Ville Magazine l Insider Access for City Lifestyle Jan/Feb 2016 / Premiere Issue | Page 33

Devinly Delightful
In today’s world, people are striving to be more health conscious. There seems to be a new diet
fad every month, and it drives celebrity chef, Devin Alexander, totally crazy. As someone who has
experienced what it’s like to be overweight and the struggle of losing it all, she learned dieting
doesn’t work, but eating right does. She has kept the weight off for over 20 years, cooking up a
storm for herself and celebrities as well. She spent six years as the chef for The Biggest Loser, has
published eight cookbooks and is launching her new food line this year. I was lucky to speak
with Devin and she shared with me her story of growing up overweight, overcoming challenges,
and how she is a damn good cook. She was honest, sincere, and well… simply delightful.
Interviewed by: Charity Mainville
Photos by: Michelle Pederson

By age 15, you were over 175 pounds. How did you gain that much weight?
I’m a person who has always been wired to turn to food for comfort. My two Italian
grandmas taught me how to cook when I was four so I was really good cook. When
I was six my uncle, who I was really close with, was shot and died. My mom said
that is when I really started to change and began having a lot of fear. Then when
I was eight my best friend’s parents were killed in a plane crash. I only saw her
once after that and she said she had dreamt that her parents had died before it
happened. But somehow, for an eight-year-old, I decided that when my parents
traveled I wasn’t going to sleep because if I dreamt they would die, they would. So I
would stay up all night eating when my parents were gone.
When I started getting chubby, I was on the cheerleading squad and in little league.
When I went to junior high my four best friends made the squad and I didn’t, so
I was ousted from my friend’s group on top of it. I stayed home on Friday nights
baking and eating while they were jumping around doing cheerleading. The
second year I was even heavier and spiraled down further from there.
Did you deal with bullying in high school?
It was a huge issue. That is one of my passions, anti-bullying, because yeah, it was
horrible for me. I was bullied from the time I arrived at school until I got out at 3
pm. It was even worse because there were only three of us in my entire high school
overweight. I went to a really small school. It’s not like now where at least a third
of kids are overweight so you can’t bully all the kids, there’s too many of them. But
also no one was calling my house or posting “I hope you commit suicide” online.
There wasn’t such a thing. It doesn’t surprise me that kids lash out the way they do
because it was brutal.

At what point did you decide you wanted to lose weight?
I had decided to lose weight a lot younger than I did. I had been dieting since I was
8. I just loved food so much and cooking was the only thing I was good at. Even
today I am still wired to eat for emotion. Basically, I really wanted to be an actress.
When I was getting ready to go to college, I was a plus size model. It was weird, I
went from being in school being bullied to a plus size model. I got straight A’s in
school so all the colleges I wanted to go to I got in for academics, but not in the
acting program.
It was obvious being overweight was going to be a problem. That summer I went to
Carnegie College’s pre-college theater program and I had a huge crush on this guy.
It was the first crush of my life. But he liked my roommate and thought I was fat.
It was sort of at that point that I really wanted to lose weight, but I still couldn’t do
it because I have no willpower. Then I heard that if you cut 100 calories from your
diet per day, you lose on average 10 lbs. per year. I knew so much about calories
from dieting that I started cutting 200 - 300 calories per day. I lost 25 lbs in a year
after gaining 15 lbs. year after year.
Did you get into fitness at that time as well?
No. I played tennis, but I literally lost all 70 lbs. without stepping foot in a gym. Not
that I would encourage that, but I believe that working out to lose weight is kind
of a lost cause. Working out to feel awesome is definitely something I encourage to
do because I feel better when I work out. Also I tend to eat less. When I get really
stressed then I will work out. Not because it will burn calories, but because it
prevents me from eating and boosts endorphins.

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