Bayless, a reformed couch potato, credits yoga with helping him to achieve peace of mind and eating plenty of high-protein Mexican food to give his body the right nutrition. Thus, Bayless is revealing many of his tips for both eating and living a healthy lifestyle in his new cookbook, "Everyday Mexican."
If Rick Bayless were a little more on edge, it'd be understandable.
After all, he runs two of the most popular restaurants in Chicago, regularly appears on TV and turns out acclaimed cookbooks, all while keeping tabs on an adolescent daughter.
Bayless, though, is a model of calm.
And despite the demands on his time and the temptations to eat more of his work, he keeps fit.
Determined to get healthy, he found yoga and a new outlook on food.
"I started doing yoga for the same reason a lot of people start it: balance for a stressed lifestyle," says Bayless, who is in his early 50s.
Besides helping his fitness, doing yoga prompted Bayless to change his approach to food and nutrition.
He decided he needed balance in his diet.
To achieve that, Bayless looked to the Mexican cultures he's spent his life studying.
"In traditional cultures, you eat differently during the week than you do on the weekend," he says.
Weekends are for communal feasting, he says, while weekday food is simpler, healthier and easier to prepare.
Weekdays, Bayless starts his day with yogurt, whole-grain cereal and berries.
Throughout the day, he makes time for a series of protein-heavy snacks -- say, a chicken taco with a side of beans.
For lunch and dinner, he splits one appetizer and one entree from his restaurant menus with his wife, Deann.
He's cut down on calories by trimming the size of his portions and eliminating processed foods, juices and pop, and he tries to eat mostly what he calls "perimeter foods" -- the fruits, vegetables, meats and grains that usually are set up along the boundaries of supermarkets.
Bayless is crystalizing his balance-centered approach to living into a book, Everyday Mexican, due out in the fall.