The famous diet and exercise routine of Francois Henri LaLanne (1914-2011) paved the way for him to become an icon of American health. He opened the first public gym in Oakland, California, and is best known for his television fitness show. However, he started out as a junk food addict as a child until he was embarrassed for failing a routine physical in school. This bothered him and motivated him to attend health talks that reoriented his life.

EXERCISE: LaLanne’s workout routine began with a series of stretches in bed as soon as she woke up around 5 am. She then went to one of her weight rooms, one had free weights and the other had weight machines. She worked lower body one day and upper body the next and the entire routine was changed every 30 days. After 90 minutes of weight lifting, she went to the pool to swim and do water exercises for another 30 minutes.

diet: I ate only two meals a day. The first meal was at 11 am after training and the second around 7 pm, usually at a cafe with his wife. His breakfast consisted of fruit, oatmeal, broth, and four egg whites.

His restaurant dinners began with a salad of 10 raw vegetables and four hard-boiled egg whites. Fish was eaten almost every night, and roast turkey occasionally. She did not eat other types of meat and did not snack between meals. His juicer became popular because Jack simply couldn’t eat that many raw vegetables. He found that juicing made it easier to consume the large amount of vegetables he wanted.

VITAMINS: In addition to a disciplined diet, Jack took 40 to 50 vitamins and minerals daily. It’s too long a list to print here, but it can be found on his website. However, he never relied on supplements to replace any food, he just saw it as an “insurance policy.”

ALCOHOL: Being a Frenchman himself, he believed in drinking wine because he noticed that the French tend to live longer in their wine culture. He allowed himself this pleasure apart from his discipline and even he was known to get drunk at times.

He published his last book at the age of 95, live young forever that influenced me to change my breakfast to oatmeal and raisins, his favorite. He passed away just over a year later at the age of 96 from pneumonia.

CONCLUSION: There are areas of contention in your routine. It is true that Jack put weights before aerobic exercise. In his diet, he got most of his protein from egg whites and fish rather than from more diverse sources. His heavy intake of vitamins may not have helped much, as absorption rates were lower at the time. And he probably drank too much sometimes. But it’s his long-term devotion to a healthy diet and challenging exercise that sets him apart.

Allen, R. 4-8-15 Jack LaLanne Training Retrieved from muscleprodigy.com/jack-lalanne-workout/