Jack La Lanne remains a strong advocate of healthy living

How well I remembered his bulging biceps and trademark tight black T-shirt and pants as I watched him on afternoon television urging viewers to exercise or as he hawked his Jack La Lanne juicer.

“If man made it, don’t eat it,” he used to say, decades ahead of the popular movement to eat more whole foods.

Now being honored by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, La Lanne still looked trim, if a little grayer, as he sat in his hotel. But he was staring vacantly at the nightly news and didn’t stir as I brushed past his chair. His cheery wife, Elaine, welcomed me.

“Jack!” she said loudly. La Lanne suddenly jumped out of his seat and lunged halfway across the room to give me a bear hug.

“Fooled you,” he said, teasing.

I should have known. He might be 92, but he was faking the fragility.

Decades before the obesity epidemic, La Lanne took his exercise crusade to the airwaves, showing Americans, who were just becoming enamored of television, how they could stay active while they watched their favorite programs.

Would that a few more had gotten the message.

La Lanne regaled viewers with one-armed push-ups done on fingertips. He showed them how to turn their recliners into minigyms by pumping imaginary bicycles. He advocated weight training. He developed leg-extension equipment and one of the first adjustable weight machines that are standard equipment in today’s gyms.

But this famous muscleman said he started life “as a weak, sick, miserable kid.”

As a high school dropout, he heard a speaker who advocated eating healthier food. It changed his life. “I was this young, 15-year-old,” La Lanne recalled. “I wanted to be an athlete. I wanted the girls to like me. I wanted to go through the day without headaches.”

So he prayed for guidance to help him give up the candy, meat and other foods that he thought were killing him. Then he began life as a vegetarian — a practice that he mostly continues today — joined the Berkeley, Calif., YMCA and discovered that he loved exercise.

“I’ve said it a million times,” he noted. “Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.”

La Lanne still works and lives independently. In his spare time, he drives a 2005 Corvette around town. “Would I put water in the gas tank?” he asked, not missing a chance to proselytize. “Well, what about your body? That’s why a lot of people go through life pooping out and die in middle age. You have got to put the right fuel in this machine.”

Portion control is another message that he has long delivered. “People are exceeding the feed limit,” La Lanne likes to say. “It’s that simple.”

For his 70th birthday, La Lanne pulled 70 boats with 70 people 1.5 miles against the current in California’s Long Beach Harbor. For his 95th birthday, he’d like to swim the 20-plus miles from the California mainland to Catalina Island. But, Elaine said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that she’ll divorce him if he tries.

La Lanne may have slowed a little, but he still rises early for a two-hour workout and to lift weights. (See a short video of him at www.leanplateclub.com.)

He eats two meals a day, but notes that regimen isn’t for everyone. “You’ve got to figure out what works for your schedule,” he said.

For breakfast, he consumes four to five pieces of fresh fruit and several cooked egg whites. “Once in a while, I eat a turkey sandwich on whole wheat with avocado and tomato,” he said.

He doesn’t snack between meals, and uses soy milk instead of dairy products. But he isn’t a Spartan: He and Elaine eat out every night.

“Every restaurant near us now has a Jack La Lanne salad,” he said. “It’s at least 10 chopped raw vegetables and very little lettuce.” He brings his own salad dressing. He also eats fish, especially salmon, rich in healthy omega-3 fatty acids. And he sips a little wine.

Moderation remains his mantra. His healthy habits — and a few good genes — account for his longevity. His mother lived to be 94, but his father died at 50. What he stumbled upon as a teenager and built as an adult have helped him to age well.

He is unsentimental about the past. “The good old days,” La Lanne said. “Poop! The good old days are now, now, now.”

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