As I was baking a chocolate torte from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table, I glanced at her picture on the jacket. This author of Dorie’s Cookies, Baking Chez Moi and other wonderful cookbooks is petite, yet she clearly enjoys great food and sweets.
It got me thinking about the many slim people who make a living creating fabulously delicious meals and desserts.
To name a few, there’s Nigella Lawson, Giada De Laurentiis, Bobby Flay, Joanne Chang, Gordon Ramsay, Naomi Pomeroy, Rick Bayless, and Alice Waters. I could fill this page with the names of chefs or food writers who are slim. This includes pastry chefs.
I’m a weight loss coach for foodies. I teach my clients how they can eat the foods they love, lose weight and keep it off. In that capacity, I talk to so many people who can’t believe it is possible to do that.
They’re stuck in the diet mentality. They believe the only way to slim down and stay there is to give things up. Things they love. Sugar. Carbs. Fats. Yet they are still struggling with their weight.
When I did a little research into what some professional foodies did to stay healthy and trim, I was not surprised to see that it was the same things I do and that I teach my clients.
1. They eat what they love and don’t feel guilty about it. There are no forbidden foods. Nigella Lawson, who doesn’t go on diets, explained, “I wouldn’t want a life where I lived on chia seed pudding, just as I wouldn’t want a life where I lived on Eggs Benedict or steak and chips.” Bobby Flay says, “You can eat anything you want in moderation.”
Take away: When you listen to your body and trust it’s wisdom, it tells you to eat a balance of foods, not just sweets and chips. Because nothing is off limits, you don’t have cravings for formerly “forbidden” foods and you don’t need “cheat days.”
2. They eat smaller portions. Chefs are not members of the Clean Plate Club. They know the first few bites taste the best, and they don’t hesitate to take home part of their meal to eat later. Naomi Pomeroy recommends having food wrapped up to take home to reduce portion size and save you time making lunch the next day. Bobby Flay doesn’t eat more than 75% of what’s on his plate.
Take away: If you eat when you’re hungry and stop eating when your body is lightly full, you give your body the amount of food it needs so you don’t gain weight. You also feel great and your digestive problems magically subside.
3. They make exercise a priority. Many of the cooks I read about make regular exercise an integral part of their life. Nigella Lawson and Giada De Laurentiis faithfully practice yoga, and Gordon Ramsay has been in five Ironman triathlons.
Take away: Exercising your body is part of being healthy. It helps you control your weight, reduces your risk of deadly diseases, improves your mood and increases your energy.
Chefs work long hours, eat irregularly, and work with an abundance of rich foods. They love great food. If they can lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, then anyone who incorporates these strategies can too.
As always I wholeheartedly agree with everything you’ve written here. I know it’s so much easier read 🙂 then done – – but you’ve nailed it it truly is the key.
When I owned my training studio 20 years ago I tried to impart these concepts to my clients.
So many fads have come and gone – – these remain the same
I can do everything but portion size.. mine are still based on the size of my head instead of my hand.
If you’re aware of that , you can change it. Try putting half as much food on your plate. Check in with your hunger and see if you feel lightly full before deciding whether to take more. Notice how wonderfully light you feel afterwards.
Thanks for the reminders. I seem to gain weight easily if I don’t strictly adhere to most of the things you mentioned. Great post!
“when your body is lightly full” is such a great concept, and such a great feeling! I remember one Azure wine dinner in particular when the main course was oxtail… delicious, but holy cow! Just a humungous portion. I was still in the “there are starving children in China” mode, so literally choked down almost all of it, and felt utterly horrid all night. Looking back, I wonder how I could have been so silly. Looking forward, I know I will never be again! Thanks, Shari!
Love the pun: oxtail . . . holy cow! Those children in China wouldn’t have gotten to eat the oxtail anyway, but you know that now. You weren’t silly–you were taught to believe that stuff. I just wonder why it took me so long to question it! I love the light feeling of not overeating!
I know this….I do….but I have the hardest time with everything you stated. Surrounded by food is the hardest thing ever…catering is a party all the time and parties are for forgetting to eat only half….working all day its hard to remember to exercise…argh!
I’m not saying it is easy, but it gets easier with practice and then becomes your habit. If you’re surrounded by an abundance of food, why approach eating from a place of scarcity? There’s always great food in your life, so you don’t have to eat it when you aren’t hungry. Check out this post for more about what I mean https://sharibroder.com/enjoy-the-holidays-without-gaining-weight/