From ‘Fat Daddy’ To Fit Chef
Being someone who’s healthy and loves to cook for a family isn’t always easy. (Photo: Ben Pollinger)
I became a chef by accident. While studying economics in college, I took a part-time job cooking in my dorm cafeteria. I never thought it would lead to a career. It was simply a job with decent pay, a flexible schedule, and an easy commute — all I had to do was walk downstairs. I immediately fell in love with the buzz of the kitchen, the activity, the action, and having food to eat all the time. Like most people, I was always into eating, but hadn’t really discovered cooking. It brought out a creative side in me that I never really explored.
I quickly discovered the pitfalls of being in a college environment where all your meals were pretty much all-you-can-eat whether you’re working or not. I had a fast metabolism growing up and was a competitive long-distance runner throughout high school. This meant that I usually had the problem of not eating enough rather than too much. When I got to college, I put on the freshman 15 fast since I had given up on the running and hadn’t replaced it with any real activity. Once I graduated from college and started working on my feet all the time in a kitchen, I pretty much maintained my weight — a state of being consistently slightly overweight, because there was always food at hand. It wasn’t until after I graduated culinary school and went to work in Europe that I got back into shape. I lost almost 40 pounds because I was walking everywhere, getting lots of activity both in the kitchen and on afternoon breaks at the beach, and generally eating a healthy diet.
Fed Up With Being a ‘Fat Daddy’
When I returned to the United States, I fell back into my old ways and gained back most of the weight I lost. I basically maintained this status for the next 10 years. Very active at work, moderate activity outside of work, but no real exercise regimen. And as I rose through the ranks in the kitchen to become an executive chef, the perils of the occupational hazards became greater. This is certainly going to sound like a luxury problem, but tasting the food produced in the kitchen is an actual responsibility. It’s very easy to cross the line between tasting and eating, and when you do that dozens of times a day, the pounds pile on. I was now 30 pounds overweight. Every time I’d near my self-imposed “danger zone” on the scale, I’d watch what I was eating for a while, lose a few pounds, and then drop back into my old habits. It was a perpetual 5-to-7 pound rollercoaster. Being a chef is a very stressful job, and I overcompensate for stress by mindlessly eating. Chocolate is my main vice. It’s very easy to head into the pastry kitchen for some “quality control checks” a little too often.
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It wasn’t until I began to near 40 and my small children would innocently poke fun at “Fat Daddy” that I realized I needed to do something, if for no other reason than my long-term health. I watched my diet a little more closely, but most of the effort went into resuming regular running. I quickly dropped 20 pounds and felt better than I had in years. But the running was beating up my body and I ended up giving it up, and gained back those 20 pounds and then some.
I became friendly with someone who happened to be in the bicycle business and was an avid road cyclist. I started to ride with him, but I was riding my old steel 10-speed. I needed a new bike, but I was afraid this too would be a passing — and an expensive — fad. But I began to feel that cycling was something I would stick with, so I invested in a very good carbon-fiber road bike, the spandex suits, and all the other cycling gear. I made cycling part of my routine. Most weekdays I can ride for an hour after dropping my kids off at school and before I head into work, and I go for longer rides on the weekends and my days off. I found a group of local guys — we’re all about the same age and ability — and we ride together pretty often.
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Breaking Past a Weight-Loss Plateau
I could sense my body changing as I picked up the mileage, but the weight wasn’t dropping. I was shifting some fat into muscle and increasing my tone, but still weighed the same. It became very clear to me after my second year riding what the problem was: I rode 4,000 miles that year but didn’t lose any weight. I had in fact done a good job maintaining, but it was clear that to lose weight I had to something about what I was putting into the tank. The problem is, the more you ride, the hungrier you are. Ultimately, I started to closely watch what I was eating. No rash diets, no eliminations. Now, I really keep an eye on reasonable levels of caloric input, and maintain a good balance of carbs, protein, and fats. I also eat lots of fruits and “live” fermented food every day — either yogurt, kimchee, or my own homemade naturally fermented raw pickles or sauerkraut. I think live cultures in our diet are very important.
I lost 15 pounds in about three months, just before last December. I gained back 5 pounds with some holiday indulgence, and lost it again. So, I figure I have another 15 pounds to go to hit a reasonable goal, and then I’ll re-evaluate. My main impetus for losing the weight is my long-term health. Cycling is another reason why I want to stay healthy. Once I lost weight, I saw a marked improvement in my average speed on the road and a serious improvement in my climbing ability — the ability to ride up steep roads.
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My brother-in-law introduced me to Tabata-style workouts last year. I’ve started to incorporate basic push-ups and sit-ups in a Tabata format into my daily routine to tone my abs and upper body and give me a little more mass on my upper body, which will both help me on the bike, but also balance my body (right now my legs are very cut, but I’m too flabby up top).
Last year I rode the Gran Fondo New York (GFNY) for the first time — it’s a “century,” or a 100-mile race. It was my first time doing that distance, and the cumulative climbing during the race is over 8,000 vertical feet. That’s about six Empire State Buildings. I’ll be riding the GFNY again this year. I rode last year wearing the equivalent of a belt made of 15 1-pound blocks of butter. Now I’ve taken that belt off and I’m trying to take the next one off, too.
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Ben Pollinger is the executive chef at Oceana, where he’s maintained the New York restaurant’s Michelin star rating since 2006. School of Fish is his debut cookbook.
This article originally appeared on EverydayHealth.com: From ‘Fat Daddy’ to Fit Chef
By Ben Pollinger, special to Everyday Health
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