Terrie,
Welcome to the group. Hopefully we can share so great information among the group members. One peice of advice I can give you is that you need to know what you're putting into your body, so you should follow a pretty set diet. It is kind of like a baseball or football team. Knowing the stats. How can you play the game without knowing the score. That is how I feel. I am a weight lifter and body builder, so I track everything that goes into my body.

Thanks for posting and welcome to the group Kitchenpenguin. I may jump around here so I apologize in advance. First of all I am a skinny chef, but wasn't always. As a chef, you always have to taste, but you don't have to eat. Tasting is one thing, eating a meal of the dish is another. I am 6'2" and at my heaviest I was 245 Lbs. But I was always skinny my whole life, so being overweight was unnatural for me. What I did was cut out all soda, not even diet soda and drink water instead. At least 8 glasses a day. I mean 8 oz glasses. Also, no fast food at all. Only eat real food. Also, try and take a walk every day. You should walk at least 10,000 steps a day for health. Get a pedometer. You can get one for $20. It will track your steps. Also, I became a weight lifter and body builder. So now, a couple of years later I am skinny again, but muscular. Today I tipped the scale at 191 Lbs. Anyway, I gave the same advice to my 18 year old son 2 years ago. He is 5'10" tall and weighed about 245 Lbs. Today he is 177 Lbs after following my advice. He walks. There is no magic bullet. Calories in, calories out. If you burn more calories then you take in, you will lose weight. You have to very tightly track everything you put in your mouth. MFP makes it easy.

As far as being a chef. As I am sure you know, it is a brutally hard industry. Pastry is a little easier. Most of my career was in New York City. A very high pressure environment working in some of the top restaurant in the country. As a cook I burnt allot of energy. But as an executive chef I was the boss. Working hard, but more with my brain then my brawn. It is hard to stay in shape in the restaurant industry. Temptation all around you. Eating on the run. You have to make your health a priority. Don't be tempted to eat burgers and things like that on the fly. They are easy. But not really healthy.

Some of the things that I do is that for breakfast I eat steel cut oats. Oatmeal is a super food because it contains soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber is absorbed into your system and binds to bad fats and cholesterol in your blood stream and removes them from your body. Won't fix a bad diet, but helps. Insoluble fiber is bulk, keeps you full longer and keeps everything moving through your intestine. If you know what I mean. i eat it with some crasins or blueberries, or a banana cut up on top. Something else you can do is eat smaller meals more often. Eat like 5 times a day and have a little protein with every meal. Try not to eat white food. White flour, white rice, etc. I am sure you get the idea. Go for complex cabs. You nervous system needs about 65-70 grams of carbs a day to function properly. I try to get about 150 grams of carbs a day. I like fibrous carbs too, like from asparagus, broccoli, cabbage. You should make salads with darker greens. Not iceberg lettuce. Have lots of veggies in a salad, like peppers, onion, cucumber. carrot. No cheese and no cream dressings. Try adding some beans to a tossed salad and dress it with EVOO and red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar or even lemon juice. To use beans easily, like garbanzo beans, get them in the can, drain them and rinse them. Rinsing will get rid of a good amount of the sodium. Anyway i am starting to ramble. It is a huge subject, and too much to cover in just one post.

Two last points. Losing weight make it easier to stand for long periods, which is a requirement of working in a professional kitchen.

Last point, the bread that I eat is called Ezekiel Bread. I think it is the best whole grain bread on the market. it doesn't contain flour. It is made with sprouted grains. I store it in the frig because it is natural with no preservatives, it will go stale. Here is a link if you want to check it out. http://www.foodforlife.com/

Please get back to me if you want to know anything else.

Well Deborah, welcome to the group. MFP is a great too to help control everything. I am of the belief that if you don't know the score, then how can you play the game? I am a weight lifter and a body builder, so my nutritional requirements are probably different from yours, but I am sure we can all learn from each other.

I too am from European descent, so my cooking tends to be a little unhealthy in my professional career. Contrary to what many people think, an executive chef doesn't really cook anymore. They are more of an administrator. My cooks, cook. But I plan the menus, order the food, control the costs, etc, etc. Over the past number of years, my menus have gotten healthier and healthier.
In my personal life, I eat very healthy and control everything that goes into my body. I am always thinking about my next training day, which is 4 days a week.

Anyway, I can tend to be long winded, so I will cut it short here. But please post again and ask away. If there is sonething that I don't know i will either try and find out or ai will say "I don't know." Thanks again.