Before we dive into Part 2 of Vinnie’s book, let me lead with a couple of announcements:
mark your calendar!
America’s Angriest Trainer, Vinnie Tortorich himself, will be joining us next Wednesday, November 30, at 6:30 PM Eastern for a LIVE Q&A! He’ll be answering YOUR questions about the book, the NSNG (No Sugar, No Grains) lifestyle, exercise, Hollywood stuff, and pretty much anything else you want to ask him.
Even if you’re not reading along with us, please do join. It’s going to be a great time!
Keep an eye on this space for a Zoom link, available to subscribers only. In the meantime, use the comments box below or simply reply to this email with any questions you want me to send to Vinnie ahead of time. And yes, we’ll record the session, so if you can’t make it live, you’ll get a copy to watch on your own time.
preorder now!
December’s book club selection will be Dr. Mary Newport’s brand-new Clearly Keto: For Healthy Brain Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention. The book comes out on November 29th, but you can preorder now on Amazon or Bookshop.org.
Dr. Newport, who is a member of this newsletter community (Hi, Mary!), has an amazing personal story of helping her husband stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease using coconut oil and ketone supplements. As she says, Steve’s story “does not have a happy ending, but it has a happy middle.”
In this new book, she delves into the science of ketones and cognitive function, and outlines the things you can do to protect your brain as you age. If you’re at all concerned about dementia (as two-thirds of Amercans are), then this one is definitely worth a read.
And as a bonus, Dr. Newport has agreed to do a live Zoom with us during the week of January 2nd! Stay tuned for more details.
exercise to win
Now, let’s get into it. After reading Part 1 of Fitness Confidential, my friend Rich remarked that it seemed a bit… all over the place. I have to agree, but to me that’s the fun of this book. It’s a wild ride through Vinnie’s 30-plus years of experience as a Hollywood trainer, with some nuggets of wisdom thrown in for good measure.
In Part 2, the ride continues. We learn about Vinnie’s childhood in small-town Louisiana, where, because of a speech impediment, he was bullied and abused by kids and teachers alike. “I was in hell,” he says. “I wished I was dead.”
At the age of eleven, though, Vinnie found respite in the most unlikely of places: weight lifting. He tells how a series of idols and mentors, from TV star Jack Lalanne to local gym owner Joe Bonadona to middle-school football coach Lou Latino, threw him a lifeline, and he went from “wanting to hang myself” to climbing that rope out of loneliness, isolation and depression — all the way to a Division 1 football scholarship and a career helping others get in shape.
I found this chapter touching, and it really gets to the heart of what drives Vinnie’s passion for health and fitness today. He always says that he’s America’s Angriest Trainer, not because he’s angry at you, but because he’s angry for you.
Specifically, he’s angry about the ways that charlatans — from big-box gyms (“worse than used-car salesmen”) to health-store supplements (a way to achieve “the world’s most expensive pee”) to infomercial fitness products (“most of them are crap and always have been”) — are out to “steal your good intentions” of getting fit and healthy.
“..you’ve finally decided to do everything you can to get yourself trim, healthy, and feeling great. So, with the best of intentions and a positive attitude, you buy useless supplements or crappy fitness gadgets to help you achieve your goals. They don’t work and you get burned. Which isn’t so terrible if it happens once or twice. But if you get burned enough times, you’ll give up trying to get healthy.
Which is why these products make me so angry.
The very stuff that’s supposed to be helping you is subverting your good intentions, and you’re paying for the privilege!”
But it’s not all righteous rant. Along the way, Vinnie outlines ways to get the best deal on a gym membership (such as paying up-front), how to find a good personal trainer (they’re “like astronauts”), which supplements are worthwhile (vitamins and electrolytes), and what fitness equipment actually does work.
Part 2 ends with a discussion of motivation, and the point that “Fitness is more a mental game than a physical one.” So true. I know that for me, the only thing that’s kept me even slightly on-track this year, as I’ve struggled to emerge from my Lockdown Lair1 and reengage with in-person work and life, is the New Year's challenge I laid out for myself to complete 8 SMaRT workouts per month, for a total of 96 this year. By filling out the little squares on a sheet of paper stuck on my office wall, I’ve managed to stick to the resolution, and I’m still on track to make it by the end of December. (And the other day I graduated to the final plate on the leg curl machine! #humblebrag #meaninglessgoals)
What about you? What parts of Part 2 resonated with you? Any quotes you particularly liked? Ideas that you agreed or disagreed with? Things that made you go hmmm? I’d love to hear ‘em! Leave a comment here and let’s get the conversation rolling.
…And again, be sure to jot down those questions for Vinnie so we can talk about them at the Zoom event next week!
Props to my buddy JJ for that term of art.