The Blueprint of Health, Vitality, and Strength

Long before I knew anything about sports nutrition, protein requirements, supplementation, or nutrient timing, my parents were quietly helping me build the nutritional foundation I would carry for the rest of my life. Almost always, I packed my school lunch with wholesome, nutritious foods. My mom — and sometimes my dad — made a genuine effort to provide healthy meals built around fruits, vegetables, protein, and good sources of starches and carbohydrates.

My understanding of nourishment really began at our family table. My father had been a young boy during the Great Depression, and he told us about the difficult times my grandparents experienced and the sacrifices families sometimes had to make. My parents taught me to be grateful for what we had, no matter how small or insignificant it might have seemed. Since childhood, giving thanks before a meal has been part of that gratitude.

My mom's cooking was simple, but I always felt incredibly blessed and grateful for every meal she prepared. Everything was made with care and love. Her meatloaf was the BEST! She also made enormous salads, throwing in lettuce and greens, carrots, onions, cucumbers, nuts, protein foods, other raw vegetables, and sometimes nutritious leftovers from meals earlier in the week. To me, those salads were a visual feast.

Even today, I sometimes marvel at how fortunate so many of us are to walk into a supermarket and have at our fingertips an extraordinary abundance of foods capable of sustaining us and helping us remain healthy and strong. My parents taught me never to take that abundance for granted.

Before Bob Hoffman, York Barbell, Vince Gironda, Bill Starr, liver tablets, protein powders, wheat germ oil, or any of the nutritional ideas I would later discover through the Iron Game, there was Mom and Dad. They gave me my first nutritional blueprint without any of us realizing it.

Nutrition became truly intentional for me when I witnessed a profound truth written on another person's body. A schoolmate named Robert Ferlato had once been a little stout. Later that year, when I saw him again, I immediately noticed a striking transformation: he was leaner and more muscular.

To my young eyes, Robert's changing physique was living proof that the human body was not necessarily something fixed and unchangeable. Training, nutrition, discipline, and deliberate choices could alter it. Our bodies seemed almost like living clay that we could help sculpt through our actions.

Lew — Bobby Lewis, my best friend and training partner — had heard that Robert ate a can of plain tuna for lunch every day. That was about all the evidence this young aspiring Iron Warrior needed! If tuna was part of Robert's approach, tuna was going into my lunch.

I began devouring one or two cans of plain tuna at school and washing them down with a pint of whole milk. I rarely indulged in the regular school lunch fare because, in my young mind, it simply wasn't nutritious enough for my growing muscles and bones.

There was one notable exception: spaghetti day. Then I bought two portions!

My bagged lunches usually included a big meat-and-cheese sandwich on whole-wheat bread, a banana, an apple, and a can of tuna. Occasionally Mom would slip in one of those little single-serving boxes of Sun-Maid raisins, which I loved.

Breakfast could be equally formidable: tuna, hard-boiled eggs, a big glass of milk, my liver tablets, Hoffman's vitamin supplements, and at least one swig — sometimes two — of Energol.

That period changed the way I thought about eating. Nutrition stopped being simply food. It became part of self-mastery — one more way of taking responsibility for the person I hoped to become.

After our very first barbell workout together, Lew and I became joined at the hip — thick as thieves. Before Dave and Jamie eventually joined us as fellow warriors, Lew and I would sometimes alternate having dinner at each other's homes after training.

At Lew's house, his mom knew exactly how to make this hungry young lifter happy: her incredible spaghetti and meat sauce. What made Mrs. Lewis' version unforgettable was the large piece of rare ground hamburger she placed on top of the pasta before covering everything with a generous amount of homemade sauce that had seemingly been simmering all day. To two battle-weary young warriors, it was a sumptuous feast fit for a king.

Even now, thinking about the aroma and taste makes my mouth water.

Lew's favorite meal at my house was Mom's breakfast for dinner. There would be eggs — lots of them — scrambled or over easy, along with what looked like a mountain-high stack of whole-wheat French toast or buckwheat pancakes slathered with real butter and genuine Vermont maple syrup.

Once, Lew and I held a contest to see who could eat the most. I no longer remember which one of us emerged victorious, but I do know we came dangerously close to eating Mom and Dad out of house and home. I suspect my parents were both thrilled — and enormously relieved — when I eventually started buying my own groceries!

