Jack LaLanne Quotes

Figure out what's good for you, then create a liking for it. You've got to work at living.

On one of my birthdays I did 1,000 chin-ups and 1,000 push-ups. For my 70th birthday I towed 70 boats with 70 people in it, my feet and hands tied-my hands were in handcuffs, my feet were tied together-and I towed these boats a mile-and-a-half in Long Beach Harbor. For my 93rd birthday I'm going to tow my wife across the bathtub.

Your muscles know nothing. It's your brain. Exercise is something you've got to do the rest of your life. It's a lifestyle. Dying is easy. Living is a pain in the neck. You've got to work at it.

Who puts the food in your mouth? Who goes to the bathroom for ya? You do. You came on this earth alone and you are going to leave alone. Think about it. If anything happens to Jack La Lanne good or bad, I made it happen. If anything happens to you good or bad, you made it happen
right?

Invest in yourself now and reap the dividends day after day after month after year.

You've got to appeal to the pride in people. When a woman is flabby and soft, she's unattractive. When you married a beautiful girl and all of a sudden you start seeing her tits down and her breath stinks and she's not clean anymore and has no pride in herself, you can't love her. You may bullshit yourself, but you can't. Energy makes people beautiful. That's what charisma is.

If you can't afford a half hour three or four times a week taking care of the most priceless possession, your body, you've got to be sick. You're stupid.

The only way you can hurt your body is if you don't use it

If you're tired and pooped out all the time, do you have love and compassion in your heart for your fellow man? You don't even like yourself!

So many older people, they just sit around all day long and they don't get any exercise. Their muscles atrophy, and they lose their strength, their energy and vitality by inactivity.

I see a sea of millions of people going down with their own negative thoughts, going down for the third time in this big sea of iniquity and negativity.

Do you know how many calories are in butter and cheese and ice cream? Would you get your dog up in the morning for a cup of coffee and a donut?

I believe so strongly in what I do and I practice what I preach! My Dad died at fifty - do I have to die at fifty? My Dad ate all the junk food, he wouldn't exercise - how can you tell your Dad anything? We know about nutrition and we know about exercise. There's no reason for anybody to be sick and tired, fat and out of shape - it's ridiculous!

I was going to be a singer. If I hadn't been in my profession, I was going to be an Opera singer. That's from a young kid. I had all these records from all those famous Opera singers. I wanted to be an Opera singer
that was my whole thing and physical fitness got in the way, thank God.

If you don't like Corvettes, you don't like sex and money.

Remember this: your body is your slave; it works for you.

Your waistline is your lifeline

You've got to exercise. Your health account, your bank account, they're the same thing. The more you put in, the more you can take out.

Everything in life that's meaningful takes effort - takes vitality. You have to work at it. And God helps them who help themselves ... help you.

You can exercise vigorously and eat junk and get by. But you can't eat perfectly and not exercise. Look at many athletes today; they are human garbage cans. They eat anything, but they exercise so hard they burn it up. But why not exercise and put the right fuel in too?

Maybe 50 or 60 percent of all divorces are predicated on someone's being physically unfit. Who wants to live with negativism? Love goes out the window.

You can't separate the mind and body. It's impossible.

I'd rather see you drink a glass of wine than a glass of milk. So many people drink Coca-Cola and all these soft drinks with sugar. Some of these drinks have 8 or 9 teaspoons of sugar in them What's the good of living if you can't have the things that give a little enjoyment?

I'm always asking people to do something in their mind [first]. So if they're gonna do one exercise, it would be to ask themselves what they want to change about themselves in the next 12 weeks. Once they solve that, the body will follow.

Probably millions of Americans got up this morning with a cup of coffee, a cigarette and a donut. No wonder they are sick and fouled up.

You need to make good health a hobby.

I think fat, out-of-shape people should be fined.

What the hell do doctors know about exercise? Most of them know zero. You gotta push elderly people to failure like anybody else. Then the body responds.

Eat right and you can't go wrong.

Sitting around on your big fat gluteus maximus talking about the good old days. The good old days are right this second. You've got to exercise VIG-OR-OUSLY! Life is tough. Life is a challenge. Life is a battlefield ... Life is an athletic event, and you must train for it.

Scales lie! You lose thirty pounds of muscle and you gain thirty pounds of fat and you weigh the same, right?
Take that tape measure out. That won't lie. Your waistline is your lifeline.
It should be the same as it was when you were a young person.

When I first started out, I was considered a crackpot. The doctors used to say, Don't go to that Jack LaLanne, you'll get hemorrhoids, you won't get an erection, you women will look like men, you athletes will get muscle-bound
this is what I had to go through.

