A guy who goes by the nickname of Duff posted a link to an old Jack LaLanne video on John Peterson’s Transformetrics forum. This film was probably made back in the 1960s or 1970s.
Jack LaLanne is 94 years old and still works out daily. When he was 70 (close to the same age as me), LaLanne swam 1.5 miles (2.4 km) towing 70 boats with 70 people all the way. During the performance of this feat, he was handcuffed and shackled. He performed this amazing feat in strong winds and strong currents in the Long Beach Harbor. I remember it being headlines in the local paper.
LaLanne has been a fitness guru and exercise advocate for many years, and I remember watching his exercise program in the early morning during the 1950s.
While I don’t agree with much of what LaLanne says, I greatly admire him, and I suspect what he says about too much highly-refined sugar in the diet is true.
For one thing, there is a strong statistical correlation between impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes, and excessive refined sugar intake may well be a contributing factor. It kills me when I see overweight and flabby-looking young teens walking out of the local convenience store with liter-sized beverages that have to contain hugely excessive quantities of highly-refined sugar, along with other risky substances. Excess sugar also has a lot to do with overweight, another diabetes risk factor.
Anyhow, check out this video and see how dynamic Jack LaLanne is. And thanks to Duff for finding and posting it where I’d notice it.
Regards,
Alan OldStudent
Alan OldStudent's Musings Blog 
Alan, I always enjoy Jack Lalanne. My wife Ruth used to exercise to his TV show back in the 50s. Jack was a sugarholic when he was very young and his mother took him to a lecture by Paul Bragg after which he changed his diet completely. He says that now he has neither sugar or coffee. However his much shown juicer commercials have him juicing fruit. Fruit juice is very high in sugar. I rather blend it to retain all the fiber.
I guess that Jack is “no stranger to the bottle” (an expression used by one of our teetotaler Prime Ministers) as he was charged with impaired driving a while ago. However Lalanne is a marvel of fitness at any age and he has a great sense of humour.
Bob
Alan, Interesting article on Lalanne on Clarence Bass’s site; http://www.cbass.com/JackLaLanne.htm
The guy was 50 years ahead of his time. Only these days we are starting to understand the problems sugar, especially fructose (50% of table sugar is fructose) causes in our bodies. In his book “Big Fat Lies” David Gillespie, an Australian author describes all the implications of a high sugar consumption. It starts with the fact, that our body can’t recognise fructose as calories. The second problem is that our satiation mechanisms are entirely messed up, when we eat fructose, so we eat more than we need. And then we get addicted to the stuff and eat more and more of it throughout the day. The results for our society can be seen every day in the streets: more and more morbidly obese people, who don’t even know, that they have an addiction. They fail in dieting and sport doesn’t help them either, because they still eat fructose and can’t stop. I could go on and on with this. Just read the book, it is full of scientific evidence and all referenced.
Reinhard
P.S: since I have stopped eating sugar, I lost 5 kg around my waist and I don’t have the energy ups and downs any more. And this without dieting!