Lew's older brother, Richard, also deserves a place in this story. The York barbell and dumbbell set Lew and I first trained with belonged to him. Richard was several years older than we were, lean and athletic, and already interested in physical culture, fitness, health, and strength. Lew and I looked up to him. Without either of us fully realizing it, Richard became one of our earliest real-life examples of the kind of healthy, strong person we hoped to become.

Many times after a workout, Lew and I would have a can of Nutrament. To us it was a delicious post-workout treat that we were convinced was helping refuel our growing muscles. The important memory isn't the label on the can. It's two young friends, newly in love with the Iron Game, drinking it after training and dreaming about becoming bigger and stronger.

As Dave and Jamie joined our little brotherhood, food became even more intertwined with training and friendship. After workouts in my Syosset home gym, we would sometimes make our pilgrimage to the local delicatessen about a quarter of a mile from my house. We were exhausted, exhilarated, pumped up, and absolutely starving.

My feast often included two extra-thick meat-and-cheese sandwiches on whole-wheat bread, whole milk, potato salad, and fruit. It wasn't sophisticated sports nutrition. It was four young friends who had fallen in love with lifting, replenishing ourselves after hard work and feeling ten feet tall.

As my fascination with physical culture grew, so did my interest in feeding the body I was trying so hard to build. One principle remained remarkably constant: I never wanted supplements to replace real food. Meat, fish, chicken, milk, eggs, cheese, whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables formed the backbone of my eating.

Over the years, I would apply what I learned, observe whether it produced anything beneficial, keep what worked for me, modify what needed adjusting, and discard what didn't. The Iron Game became my laboratory, and experience became one of my teachers.

I especially studied the dietary ideas of Charles Atlas, Bradley J. Steiner, Vince Gironda, and Bill Starr. Each contributed something to the way I thought about food and physical culture, even though I never adopted every recommendation from any one person.

Bill Starr, in particular, helped influence my use of full-fat plain yogurt and kefir, along with wheat germ, liver, and brewer's yeast. At one stage I was swallowing liver and brewer's yeast tablets as though they were going out of style!

Like so many young Iron Game enthusiasts, I was fascinated by the nutritional products advertised in the physical-culture magazines. Bob Hoffman and York Barbell offered protein powders, vitamin packages, oils, and other products, and I eagerly experimented with a number of them.

I remember Hoffman's protein powders vividly. Smooth and delicious are not the first words that come to mind. I would mix the chocolate powder with milk, raw eggs, and bananas in an attempt to make the chalky mixture more palatable.

Then there was Energol. I didn't fuss over elaborate recipes; I would simply swig it straight from the plastic bottle. Viobin wheat germ oil received similar treatment straight from its glass bottle, and later I switched to Prometol. I also consumed generous amounts of raw and toasted wheat germ.

I used papain and bromelain tablets and Hoffman's vitamin products as well. Looking back, some of those rituals make me smile. We were hungry for knowledge, hungry for strength, and willing to swallow some remarkably unappetizing things if we believed they might help us become better lifters.

Of all the old-school nutritional practices I experimented with, liver became one of the most enduring. When I trained at John Scott's Iron Unlimited Gym in Tucson, I was constantly buying Vince Gironda's NSP liver tablets from John. They came in enormous quantities, which was fortunate because I consumed them by the dozens. Those packages became another familiar artifact of my Iron Game life.

Decades later, liver remains part of my routine, although today I often use desiccated liver powder. Somewhere along the way I even grew to love the taste. That may be the ultimate proof that I have spent far too many years in the Iron Game!

My enthusiasm for it, however, is personal rather than a prescription for everyone. One of the lessons of a lifetime of experimentation is that we can learn from other people without assuming that every practice is appropriate for every person.

Tony Pandolfo and John Scott influenced me enormously, although what I absorbed most deeply from both men was discipline rather than a specific nutritional formula. Their bodybuilding world placed tremendous emphasis on protein and dietary control when the goal was becoming exceptionally lean and contest-ready.

My own objectives were somewhat different. I wanted to become bigger and more muscular, but I also wanted tremendous strength and performance in the gym. Dairy and good dietary fats remained important parts of the way I fueled myself. I wanted to stay reasonably lean, certainly, but I cared more about having strong abs than displaying them.

That distinction became increasingly important as the years passed. I could respect the methods of great bodybuilders without pretending that I was preparing for their contest stage. I had to fuel the life and the training that were actually mine.

