No way that I'm one of the big dogs... I'm certainly NOT in the same league as JimmyD, JT, or dozens of others, etc!
Have you checked out J Fredrick Smith's post in the darkroom section about RAW workflow? If you haven't, you should.
He uses a black/gray/white card (I think it's actually a foldup thing much like a reflector) that he includes in one shot for every different lighting setup. If that's all you shoot (meaning you fill the frame with it), your histogram should be easy to check - three spikes in the right places and you're all set.
Personally, I'm probably a dinosaur here, but I only use the histogram as a last resort. I almost always meter my exposures with a hand-held incident/flash meter so there's little guesswork involved. I will sometimes check the histogram to see if I'm blowing my highlights or clogging up the shadow detail.
My suggestion is not to sweat it. Get in the habit of checking your histogram if you're not sure about the exposure and the more you do it the better you'll get both at reading it and getting better exposures.
Good luck and have fun!
Eldor
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