How chefs stay slim and fit (despite long hours and leftovers)

Between the pace, the pressure, the rich food and the late nights, the life of a chef is not for the faint-hearted – or the health conscious. The 2021 film Boiling Point, set in London's hottest restaurant on the busiest night of the year, got its name for good reason. Around 41 per cent of UK chefs say their job impacts their wellbeing negatively and almost three-quarters admit to calling in sick because of stress, according to a survey. And we all know that regular stress plus irregular sleep plus high calorie foods is a recipe for obesity.
The saying goes: 'If you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen.' But now, as more chefs are looking at the longevity of the career they love, they're taking a new approach: a healthier one. Tom Kerridge is power-lifting. Gordon Ramsay has run 15 marathons and five ultras. Michel Roux Jr swears by yoga and Pilates.
Here, the three top chefs explain how they are leading by example in their restaurants, prioritising their careers by looking after themselves and putting their health first.
'You only change when you're ready'
Paul Ainsworth
In the last two years, Michelin-starred Paul Ainsworth, 45, has overhauled his diet and become the fittest he's ever been. All while managing his restaurant empire in Cornwall. He's also a veteran judge on Great British Menu. He ran the London Marathon this year, having competed in Zurich Ironman last year.
What did life look like before your health kick?
I was always overweight as a child. I grew up surrounded by 1980s diet culture and I remember Mum packing me off to school with a Slim Fast. It probably wasn't the best thing to do, but I don't blame her.
Then, in my 20s in London it was all 18-hour days and stubbies of lager. I wasn't overweight because I was working so much. I don't regret any of my path, but I'm not going to put that on younger chefs and say: 'That's what you need to do to get to the top.' People want to have a quality of life now and that's correct.
When it comes to dieting to manage my weight, where I always went wrong was going to extremes. I'd say, 'Right, no carbs, I'm just eating meat.' It might work for some people, but then I find you crave bread and potatoes.
With all the exercise I was doing to train for the London Marathon, if I didn't eat properly I would get horrible fatigue from the exercise. Last year I was 110kg and when I went into Iron Man I was 93kg. I'm currently 83kg, and I still enjoy a good pizza. I think for me, eating well comes down to making better choices, saying: 'I don't need that dessert.'
When were you at your most unfit?
In 2015, I had a lot going on. We were expanding the business and I'd taken on the restaurants Caffè Rojano and the Padstow Townhouse. My wife Emma was pregnant with our daughter Cici and I also found out my dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
When we got to the really horrible bit with Dad's cancer I was just in this rut of bad eating. I didn't want to cook. I was numb. I'd just order takeaways. Seeing pictures from back then is quite traumatic. I just look lost. I had one pair of jeans I felt comfortable in.
What do you eat at home?
Two years ago, my diet was completely different. But now, I wake up and have an electrolyte drink and a black coffee. I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting; I will try and stop eating at 8pm. I'll usually have my first meal at midday. I'll have four or five fried St Ewe eggs with good sourdough, which is just flour, water, and ferment. One of my favourite things growing up was my Granny Ainsworth making me eggs and soldiers and it reminds me of that.
In the evenings it's steak, new potatoes – steamed and roasted in a bit of butter – and a feta salad. I will eat steak five or six times a week. We like the marinated roast chicken thighs our butcher Philip Warren does too. I only have two meals a day, apart from on Sunday when I get my run done nice and early and then make Cici pancakes. That's our day as a family.
Tell us about your weekly exercise regimen and why it works
My aim for the London Marathon was to be able to say I did it in sub four hours. As the weeks passed, I thought I could get near to 3.46 but I had to pivot on the day, the heat was brutal. At mile 21 I changed my plan and went back to sub 4. I was hurting and the places you go in your mind is extraordinary. I managed 3.56 officially, and 3.54 by my watch.
Leading up to the marathon I was running 50k a week, doing one 2,000m swim and two indoor Zwift cycles. I also have a gym at home. After the London Marathon, I had a rest week then will start training for an Iron Man. I need goals so I'm not just training in the dark.
Exercise is now my form of meditation. It has absolutely changed my life. I feel calmer, have more energy. I can work out problems better than I've ever done. I'm the fittest I've ever been in my life.
What changed your attitude towards food and fitness?
When I moved to Cornwall in 2005, I got into running and body boarding, but I just couldn't find the consistency with it.
Work always came first. Even when I ran the marathon in 2019 to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK, training was going well until I got the call asking us to take on The Mariners restaurant. At that point it went out the window. As a result, at mile 18 the wheels came off.
Then in 2022, I went to London and had a health MOT. The doctor said you do need to change your lifestyle. I had a good heart rate, but I was overweight.
You only change when you're ready. In 2023, something just clicked and changed. I realised I was never going to be less busy with work and I was in my prime to change. Gordon Ramsey, whom I'd worked for and is a great friend, recommended Chris Dominey to me, an Iron Man and triathlon coach he trains with when he's in Cornwall.
