If you’re going to speak with Jack Lalanne, be prepared to take a hard look at your nutrition and fitness habits. If those habits aren’t what they should be, then get ready to be coached, as Jack seems to be an unparalleled master of personal discipline and is still, at age 93, a man on a mission.

When he was 15 years old, his mother dragged him to listen to a lecture on health (given by the late Paul Bragg). Jack, a sickly sugar addict at the time, was promised on that day that if he were to exercise and eat nothing but whole, nutritious foods, he would be reborn. “I wanted to be reborn,” Jack told me. “So I did exactly what the man told me to do.”

Never once deviating from his new course, Jack Lalanne became the Godfather of Fitness.  His pioneering television show, which you can still watch on ESPN, still holds as the longest running television show in history – 34 years.  Jack is credited with opening the first gym in America in Oakland in 1936.

Working with a blacksmith he knew, Jack designed exercise machines for the patrons of his gym throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He invented the first cable-pulley machine, the first leg-extension machine, the safety system for doing squats that became the Smith machine, and an elegant weight-stack selection system much too highly wrought for the mass-production demands of today's fitness products.

Jack was decades ahead of his time in declaring that there was a specific relationship between health and the food we eat.  He preached the value of preventive medical practices a half-century before the medical establishment came to agree. It was Jack who said women and old people should exercise, too, and that it was all right for men and women to exercise in the same room.

Long before the current trends in water-based exercise, Jack promoted a regimen he called hydronastics. He invented protocols that would later acquire names such as aerobics and resistance training, and he was the first fitness theorist to tell athletes they should train hard with weights and work their muscles to complete failure in order to experience significant gains in strength.

He is a millionaire many times over, though everyone inside the modern business of personal fitness acknowledges that in light of the vast industry he spawned so long ago, he should be one of the richest men in the world.

For many years, I’ve had some burning questions that I’ve wanted to ask him. I hope you enjoy part of our conversation.

HT:  What makes the difference between you and the average person?  This is a serious question for me. People die early because of the answer to this question. I watched my father die a gruesome death after having his legs amputated due to diabetes. He didn’t take care of himself. I remember speculating with him in the hospital about what makes the difference between someone who lives a life of average health versus someone like Jack Lalanne, who maintains extraordinary health. Now I get to ask you, what is it?

Jack: Pride and discipline.

(Long pause)

HT: That’s it?

Jack. It’s that simple. Be proud of the things that you do, of your accomplishments. Be proud of who you are and who your friends are.  And have the discipline to do the things you need to do!  Discipline yourself to exercise and eat right. Pride and discipline! If you have those two things you are not going to fail.

Pride - do the best you possibly can with what you have. Remember, there is only one you! Just think of that for a minute. In the history of this earth, there is only one YOU. Who puts the food in your mouth? Who goes to the bathroom for you?  Who exercises for you? YOU.  Anything that happens to Jack Lalanne, good or bad, I made it happen! I don’t blame my mother or my father or anyone except myself.

Anyway, I took the bull by the horns and used pride and discipline. When I pick up a piece of food, I ask myself what this piece of food will do for the most important person on this earth – me! Who puts the food in your mouth? God? The devil? Who exercises for you? God? The devil? No! You do. Anything that happens to you, good or bad, you made it happen! Don’t blame anyone else. You only have yourself to blame.  Does that make sense?

HT: Makes perfect sense.  Sometimes I think heredity or genetics play a role, too, in how we live our lives.

Jack: My father died at 50. You wanna tell me that’s heredity at work? I don’t believe in heredity. Forget heredity.  He wouldn't listen to me. He ate a bunch of crap and he wouldn’t exercise. How can you teach your own father?

Work at living, man!  Dying is easy. Life is like an athletic event. You’ve got to eat right. You’ve got to train. You need goals and challenges. You make it all happen!

That is sad about your father. There are too many stories like that. Just remember, everything you do in life, I don't care, good or bad--don't blame God, don't blame the devil, don't blame me. Blame you. You control everything! The thoughts you think, the words you utter, the foods you eat, the exercise you do. Everything is controlled by you.

HT: Do you ever eat junk food?

Jack: Never. Not after the age of 15. Up until age 15 I was a sugar-holic. At 15 I attended a health lecture and that man said that if you obey nature’s laws your life will change. So I obeyed. I changed my diet and my whole life changed. It’s your life, you should be enthusiastic about it, right?

HT: And you haven’t screwed up once in all those years?

Jack: Never.

HT: Come on!  You’re telling me you never snuck in the back for a candy bar or something?

