The Low-Carb Chef Who Cooked Her Way To Being 20kg Lighter

Desiré de Vincenzo has always been a foodie; that’s what motivated her to earn her stripes as a qualified chef and low-carb coach. She lost her way, but now she’s back – and 20kg lighter!

- Caroline Petersen

‘I’ve had a passion for food for as long as I can remember,’ says Desiré de Vincenzo. ‘My parents’ home was always filled with family and friends on weekends and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my dad, cooking meals.’ But Desiré’s childhood hobby was put on hold as she grew older. ‘I had been working in the technical field for 15 years, but I just wasn’t happy.’

In 2014, at the age of 34, Desiré quit her job and enrolled in the Christina Martin Culinary Arts Programme. ‘When I started chef school I was overweight; around 89kg. Being there didn’t help much – which good chef doesn’t taste their food?!’ But this wasn’t the first time Desiré’s love for food had sent her weight fluctuating up and down.

‘Throughout my life I’ve been a yo-yo dieter. I would lose weight, put it back on, lose weight, put it back on. I tried just about everything. I did the no-fat diet, the soup diet, the banana diet. I went from one extreme to the next.’

While studying, Desiré heard about a new way of eating that was taking South Africa by storm. ‘LCHF just exploded. After I saw the results and did more research, I became a little obsessed,’ Desiré says. ‘I started cutting out carbs and being more mindful of what I was eating.’