No Sand in My Face

Jack LaLanne’s death at 96 is as good an occasion as any to take stock of my physical inventory and history.

I was a 98-lb. weakling. I didn’t get sand kicked in my face for the simple reason I stayed away from the beach because I was ashamed of my thin body. To this day I contend I never learned to swim, despite 14 years of summer camp, because I was embarrassed to be in a bathing suit. You could have played my visible ribs like a xylophone.

I’m still a skinny malink, at least in my own mind—I weigh just under 174 pounds narrowly sheathed over a six-foot frame. Muscles? Ha!

As a youngster, I saw all those Charles Atlas ads in the back of comic books. They had no effect on me. Neither did the raw egg-packed milk shakes my sister prepared for me as a youth. My parents threatened to send me to a reverse fat farm instead of normal summer camp, a place where they would stuff me with enough food to bulk me up. My mother said my lousy eating habits propelled her back to full-time work in my father’s business.

But I got the last laugh. I’m your faithful correspondent these days because I beat the military draft in 1970, the height of the Vietnam War. I beat the draft because I was underweight!

When my draft notice came, I took defensive action. The military has a height/weight standard. Minimum weight for six feet is 131 pounds. As I then weighed 134, I had 10 days to lose enough “fat” to get under the minimum. I immediately started the Stillman Water Diet, eating only proteins and drinking 80 ounces of water a day. No carbs, no fruit, no vegetables, just meat, fish, eggs and water.

My mother did a 180—instead of kvetching I was eating too little, she wondered if I was eating too much.

The fateful day at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, I tipped the scales at 124. Low enough with sufficient cushion (pun intended) in case they kept me for three days of observation and stick-to-the-ribs army food. Not to worry. I was 1-Y deferred for a year, never to be called back for another physical.

Over the ensuing 40 years I’ve added 50 pounds but despite being athletically minded I can’t get my body to tone up any muscle. Every so often I initiated a workout regimen, but I quickly lost motivation and commitment.

Gilda religiously goes to the gym. I’ve joined gyms at work and at home, but after an initial flurry of activity—preceded, I might add, by buying more than enough gym shorts and workout shirts to clothe a platoon of Arnold Schwarzeneggers—I lost interest. I think it’s that old body-shame thing, minus the water. Gilda tells me it’s all in my head, that no one is looking at me, that they’re all into their exercise routines. But if I’m looking at them, how could they not be looking at me?

Same thing applies these days to going to the beach, one of Gilda’s favorite excursions. Aside from not enjoying sitting under a broiling sun, I’m very self-conscious about my shape. The beach, after all, is a place people go to see and be seen. It is just not my scene.

It’s funny. When I played a team sport, I had no issue stripping down to the bare essentials. All the time I resisted swimming instruction during camp, I’d be playing basketball, soccer, volleyball, softball in shorts, often with no shirt on. No one ever made fun of my physique. When I pitched in a softball league for 25 years until two years ago, I wore shorts while other players wore pants. The opposing squad, even my own teammates, poked fun at my “chicken legs.” I teased back if they were distracting the batter it was to my advantage.

For all his dedication to creating muscles, Jack LaLanne said he disliked workouts. I couldn’t agree more.