Chris did some reverse psychology on me. He said: 'I'm not a drill sergeant. If you don't turn up, that's your call.'
That was like a red rag to a bull. I thought, 'After everything I've built, you think I can't commit to some sessions?'
What is the most demanding aspect of your job?
One lesson I was taught early on is that it's all about the people. The team builds the success of the business. We now employ over 250 people, and that's a massively demanding aspect.
While I'm a chef at heart, I'm not on a section day in and day out now. I'm running a collection of businesses at the highest standard. I have to be my best. Now, I feel like I'm advocating looking after yourself for my whole team. That puts out good energy to look after yourself.
'I eat so clean in the week, I can eat what I want at the weekend'
Tommy Banks
Chef director Tommy Banks, 35, owns the The Black Swan, The Abbey Inn and Roots. He earned his first Michelin star at 24 and is a veteran judge on BBC's The Great British Menu, having won the competition in 2016, 2017, and 2020. A sporty child and a keen gym-goer, he has navigated a chronic illness, a back injury as well as a high-pressure job as a chef to find a health regime that works for him.
What was life like before your health kick?
I was actually really into cricket growing up and I played other sports as well. Then I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was 18 and needed major operations. My bowel was removed and my cricket career ended. I fell into cooking after that. Working ridiculously hard and working all hours kept me quite skinny.
Then about five years ago I got really into the gym, until I got two herniated discs in my back. My wife was having to push me around on my office chair. I had a one-year-old daughter that I struggled to pick up. My diet was also not the greatest and I put on weight. I was probably 108kg.
I got to a point where I was told I needed surgery. But then I went to see a physio who said I didn't need surgery, I just needed a proper rehab plan. He reckoned in 12 weeks I'd be pain-free. At that point I'd been in pain for 15 months; taking tramadol at night so I could sleep.
My wife said I needed to treat it like work and put it into my calendar. It was an intense programme, building leg, core and glute strength.
The majority of people get herniated discs because of wear and tear, what you need to do is make yourself strong in other areas so you're bullet proof.
This was two years ago. I marked the one-year anniversary by doing a Hyrox. Since then, I've kept training, running and doing weights. I feel good. I'm now 96kg and have a lot more muscle.
I'm in good shape, feel super healthy and use the InBody scales at the gym to measure my weight but also my fat and muscle.
I've got the York Ten race coming up. I'd like to do another Hyrox event but I keep missing out on tickets. It's a really cool occasion. I love the fact that a fairly middling fit person like me can compete at the same time as some really high level guys
What do you eat at home?
I have eight eggs for breakfast in the morning and maybe a little bit of bacon. They could be scrambled, in an omelette or poached. That's 56 eggs a week.
A lot of our businesses are spread across North Yorkshire and I spend a lot of time in the car, knowing I'm not going to eat very well. If I eat eight eggs in the morning I know I had something nutritionally perfect that fills me up and gives me energy.
When I have carbs I crash and I can't concentrate. I don't see any value in counting calories because not all calories are equal. It's a rubbish metric. My thing is protein. I have over 200g of protein a day easily. My fat will be well over 100g but I will only have 30g of carbs. I use Chat GPT if I want to figure out where I'm at. It gives me a macro nutrient breakdown.
I have a theory that I can have what I want for dinner. If I'm home, I'll have steak and veg. Every weekend we go out. I still love nothing more than going to our pubs and having a full Sunday roast, pints of beer or a pizza. Because I eat so clean in the week, I can eat what I want at the weekend.
I get to enjoy the craft side because I'm looking after myself the rest of the time.
Tell us about your weekly exercise regimen and why it works
A typical exercise week is three strength gym sessions a week. Sometimes it's only two because that's life. I also run twice a week. If I'm away for a week with work I will train every day, because I'm away from my family. Previously I would have gone and got drunk.
I like big movements like bench pressing, that's my favourite because you get to lie down. Blocks of weight training mean you might get a personal best. I find running training more frustrating.
My personal trainer might say, 'I want you to do a really slow zone 2 run'. And I can't be bothered with that. I just want to always run as fast as I'm able to. Which isn't very fast. I'm quite a big guy so I don't really do distance; I like doing between 7-10km. I'd like to run a marathon at some point but I just think I find the training really boring.
Exercise is part of my holistic approach to looking after myself. If you feel healthy and you're not hungover, overweight, or tired, you deal with the stress so much better.
What is the most demanding aspect of your job?
The hours and travel mean the lifestyle of hospitality and being fit and healthy are not always aligned. We do a lot of events that involve long days and sleeping in hotel rooms and that makes it hard to have a routine. Some nights I have tea with my family and the next night I'm working until 1am in the morning.