Jack: Not since 15. I’ve got discipline, boy! I already told you – pride and discipline. If I ate something like that, no one would know about it, right? Wrong! I would know. I’ve got a conscience. My whole life is telling the truth and living the truth.

HT:  But are you telling us that someone like me can live how you live?  I’ve been watching your old television show.  What you were talking about 50 years ago is still being talked about today – the mind/body connection, natural health, live foods and so on…

Jack: The truth is the truth, right? What I said 60 years ago was true then and it’s true today.

HT: And 99% of people don’t live it.  Why not?

Jack: Pride and discipline. I’ve been telling you – these are the keys, absolutely!

HT: Sometimes I worry about growing old and dying. What’s life like at age 93? 

Jack: I never think of age. I think of what I’m doing. I can’t do the things I could do when I was younger, but I’m doing pretty damn good for now. That’s what counts – what you can do today. And forget the good ole days. That’s a bunch of bull****. The good ole days! What the hell are the good ole days doing for you? Think about what you’re doing and what you’re gonna do. Work at living!  Man alive – you’re half dead.

Think about now – this moment! Do you know that song (Jack breaks into singing) “This is the moment we’ve waited for….”  This is it! This moment…enjoy it! Billy Graham is for the hereafter. I’m for the here and now.

HT: Ok, how much should I be working out? Are you still working out for 2 hours every morning?

Jack: I still exercise for two hours every day. It’s ridiculous. I don’t need to work out so much. It’s an ego thing. I just want to see how long I can keep this up.  The average person should work out for 20-30 minutes 2-3 times per week, vigorously. That should be enough.  You are working out, right Mike?

HT: Well, I…

Jack: Get off your butt!

HT: I guess I’m pretty average in my pursuit of health.

Jack: If you’re average, then you’ve got to learn. You have to take care of your 640 muscles, and the number one thing is exercise. You can eat perfectly but if you don't exercise, you cannot get by. There are so many health food nuts out there that eat nothing but natural foods but they don't exercise and they look terrible. Then there are other people who exercise like a son-of-a-gun but eat a lot of junk. They look pretty good because the exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom!

Take a guy that's 60 years old and hasn't exercised. Say you exercise him for 6 to 8 weeks--you can double his strength and double his endurance. Test after test has been done all over the world to prove this. They have even taken people in their 90's and put them on a weight training program and doubled their strength and endurance. Just think what younger people like you can do.

HT:  Eating the wrong foods is what I struggle with more than anything. I get hooked by bad foods that taste good.

Jack: I always tell people: If man made it, don't eat it. And if it tastes good, spit it out!

HT:  What do you think the life potential is of someone in perfect health?

Jack: I never think about that. I think about this moment. I think about now. I don't care how old I live; I just want to be LIVING while I’m alive! I want to be able to do things; I want to look good; I don't want to be a drudge on my wife and my kids. And I want to get my message out to the people. I tell people I can't afford to die, though. It will wreck my image.

HT: What about supplements. Do you recommend that we take supplements?

Jack: Absolutely, yes!  I take everything from A to Z every day. I take 30 natural supplements every day – nothing synthetic.  I’ve been doing this since age 15.  I tell people that I got a new Corvette and I wouldn't put water in the gas tank. Same with my body – got to put in the right stuff.

HT:  Do you have any more fitness feats planned?

Jack: If do ever do another feat, it will be to swim from Catalina Island to Los Angeles underwater.  I’d change tanks every hour and a half – no one can help – I’ll do every thing underwater and make the swim in 22 hours.  Anyway, I don’t know…it’s something to think about. My wife says if I try it she’ll divorce me.  I said, “Promise?”

HT: What else are you up to these days?

Jack: Same as always. Helping people! Have you seen my juice commercial on TV? It’s the most successful product ever sold on television. We’ve sold millions of juicers and the letters pour in about how juicing raw fruits and vegetables is changing people’s lives or the better.  We’re in every country in the world that has television.

Juicing is putting live, vital foods in a live, vital body, right? Peoples’ lives change when they do that. They have more energy, stamina; they’re happier and stronger. 

HT:  You know, I guess I’m not like you…not a zealot.  I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a certain way… 

Jack: And I’m not like you, either.  You’re you and I’m me. Figure out what's good for you, then create a liking for it.  You've got to work at living.

HT: Hmm.  Any final thoughts?

Jack:  Listen, you tell all those folks out there who read Healthy Times that anything in life is possible if you will only make it happen. God helps those who help themselves and I hope and pray that each and every one of you will do something for the most important person on this earth – you! That’s the message, boy. I believe that right from my heart.

Healthy Times wishes to thank Jack Lalanne and his staff at Be Fit Enterprises for this interview. Please see more of Jack at www.jacklalanne.com.