“The Boomer” is a column written for adults nearing retirement age and those already in their “golden years.” It will also promote reader interaction by posting e-mail responses and answering reader questions. E-mail your questions or topic ideas to thefoxboomer@gmail.com.

Fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne died this week at the age of 96. He was no stranger to us boomers, inspiring some of us to get off our tails and live a healthier life. In many ways, he was our coach, and he taught us four valuable lessons.

No. 1: “Anything in life that's meaningful, you've got to work at it.”

LaLanne said that when he was interviewed by WebMD  just ahead of his 92nd birthday. He was all about the work, describing how he would wake up at 5 am and do two hours of exercise each day. Even more noteworthy was how he said he felt about his daily workout: “I hate it,” he said.

So in other words the only one we cheat when we take the easy route out in life – whether it be in health or other matters--is ourselves.

No. 2: Work With What You’ve Got

His workout show was a TV staple from the 1950s to the '80s. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged us boomer kids to wake our mothers, (yes mothers, LaLanne was a pioneer in empowering women to use weights in strength conditioning, proving that they wouldn’t “look like a man”) and drag them in front of the tube. He developed body-and-mind-changing exercises that used no special equipment, just a chair and a towel.

No. 3: You Are What You Eat

“You got to eat right,” was another famous LaLanne saying. He was one of the first who advocated the health benefits of brown rice, whole wheat and a vegetarian diet. Very simply, he changed people's lifestyles for the better. I can remember clearly hearing him say: "Exercise is king; nutrition is queen. Put 'em together and you've got a kingdom.”

I remember him touting the benefits of eating right on our black-and-white TV when I came home from grammar school for lunch in the early 60s. I told my mom that I was done with peanut butter and jelly on white bread and to please get me whole wheat. She did, and she liked that. She also started doing exercises with him in the living room.

No. 4: It’s Never too Late

I remember in 1980 my wife saw a Jack LaLanne commercial advertising his Jack LaLanne health club. Overnight, my couch-potato lifestyle was a goner. She got me a membership and using it was nonnegotiable. But it turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of a lifetime. I had just reached 30 and I was at least 30 pounds overweight and wondering how this could have happened to me. The guy who at 18 wrestled at 140 was now pushing 200 pounds! I went at the gym membership like Patton going into Germany at first, and went at least three times a week, winding up in great physical shape for the first time in years. And I kept that membership for a long time thereafter.

That's one thing I will always be grateful for to LaLanne: For more than eight decades, he worked tirelessly to transform peoples lives, many of them fairly young boomers, like myself, who had lost their way and could have been headed for serious health consequences if we stayed on that path.

As he said: "Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late."

 

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