I do think that if you'd talked about this five years ago it would have been very different, but younger chefs are more health conscious. We used to drink every night. Young chefs don't. They're more likely to finish work and go to a 24-hour gym. You see protein shakes in the kitchens all the time. The culture has changed a lot.
How do you stay disciplined with food?
The nature of being a senior chef means you have to try everything, which could mean a lot of desserts. There's no real pattern to your eating.
Now on a typical day I try to eat very low carbs. I'll have my eggs for breakfast. Then if I'm on the go, I chuck something super convenient in my bag like a tin of fish, high fat cottage cheese or Greek yogurt with some nut butter. That will be my lunch. Now I only eat things that are really unhealthy if they're really good versions.
I'm never going to eat a Kit Kat, but if you offered me an amazing piece of chocolate gâteau from a French patisserie, I'm going to eat it 100 times out of 100. It's not healthy but it will be absolutely delicious. That's my rule. I won't eat Domino's, but I'll have a beautiful Neapolitan-style pizza.
The same with alcohol. Previously I would drink socially. If someone offered me a bottle of lager, I'd drink it, even though I don't really like lager. I drink a fraction of the wine I used to, but I drink better quality.
'It's easy to lose count of what you're eating as a chef'
Jack Croft
When Jack Croft, 32, opened London restaurant Fallow, he reached 'another level of unhealthy'. Then when the UK went into lockdown, the chef who also owns FOWL and Roe, as well as a viral cooking social platform @herd.chefs, took his health into his own hands.
What was life like before your health kick?
My dad was a chef so my whole childhood was around good quality food. It was amazing, our Sundays were filled with cooking and making desserts and french dishes like coq au vin and tarte tatin. But obviously, it was also not great for your health.
When we opened Fallow that was another level of unhealthy. We were working 18-hour days until the early hours, six days a week. My wife and I say that was my ugly phase. There was a lot of Pret sandwiches, anything convenient really, for a solid year. I was only 29 and my posture was bad from work and my knees hurt.
It was the lockdown that made things change. I'd always had an interest in fitness, but it was lying dormant. I'd been very into the gym when I was 17 and even did a personal training course before deciding that I did want to be a chef.
When the lockdown happened, it came at a point when we'd been working so hard. Then suddenly I had this 30-minute window to exercise everyday. That period was important for my mental wellbeing. It became a daily release from work. I started off going to Barry's Bootcamp and slowly took my fitness up a level.
I'm on a training plan at the moment. I'm putting a bit of weight on on purpose to strip it back down. That's why I've started counting calories. It's easy to lose count of what you're having as a chef. Monitoring my meals recently has been really eye opening.
What's for breakfast?
I get up at 6.45am, do my black coffee and all my vitamins and tablets then I usually cycle to work, so there's an element of fasted cardio. I'll have my breakfast, usually with a banana and 120g of oats and yogurt when I get to work.
What does a normal day look like for you food-wise?
On a normal day I'm pretty regimented. I take my lunch into the restaurant with me. Something like pasta and chicken or mince and sweet potato. I like to eat very plain for balance. I know during service I'm going to be tasting things with butter and olive oil or rib eye steak.
When I get home in the evening I'll have some yogurt or a protein shake. My wife's a good cook but we still eat relatively plain.
I'm not at home to eat a massive amount. I get two days off a week and usually one of those days we'll go out for a meal to a restaurant opening perhaps, even then I'll make healthy choices.
Before I would have had three servings of the bread and 'keep the butter coming'. Or a cheeseboard. Now I actively move away from those things. I still enjoy a glass of champagne or a cocktail. It's all the little extras that I now try and avoid.
Tell us about your weekly exercise regimen and why it works
I cycle to work every day and have done for the last 15 years. I don't even class that as exercise, it's my commute and gives me a base line of fitness. Then in the afternoon I'll do more strength stuff in the gym. Right now I've parked endurance style work outs as I don't have enough time. I've got a second child on the way.
I enjoy doing the exercise because it means I can eat more. You're not a chef if you don't love food. I still like to have a drink. So it's just about balance. I've developed my routine so it works for me. I wouldn't say I'm as fit as I have been. In the past I've done a couple of triathlons and a couple of half marathons.
Right now, I'm putting more effort into being stronger. I'm at a stage where I'm trying to understand my body a bit more rather than pushing it to the limits. I want to understand how it puts on and loses weight.
What is the most demanding aspect of your job?
Balancing it with the family is always tricky. We're still in a period of growth as a business, opening three restaurants in three years. Being in the restaurants is my dream, but I also want to be at home as much as possible.
The demands on you really depend on what kind of environment you're in. If you're in a kitchen where there is a nice healthy meal laid out for the staff and everyone talks about healthy things, like instead of going for a pint they go for a bike ride, then you're going to be influenced by that.
I think being more health conscious is a shift in everyone. Half the restaurants now are filled with people wearing gym gear.

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