First lady Michelle Obama has tackled school lunches, snuck healthy treats in with the Halloween candy and told kids time and time again to eat those vegetables. And it seems her message has trickled up to adults, too.
Feeling inspired by the Obamas, celebrity chef Art Smith told Yeas & Nays that he decided to go on a diet, and now slimmer and trimmer, the cook who was Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef for a decade, has lost 52 pounds.
“The first lady hugged me and said, ‘whatever you’re doing, keep doing it,’ ” Smith said. “That was really sweet.”
Smith, who was working in Chicago for Winfrey, has known the Obamas for several years.
“One thing I’ve always noted and admired about them is their consciousness about health,” he noted. “Both of them, even before he was president, have been extremely careful about what they eat.”
And Smith sometimes drops by the White House to whip up a meal. He said one of the greatest lessons he learned from Michelle Obama is on dessert.
“One of the things the first lady said was that, ‘my children don’t get dessert every night, my mother taught me that dessert is a treat,’ ” Smith recalled.
As part of his diet, Smith chooses to only consume dessert once a week, though he occasionally skips wine at meals so he can have something sweet instead. He’s also pairing his eating with more exercise, again looking up to the Obamas and their zeal for gym time.
“This is a historic moment,” he said. “There has never been a first lady who has hula hooped and jumped rope on the White House lawn,” he added, touting a recent event where Michelle Obama did just that.
