I don’t want to be 40 and hate my job.’ ”

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It turned out to be a life-changing decision. Hall, who will turn 60 in May, is happier and more confident than ever. “I entered this decade. I want to shout: ‘Look! I’m 60! I’m excited!’ “says Hall, who doesn’t turn to Botox or anti-aging fillers (“I don’t judge people who do that. It’s just not going to happen to me”).

Carla Hall with her husband Matthew Lyons (2019). “Carla just go, go, go. So I try to remind her of the value of rest,” says Lyons.

Rich Fury/FilmMagic

“I want to rely on the wisdom I feel I’ve gained,” she adds. “I don’t care that I have a wrinkle. I don’t care that when I laugh, you can see some crow’s feet, or you can see something between my eyebrows, laugh lines. Because my laugh lines mean I’m laughing. My dimple is getting deeper as I get older and I’m fine with that.”

Oh, and he loves his last job. Hall stars and serves as an executive producer on Max’s new food series Chasing Flavor (premiere on February 1). In her first lead role, she travels the world to trace the roots of iconic American dishes like chicken pot pie (Jamaica) and ice cream (Italy and Turkey).

She couldn’t have done this dream performance, she explains, without all the lessons that came before. “For this, I needed, together, all the different things I was doing,” she says.

After leaving accounting in 1988, Hall, with the help of her mother’s friend, packed her bags to start modeling and bounced around Paris, Milan and London modeling for brands like Workers For Freedom and Jaeger. “It was a bridge between what I knew I didn’t want and what I eventually wanted to do,” she recalls, “even though I didn’t know what it was.”

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“When I look at my modeling photos, I see that I was never comfortable,” says Hall (1989). “Compared to the self-confident photos I took in ’59 [top]”.

Europe introduced her to new cuisines and soon she developed a love for cooking. When she returned to the United States, she left some food at a friend’s office, and her dishes were such a hit that she started catering. “I worked every day for five years,” she says. “I got my 10,000 hours.”

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Then she went to culinary school because “I knew I had the experience, but I didn’t have the theory,” she says. “I wanted to bring the two together.” Several restaurant jobs followed.

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Her big success happened in 2008 when she was selected as a contestant on Top chef: New York. She made an impression with her lively personality and signature catchphrase – “hootie hoo!” — a Marco Polo-like call that Hall and her husband of 17 years, Matthew Lyons, now 57 and a lawyer turned yoga instructor, still use to find everyone else in crowded places.

class=”ql-align-justify”> Carla Hall ate these slow cooked pork chops ‘every Sunday’ as a child

As A top chef was becoming unavoidable on TV, she experienced a spontaneous abortion in private. “I believe everything happens for a reason,” says Hall, who was already stepmother to Lyons’ son from a previous relationship. “There was acceptance. And frankly, it was grace from the universe. I said, ‘Okay, I should be doing something else.’ ”

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Carla Hall placed fifth on Top Chef: All Stars, here in 2010: “It’s not about winning. It’s about understanding yourself and challenging yourself.”

Barbara Nitke/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

In 2011, Hall was invited to host The Chew in New York, an offer that would require her to spend most of the week away from the couple’s home in Washington, D.C. “I was the first one to say, ‘You have to go,’” says Lyons. “This rise in her professional life has been a comet since we met. And yet she remained the same. What I really appreciate about Carla is that she takes everything lightly.”

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Carla Hall Hall (with Mario Batali, Michael Symon and Clinton Kelly in 2016) has recorded nearly 1,200 episodes of The Chew. “They taught me so much,” she says.

Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Hall stayed with the ABC show for seven seasons. But in December 2017, her co-host Mario Batali was fired after being accused of sexual assault. “To a lot of people’s dismay, I was there for him,” says Hall, who still maintains a friendship with Batali today. “It was not up to me to forgive this person. . . judge lest you be judged.” The show ended six months later. Truth be told, Hall ended up on the Food Network’s Championship in baking shows.

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Her latest obstacle is inevitable: menopause. “It used to be a silent journey and I’m so happy that women are starting to talk about it,” she says. Menopause for Hall means brain fog, night sweats and trouble sleeping. However, she was prescribed a “cocktail” of treatments to help combat some of the symptoms: hormone replacement therapy, collagen and magnesium. “It’s helped my energy tremendously,” says Hall.

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She might need it for the next act. “I think it’s driving race cars,” she says, only half joking. “I said that [NASCAR driver] AJ Allmendinger when I met him. I really feel like if you don’t challenge yourself, you’ll never grow.” And if it doesn’t work? “You can always just get out of it.”

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Source: HIS Education