The Diet

Ms. King says she's been a healthy eater since she was a kid. "My mom was Italian and a great cook so we didn't have fast food growing up," she says.Ms. King went through a vegetarian phase in college. "I thought it was the cool thing to do. I didn't understand nutrition at all." She eventually developed anemia and when she started in the hospitality business, realized "you can't be in PR if you only eat vegetables." She slowly added fish and chicken into her diet and will eat red meat just a few times a year.

During the day she eats clean and light. "If I eat a lot I feel like it slows me down," she says. Ms. King doesn't have soft drinks or coffee, just a lot of water throughout the day. For breakfast she eats a shake of banana and soy milk or fruit and yogurt.She usually eats lunch at her desk: a smoothie or a half a cup of cottage cheese or lentils. She often makes two separate dinners -- one for herself and one for her daughter, who she says is a meat-and-potatoes kind of girl. "I won't eat steak, but she likes it and at that age her body needs that.

“Ms. King jokes that every boyfriend she has loses 10 pounds. "You can tell a lot about a man by opening his fridge. It's a good litmus test," she says. "If there's no fresh fruit then we need to talk."Her devotion to a healthy lifestyle is infectious. "If people who work for me don't start out fit, they end up fit," she says. New employees get warned "'Don't let Vicki see you with fast food in the office or you'll get the lecture.' " Ms. King keeps a bowl of fresh fruit in the office for her seven-member staff.

She always packs Power Bars and bags of snacks like almonds when traveling someplace exotic. She tries not to eat on flights but for longer trips will pack carrots, raisins or sliced apples in snack packs for her and her daughter. Sometimes she calls ahead to ask for the vegetarian or low-sodium in-flight meal option.