Best Life - April 2009

mark adams
my diet
Strong
Medicine
How to fuel your body like the muscular
millionaire who discovered Charles Atlas

A$5,000 custom suit the country’s first prominent health

that no longer fits is magazine, Physical Culture, as well

what I call an incentive as a five-volume compendium (it ran

to get back into 3,000 pages) of advice on healthy

shape. I learned that living and preventive medicine,

fact a few years after deciding to which included information on

become a work-from-home writer. In vegetarianism, chiropractic,

juggling three young boys, constant homeopathy, pleasurable sex, and

assignments, and an open invitation preventing heart problems through

to peek into the refrigerator, I quickly exercise. This was in 1912.

added 20 pounds to my 170-pound In sifting through Macfadden’s

frame. Eventually, one of those life’s work, I decided to test his

assignments was a book project “findings”—everything from fasting

about Bernarr Macfadden, the guy to a short-term milk-only diet.

who started America’s health craze Some of his advice was weird (an

back in the 1910s and 1920s. all-grape diet?), but the majority

Although he has been largely of his nutrition tips were nuggets

forgotten, Macfadden’s influence of wisdom years ahead of their

remains so pervasive that it’s time. My energy boosted to levels I

almost invisible. Oprah, Arnold hadn’t reached since adolescence,

Schwarzenegger, and Dr. Andrew I ran my first marathon, and I beat

Weil all stand on his shoulders. Not chronic chest and knee problems.

only did he discover Charles Atlas That suit? It now fits as well as it did

and propel him to international the day I bought it. Here are a few

stardom, practically inventing of my favorite pearls of early-20th-

bodybuilding in the process, but century wisdom from the father of

he also popularized alternative American fitness and nutrition.

medicine. Macfadden published AS TOLD TO JOEL WEBER

you’re doing good work, much like

chronically sore knees and a nagging a sore muscle after a productive

respiratory ailment. If a no-food fast workout. Those hunger pangs will

seems too extreme, eat small meals eventually lose their intensity, and

and simple sustenance instead, such you’ll have overcome the desire for

as brown rice or raw food.

an unnecessary snack.

STRIKE A

POSE Bernarr

Macfadden, muscle prophet

THREE MEALS A DAY MIGHT BE ONE TOO MANY Multiple studies have recently confirmed what Macfadden knew years ago: Eating less prevents a host of health problems such as heart disease and cancer. Macfadden ate two large meals a day—a brunch and an early-bird supper. When I ate to my heart’s content at 10: 30 A.M. and 5 P.M., my total daily calories fell by 20 percent.

JIM BENNE T T COLLEC TION

HUNGER IS YOUR FRIEND Many diet plans bend over backward to prevent their followers from feeling hungry. Macfadden taught me to control my hunger instead. The secret is to think of a growling stomach as a simple reminder that

REBOOT YOUR SYSTEM Absolutely nothing—not a vacation, a shopping spree, or a martini—has knocked me out of a mental and physical rut more quickly than fasting. Macfadden believed that humans should emulate other mammals, which stop eating when they don’t feel well. Food is medicine, Macfadden reasoned, and no food is strong medicine. I credit the many three-day fasts I did with fixing some ailments I hadn’t imagined were curable—namely my

CHEW, CHEW, CHEW It turns out Grandma (who probably heard it from Macfadden) was right: You do need to chew your food more. Doing so makes it nearly impossible to overeat. Studies have shown it takes about 20 minutes for the stomach to give the brain the red light, so chewing until a mouthful of food has all but dissolved prevents you from a mindless feeding frenzy.

EAT MORE RAW FOODS Few dietary cults are more fanatical than raw foodists, who won’t eat anything heated above 116 degrees. (Macfadden called this philosophy the “natural diet.”) I found the practice fairly tedious, but I will say that a few days of eating nothing but uncooked fruits, vegetables, and nuts flushed toxins from my body (which felt akin to taking a sauna during a hangover) and transformed my body’s chemistry so much that I smelled of—get this—strawberries. One Macfadden raw-food “shortcut”? Drink freshly squeezed juices.