Chef Don's This is Not a Diet Book: Designed to Improve Energy, Mood, and Focus

By Don Doward

This is not a diet book. However, if you are looking to increase your energy and improve your mood and focus without pills and potions, this book will help to guide you. Whether you’re a cooking veteran or a novice, this book will guide you to healthier versions of your old-time favorites and a few new ones.

I will teach you some of the valuable tricks I’ve learned in over forty years in the restaurant industry and twenty years as a fitness professional, working with and cooking for chefs from around the world, including the French chef herself Julia Child.

Enjoy,

Chef Don

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662432644

Book preview

The Beginning

One of the most frequent questions I am asked is how did I get involved in fitness and meal design.

Well, I started in the food industry when I was sixteen as a soda jerk, but that piqued my interest in the restaurant world. Since then, I have worked in every position from shucking oysters to being an executive chef. In the next fifty years, I have had the pleasure of serving and working with some of the best chefs from all around the world. As the executive chef of the Hilltop Steak House, the number one grossing restaurant in the country for seven years in a row, and Legal Sea Foods, I have trained many cooks over the years who are now chefs and managers in many of the top restaurants in the area and country. I have had the pleasure and honor of working with and cooking for many of the Massachusetts and National Restaurant Association’s Hall of Fame members including Julia Child, as well as many celebrities and athletes. My kitchens have been used for many TV commercials, and I was interviewed on Travel Channel’s Steak Paradise.

Then, in 1999 with my first grandchild on her way, I needed to get back into shape because my dad had six major back surgeries, and there were a lot of things he wanted to do with his grandkids. But because of his back problems, he couldn’t do many of them. I was determined that I would be able to play sports, wrestle, and carry them around. I have always been drawn to fitness and health since I was a little kid watching Jack LaLanne on TV. So at the age of forty-three, I started a twelve-week program to get back in shape. After completing the program and getting pretty good results, I felt that a lot of people needed to know that it was easier than they thought to feel and look better. That is how I got started in fitness training.

At the age of forty-seven, and with a lot more grandchildren, I trained for six months and completed the Boston Marathon on a Monday. On a Tuesday, I met and served Kenny Rogers. Then most importantly on a Saturday, I was certified as a fitness trainer, and the journey began.

In 2002, I became an ISSA–certified fitness trainer. I took the course and went to the seminar, not knowing what to expect, and I met Dr. Jack Barnathan, a meeting that dramatically changed my life. Since then, I have been awarded Master Trainer, Master of Fitness Sciences, and Master of Nutritional Meal Design. Then my life changed. I took a Nutritional Meal Design Workshop. In that workshop, Dr. Jack showed a picture of the finish of the New York City Marathon. In that picture, after 26.2 miles, the runner-up finished 1/100th of a second behind. What could he have done to be just that little bit faster? Which started me thinking about how nutrition could help people have the energy and focus and improve their memory and give them that edge. So after being invited to help Dr. Jack with his next Nutritional Meal Design Workshop in New York, since then, I have worked with some amazing fitness professionals, models, and Olympic athletes. I have opened my own fitness studio with a kitchen to teach not only fitness but also meal prep since the foods you eat are 90 percent of your results. I have also had the honor over the next seven years of working with Dr. Jack and a guest speaker at the Arnold Classic, the largest fitness expo in the world.

The best day to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second-best day is today!

—Ancient Oriental Proverb

How Did We Get Here?

Let’s go back a little to see how we as a group got to where we are now, constantly battling the seemingly endless fight against the scale. In 1931, the American Medical Association published its theory on physical activity.

They noted, "Prolonged exercise of any nature can exhaust the body, leading to invalidism and eventually death. Even the game of golf can be unduly stressful and anyone who should indulge should break for a smoke and a drink between the