You start out with an hour on the treadmill, then another hour of lifting - hell, in two weeks you're not doing anything anymore. You gotta be reasonable.

Don't talk age! Age has nothing to do with it. One of my guys who started out at my gym is 87 now, and he still does ten bench-press reps with a hundred-pound dumbbell in each hand. He's training to set a leg-pressing record. I put things in the guy's brain way back when, and now he'll never get away from it.

You've got to work at living-99 and 9/10 of Americans work at dying!

I want to move well and comfortably, and enjoy the world around me.

We know today about nutrition and we know about exercise. There's no reason for anybody to be sick and tired, fat and out of shape
it's ridiculous! This has got to be taught in the schools. It's got to be taught in kindergarten. That's when kids should first get the idea that the most important thing in your life is your health and your body.

The most important person on this earth is you. What are you doing to help the most important person in this world: you? To live right, you have to exercise, have goals and challenges.

Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don't exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray 'Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.'

Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom.

If man makes it, I don't eat it!

Develop a positive attitude. Think and picture how amazing you are going to be. Visualize it!

The crusade is never off my mind
the exercise I do, the food I eat, the thought I think
all this and how I can help make my profession better-respected. To me, this one thing
physical culture and nutrition
is the salvation of America.

I only eat fish - no chicken, no turkey, just fish. I get all my protein from fish and egg whites.

There are so many health food nuts out there that eat nothing but natural foods but they don't exercise and they look terrible.

Focus on your problem zones, your strength, your energy, your flexibility and all the rest. Maybe your chest is flabby or your hips or waist need toning. Also, you should change your program every thirty days. That's the key.

I've never been satisfied with myself, ever. But I feel good about myself, because I'm truthful. I don't corrupt myself. I'm also a perfectionist. I'm very impatient. I've got energy and drive and I can't stand inefficiency in people. And I can't stand dumb people. Why surround yourself with people who are going to tie you down? I don't suffer fools.

I was the worst, most sickly kid of all
30 pounds underweight. The girls used to beat me up. Actually I was a mean kid, early on because I had no self-esteem.

Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late.

Ask the guys who are doing serious triathlons if there are any limits to what can be done. The limit is right here. You've got to get physically fit between the ears. Muscles don't know anything. They have to be taught.

People will set a New Year's resolution: "I'm gonna get in shape this year." But they don't set a parameter for how they're gonna measure it. Or if they do measure it, they wait until the first day of the next year. You'd never run a business that way. Document your progress.

Billy Graham is for the hereafter, I'm for the here and now!

I eat 6 or 7 raw vegetables every day, 4 or 5 pieces of fresh fruit. I eat egg whites each day. If I eat bread, it has to be whole wheat. I eat brown rice. I don't eat between meals. I eat at 11 o'clock in the morning and 7 o'clock at night.

Living is like training for an athletic event. You have to have goals and challenges; you need to exercise and eat right.

Your age is the sum total of your physical condition, the condition of your mind, and how you feel.

If it tastes good, spit it out. All those cakes and pies and candy and ice cream
all that terrible fast food stuff! I just bought a new corvette sports car ... would I put oil in the gas tank? Would I?

They thought that athletes that worked out with my system wouldn't be able to throw a ball because they'd be too muscle bound. Those are the misconceptions I had to go through for about 40 years.

It's not what you do some of the time that counts, it's what you do all of the time that counts.

I do it as a therapy. I do it as something to keep me alive. We all need a little discipline. Exercise is my discipline.

It's difficult to change overnight but if you are persistent and take one step at a time you will see results!

The brain's preferred source of fuel is glucose/carbohydrates. And when you go on a low-carb/high-protein diet, your brain is using low-octane fuel. You'll be a little groggy, a little grumpy.

I don't care how old I live! I just want to be living while I am living!

The only way you can hurt the body is not use it,

Sometimes people - especially people over 40 - underestimate what they really are capable of. They believe they're not capable of doing something great. I tell people who are over 40, "I don't want your best. I want better than that. I want better than what you perceive your best is."

Sex is the greatest driving force on this planet. Christ, why are we living if we can't have a little fun? Sex is giving, and the more you give, the better lover you are.

Physical fitness takes commitment to exercise just as it requires good nutrition. But it doesn't have to be painful. Just the opposite: Vigorous exercise actually is stimulating. It boosts your energy levels, invigorates your mind, and just feels good afterward. The hardest part, of course, is getting started.