Eventually I developed an easy way of remembering much of the old-school foundation that has served me for decades: MEMO — Meat, Eggs, Milk, Organs.

It is simple, practical, and particularly useful during busy periods. In Tucson, where the brutal Arizona heat could make elaborate eating plans less appealing, simplicity mattered. I wanted nutrient-dense foods that were satisfying, easy to prepare, and compatible with the hard training I loved.

The details changed through the years, but the principle did not: build the diet around wholesome food, stay well hydrated, and give the body the raw materials it needs to work, recover, and remain strong.

For decades, however, my desire to do everything correctly sometimes went too far. I lived under what I now think of as a self-imposed tyranny of optimisation. I could turn health into a daily math problem, feeling as though every known superfood or useful supplement somehow needed to find its way into the same day — or even onto the same plate.

In my late fifties, my thinking began to change. I learned that my responsibility was not to micromanage every biological process, but to provide my body with wholesome raw materials, sensible habits, appropriate training and recovery, and then trust the remarkable work the body is capable of doing.

Today I no longer want to eat with anxiety. I want to eat with reverence. I slow down. I breathe. I chew thoroughly. I savour nutritious food and give thanks for it.

As I grew older, my definition of successful nutrition expanded. Strength and muscle still matter enormously to me, and I expect they always will. But health, energy, digestion, recovery, mobility, longevity, and simply feeling good enough to continue living vigorously matter just as much.

In that respect, I find myself returning to the broad physical-culture ideal represented by Jack LaLanne: exercise and good nutrition should not merely prepare us for the next workout. They should help us live.

I still want muscle. I still want strength. I still want to attack the iron. But now I also want the vitality to keep doing it tomorrow.

Today my eating is simpler than ever. I generally eat two substantial meals a day, still built around many of the whole-food principles that have followed me through the decades.

A typical first meal may include beef bone broth, ground beef, avocado, Kalamata olives, milk, kefir, and homemade apple-berry sauce. Another may center on chicken or fish with steamed vegetables or a sweet potato, Fitness bread or sprouted cereal, sprouted nuts and seeds, fruit, and milk. I also place tremendous importance on hydration and drink plenty of purified water.

My current supplement list is comparatively modest: desiccated liver powder, vitamin D3 with K2, acerola powder as a source of vitamin C, and creatine. I would rather build the nutritional house out of food and use supplements selectively than attempt to construct the house out of bottles and powders.

The specifics are not meant as a diet for anyone else to copy. They are simply the present-day expression of a philosophy I have spent decades refining: keep it wholesome, keep it nutrient dense, keep it practical, and make it sustainable enough to live with.

As Lew and I became bigger and stronger, something else began changing too. We carried ourselves differently. We loved wearing snug-fitting shirts and form-fitting jeans. We walked with our chins up, heads held high, shoulders back, and our developing chests proudly out.

Of course, we were teenage boys, so I am sure there was a little youthful vanity mixed in! But beneath it was something genuine. We were proud of what our work was producing. We felt healthy, strong, and confident, and we wanted to embody the physical-culture life we admired.

We had earned something, and it wasn't simply muscle. Physical culture was teaching two young men how to carry themselves through the world.

At nearly seventy, I have come to understand a shared meal differently. It is no longer merely about filling our stomachs. It can be a sacred pit stop where we refuel our souls, celebrate our survival, and honor the bonds of family, friendship, neighbours, and community.

Some of life's most nourishing meals cannot be measured in grams of protein, vitamins, minerals, or calories. Their nourishment comes from the people sitting across the table.

When I gather with family, dear friends, and neighbours to break bread, I experience one of life's simplest and greatest forms of gratitude. We nourish one another with conversation, laughter, memories, friendship, and love.

The older I become, the more I realize that fueling a strong life requires far more than feeding the body.

The mind needs nourishment: learning, curiosity, purpose, positive thought, meaningful challenges, concentration, and the willingness to continue growing. The spirit needs nourishment too: faith, gratitude, friendship, compassion, forgiveness, quiet reflection, service to others, and an appreciation for the extraordinary gift of simply being alive.

Food can provide protein, energy, vitamins, minerals, and the raw materials for recovery. But no meal can supply purpose. No supplement can manufacture character. And no protein powder can teach us gratitude.

Those things must be cultivated differently.