{"id":16985,"date":"2010-02-02T01:01:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T06:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=16985"},"modified":"2010-03-02T13:48:48","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:48:48","slug":"chef-devin-alexander-says-a-healthy-life-is-within-ovens-reach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/02\/chef-devin-alexander-says-a-healthy-life-is-within-ovens-reach\/","title":{"rendered":"Chef Devin Alexander Says “A Healthy Life is Within Oven\u2019s Reach”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"devin<\/a>They say a picture is worth a thousand words\u2026 apparently it\u2019s true. People sometimes look at me today, dashing around from TV show to TV show with tons of energy talking about healthy food and think that I don\u2019t \u201cget it.” But with one glance at these photos, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll understand that I do. By the time I was 15 years old, I weighed close to 200 pounds. And if I hadn\u2019t found cooking, I swear I\u2019d be sitting on my sofa at this very minute tipping the scales at over 400 pounds, feeling as stuck as I did for so many years. Instead, for over 15 years now, I\u2019ve been a healthy, happy, obsession-free, size 6 with a passion to help anyone and everyone who has ever struggled with food or their weight.<\/p>\n

In case I only look vaguely familiar, allow me to introduce myself. I\u2019m Devin Alexander, the author of The Biggest Loser Cookbook<\/a>, The Biggest Loser Family Cookbook, The Most Decadent Diet Ever!<\/a>, Fast Food Fix, and the soon-to-be-released, I Can\u2019t Believe It\u2019s Not Fattening. I\u2019m also the host of \u201cHealthy Decadence with Devin Alexander\u201d on FitTv, a frequent guest on various television shows from \u201cThe Today Show\u201d to \u201cGood Morning America\u201d and Discovery Health\u2019s \u201cNational Body Challenge.\u201d Maybe you caught me teaching The Biggest Loser contestants how to make healthier versions of their fast food faves on The Biggest Loser<\/a> a few seasons back? I\u2019m also a frequent contributor and columnist to major magazines like \u201cWomen\u2019s Health\u201d, \u201cFitness RX\u201d, and \u201cClean Eating\u201d; and the SpokesChef for a number of major U.S. food companies like Weight Watchers<\/a> Smart Ones Frozen Meals and Circulon Cookware and Bakeware. Needless to say, food is my life.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, I was the queen of yo-yo dieting-turned-obese-teen sitting on a sofa watching way too much TV only hoping for a day when I would be a \u201cnormal\u201d weight and feel like I fit in. I spent more time than I could possibly (or would ever want to) recall, weighing myself, cooking, and baking cookies, hiding myself from the daily ridicule and insults I faced at school, because I was a lot bigger than the other kids.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for me, everything changed by my late teens when I heard one simple truth: if you just cut 100 calories<\/a> from your diet per day, on average, you\u2019ll lose 10 pounds in a year. Quickly, I realized that my passion for cooking was the key to overcoming my demons and shedding the pounds. And by my early 20s I\u2019d helped tons of celebrities and friends lose weight and get healthy simply by cooking the foods that I (and they!) love in a healthier way.<\/p>\n

Now you may be thinking, \u201cI\u2019ve tried all that healthy stuff and it just doesn\u2019t taste good.” For the most part, I\u2019d have to agree with you. I would. I don\u2019t get how people go on TV and show a lasagna with tons of meat and gooey cheese and then say in an excited tone that they\u2019re going to make it much healthier by substituting veggies for the meat and adding less cheese. Um\u2026.Seriously? Do you not get that I got fat because I like the meat and lots of cheese?<\/p>\n

\"most<\/a>My cooking is different in that instead of denying the cravings, I focus on them…and I get rid of the calories that you\u2019re not tasting anyway.\u00a0 For instance, in my book, \u201cThe Most Decadent Diet Ever!\u201d, I have a recipe for a Buffalo Wing Plate<\/a><\/strong>. You get four buffalo chicken strips dripping with buttery, firey sauce, blue cheese dressing for dipping, celery, carrots and cherry tomatoes just like you would at happy hour. Only my version of happy hour is much happier to your waistline because I use boneless skinless chicken breast then lightly coat it in flour and seasoning (this makes the sauce stick) before pan-\u201cfrying\u201d it. Then, I mix a bit of light butter with plenty of hot sauce (using a natural one is preferred) and coat the chicken in that. I whip up a blue cheese dressing<\/a><\/strong> that is just as tasty, if not more, than any that you\u2019d buy and voila!, you\u2019ve saved 302 calories and 38 g of fat! Do you know how long that will keep you off a treadmill?<\/p>\n

I make sweet Italian sausage and breakfast sausage from real pork\u2014I just use the leanest cuts then season as they would season the traditional versions and add a bit of low-cal moisture to give it that wonderfully tender texture. I even make a burger in my book, \u201cFast Food Fix\u201d, that after one bite, Star Jones<\/a> (on \u201cThe View\u201d) said, \u201cit tastes better than McDonald\u2019s!\u201d (Don\u2019t believe me? Go to my website<\/a> and click the \u201cpress\u201d tab and see for yourself–the clip is part of the 3 minute video that immediately pops up).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re at all intrigued, I hope you\u2019ll stay tuned. In the upcoming weeks, I\u2019m going to be hanging out right here on DietsinReview.com sharing secrets, tricks of the trade (did I mention that I am a trained chef?) and even give you a chance to win some pretty cool stuff!<\/p>\n

I look forward to hearing from you soon!<\/p>\n

Happy Cooking (& Eating!)<\/p>\n

Devin<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They say a picture is worth a thousand words\u2026 apparently it\u2019s true. People sometimes look at me today, dashing around from TV show to TV show with tons of energy talking about healthy food and think that I don\u2019t \u201cget … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3695,16],"tags":[8,26,1646,520,2989,23,29],"class_list":["post-16985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet-and-nutrition","category-recipes","tag-biggest-loser","tag-celebrities","tag-cookbooks","tag-cooking","tag-devin-alexander","tag-guest-blog","tag-nutrition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16985"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17985,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16985\/revisions\/17985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}