An Interview with Chef Kathleen

Chef Kathleen Daelemans, host of COOKING THIN AND LOVING FOOD WITH CHEF KATHLEEN, shares her own weight-loss story and talks about her new special.

Your own personal weight-loss story seems to be an inspiration to you. Why is it so important that you share your own experiences with your viewers?

I just feel that people need realistic solutions to their health and weight-loss goals. There are a lot of resources out there and some of us are so busy that it's hard to jump on some of the strict programs. I think my specialty would be that I deal with real people and real situations — I go into their homes to see what their obstacles and challenges are. I give them solutions they can use that are geared towards their reality, as opposed to an ideal that we would all like to achieve. We're all working towards some ideal, but basically what I do is help people create their own ideal and tell them that we're not all going to be Hollywood thin.

Tell us a little bit about how you got started as a chef.

After college I worked at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park because they had chef holidays, where they flew in chefs from all over the country to do weeklong seminars with hotel guests. It was a four-star resort and I knew I needed hotel experience. I worked in the kitchen so, ultimately, I got the opportunity to work with and get advice from some incredibly renowned chefs. I wasn't working with them side-by-side, I was a slave for them — it was making lunch for the staff or peeling 50 lbs. of potatoes. But, it was the exposure to them and I got to interact with them and get advice from them and I worked really hard. Then, I moved to San Francisco and worked at Zuni Café for a couple of years.

I was then offered a position at a resort hotel on the island of Maui called the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel and Spa. They said they wanted me to be the spa chef and I said, "I don't even know what that is." This was in the late '80s … what was happening in spa food then? Nothing in the United States, except for maybe Canyon Ranch. So I was like, "I'm not sure if you guys know this but … I'm fat."

They all started laughing and said, "We're so glad you said it, you're going to have to take some weight off." I couldn't believe I was in this situation. They offered me free use of the spa and, after some self-reflection, I realized that I'd struggled with weight my whole life so I should give it one more shot — there has to be a way to lose weight safely and still eat the foods you love.

We got the green light and I built menus around naturally healthy ingredients. The most important thing for me is that nobody sits down and says "this is diet food." The trick now is taking what I learned in sophisticated restaurants and transforming it into something that is realistic for home cooks.

Your diets revolve simply around eating healthy and eating less, rather than denying entire food groups. How difficult is it to spread that message in this era of fad diets like Atkins or South Beach?

It's not difficult. I think it's a relief for people when they finally stumble across my material because first, it's always done with a sense of humor and second, I always share my own mistakes with them — just because I lost weight doesn't mean I don't have to listen to it every day. I focus more on the foods that you're not getting. Just by switching the focus from calorie-counting to working in more foods that you're not getting [can help].

So what would you say is the first step towards weight loss?

Leave a truffle-sized bite behind every time you sit down to eat — especially if it's a "voice food," ones I categorize as those that talk back to you and make you feel guilty. If you're eating three meals and two snacks a day, [the truffle-sized bite] adds up to 15 to 75 calories conservatively speaking. If you [leave the bite out] seven-days-a-week/365-days-a-year, that is weight loss — it's not instant-gratification weight loss, but it's permanent weight loss. When you're ready, you can start switching out some of the "voice foods" for good-for-you foods and you're on your way to lifelong weight-loss success. I think it's just tiny behavioral steps that people can maintain to achieve lifelong weight-loss success — one step at a time.

One big thing people in other countries say about America is that we "eat big." How did America fall into this big-portion, high-fat trap?

We perceive larger portions as a greater value and we are a value-driven nation. Curing portion distortion disorder is something that's pretty easy to achieve, but there are a lot of tricks and gimmicks. First and foremost, I'm a fat girl at heart — I always will be. I don't like to walk away from the table feeling deprived or hungry. The way I worked myself back to normal portions was by weaning myself back to healthy portions of the "voice foods."

When I'm developing recipes, I always make sure that there's a high volume of the foods we're not getting and all of the high-calorie foods are portion-controlled. There's never more than four ounces of meat per person. Cheeses and olive oils are also portion-controlled, but I have a free hand with the other things — the apples, carrots, beets, parsnips and all that kind of stuff. As far as calorie counting goes, people are busy and there are no calorie counts at the church social, the break room or most restaurants.

What is your plan for this public television show? What can viewers expect?

Outrageously delicious food and instant gratification meals you can get on the table no matter how tired you are. My recipes are kid-friendly and guy-tested. I have a psychologist, Dr. Dale Atkins, who offers excellent and useful sound bites that viewers can wrap their heads around — that really create some "a-ha!" moments. I'm just a middle-American woman struggling with her weight all the time. I worked very hard with some of the country's most renowned chefs and teachers and a little culinary trickery goes a long way towards getting an interesting, gratifying meal on the table.

Why is humor so important to your life and what you do?

Because literally it's a healthy outlet for dealing with the pain, shame and humiliation that comes with weight gain or not fulfilling your goals. It's about taking the high road — you can wallow in self-pity (which I have done), but it doesn't feel good to feel that way. I just get some rest and wake up again tomorrow and keep laughing. Humor is important because people who are overweight are dealing with tough life issues. No one wants to be fat, nobody wants to be out of shape, but most of the time it's a mom who's just in over her head with kids or somebody in a difficult situation, whether it be taking care of a sick relative or just general stress. It's important to just keep it light and fun.