Twelve to seventeen minutes is plenty on the treadmill
if it's done fast. That's all you need for cardiovascular benefit. You don't need to spend that extra time unless you are over weight and you need to burn off extra calories. Do it vigorously, like somebody is chasing you. You've got to do it hard. Otherwise, if you just take it easy and do it longer, you are spending all that time when you don't need it. Use that extra time with your weights instead.

That's what I wanted! I wanted to be an athlete , I wanted the girls to like me, and I wanted to be able to get good grades in school, and this man said I could do all that.

People thought I was a charlatan and a nut. The doctors were against me
they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.

It's a lifestyle, it's something you do the rest of your life," LaLanne said. "How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it.

I say stick with Mother Nature as much as possible.

If man made it, don't eat it.

That is the beautiful part about weights: even if you are 100 year old, you can lift something. Maybe it's only a half a pound or a pound or two pounds. It will still do something.

Thoughts are things. Negativity is what kills you ... It's tough to do, but you've got to work at living, you know? Most people work at dying, but anybody can die; the easiest thing on this earth is to die. But to live takes guts; it takes energy, vitality, it takes thought ... We have so many negative influences out there that are pulling us down ... You've got to be strong to overcome these adversities ... that's why I never stop.

You can't get rid of it with exercise alone. You can do the most vigorous exercise and only burn up 300 calories in an hour. If you've got fat on your body, the exercise firms and tones the muscles. But when you use that tape measure, what makes it bigger? It's the fat!

Look at the average American diet: ice cream, butter, cheese, whole milk, all this fat. People don't realize how much of this stuff you get by the end of the day. High blood pressure is from all this high-fat eating.

The first thing I did when I was forty years old, I put handcuffs on and I jumped off Alcatraz prison and swam to San Francisco handcuffed. That made national publicity. Then, there were three or four years where I would do more difficult feats. Another birthday I towed a thousand pound boat across the Golden Gate. On my 65th Birthday I towed 65 boats a mile and a half in Tokyo. On my 70th Birthday I towed 70 boats with 70 people in it with my feet and hands tied a mile and a half in Long Beach ... My next Birthday I will be 93. I'm gonna tow my wife across the bathtub.

You can take them in a wheelchair and put them in a pool, so they can move their arms and legs. In a pool disabled people can do things that they can't normally do otherwise.

All athletes would be better if they eat better. Junk in equals Junk out.

One of the reasons so many people fail is they get on this treadmill for an hour or an hour and a half. That's totally unnecessary. If it's cardiovascular, you don't need more than 15 to 17 or 18 minutes if it's vigorous.

You should be proud of what you're doing, but not conceited. If you can't be proud of yourself, you're a failure. And discipline. To do anything in life you have to have discipline. To accomplish anything, you have a goal, challenge yourself, and work until you accomplish that goal. Practice what you preach.

I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image.

People feel so guilty about not exercising. Especially people over 50, who feel like they've gone a lifetime without taking care of themselves. Instead of aiming for perfection, you should try to celebrate the progress you're making.

Anything in life is possible, if you make it happen.

Better to wear out than rust out.

How many cars out there look like Corvettes? You want something nobody else has. You don't want an old look-alike thing, and that's why Corvettes have the reputation of being one of the fastest cars. I've always had good cars, and a Corvette is one of the best cars I've had. I've had Lamborghinis, I've had Ferraris, I've had Stutz Blackhawks. You name it, I've had them. For the money, Corvette is tops.

If you lose a couple of inches off your stomach, your business down there will look a lot longer.

The only way you get that fat off is to eat less and exercise more.

Never get satisfied. The minute you stop trying, you go downhill.

Jesus, when he was on Earth, he was out there helping people, right? Why did he perform those miracles? To call attention to his profession. Why do you think I do these incredible feats ? To call attention to my profession!

As it's often been said, the rest of your life is the best of your life. I'm reaching for your hand now to help you reassess your attitude on living and jump into the happiest, healthiest, most productive years you will ever have.

You should do it against the clock. Say you are going to do 30 laps in 15 minutes. Then you try to do it each day a little faster. That is putting demands on the body, and that is how you build up. You keep up your energy instead of going downhill.

Have you seen some of the crap they're selling as exercise equipment now? How about that Suzanne Somers? She should have been thrown in jail for selling the piece-of-crap Thigh Master. It just develops a little muscle on the inner thigh. What good is that?

It's survival of the fittest. You can't have everything perfect, that's impossible, but the fit survive. The fit can handle the impurities in the air and in the water, but the poor people who are sick, it really affects them more.