Vinnie Tortorich

“It doesn’t matter what we eat between Christmas and New Year’s, it only matters what we eat between New Year’s and Christmas.” – Vinnie Tortorich

I’m writing this blog in southern Louisiana. I’ve been here for a couple of days. Tonight was the second night in a row that I had one of my favorite meals – southern fried catfish. The difference between last night’s and tonight’s meal was the people. Last night I had dinner with my friend Lisa. Generally, when I eat with a girl, I eat like a girl. I always eat slightly more than they do so they don’t feel like a pig. Tonight I had dinner with the guys. These were the guys I grew up with. Going around the table from my left, the guy next to me was a fellow Italian, a guy I love like a brother, J. D. Sciortino. I loved this guy growing up. He earns his living as an auto mechanic. But his true love is cooking. He can cook like nobody’s business. He brought me five pounds of homemade Italian sausage. He also had the best quote of the evening. When he started ordering fried foods as appetizers, I commented, “Will this come with a cardiologist?” He said, “Don’t worry, if you get your blood pressure high enough, it’ll blow the clogs out of your arteries.” Next to him was Todd. He’s a good old boy. He was wire thin in high school. He played football with more heart than size. He’s the kind of guy you can count on your whole life. Next to him was Moose. To be perfectly honest, Moose drives me nuts most of the time. Tonight was no different. I think he goes out of his way to piss me off. I have to give him credit…some real thought had to go into it tonight. Next to him was Todd’s younger brother Barry. I probably talked to Barry more than anyone in the group. The simple reason? We’re both on the road all the time. When one of us gets bored, we start dialing. What can I say? The guy makes me laugh. I have professional comedians as close friends who don’t make me laugh the way Barry can. Rounding out the lineup was my little brother Charles. Sometimes I think my only reason for existing is to make Charles shake his head. I told you that to tell you this. I had fried alligator tonight. It’s one of my favorites. I also had a fried frog leg. I ate fried shrimp, fried catfish and, to top it all off, I had a baked potato with all the fixings. When I thought I couldn’t eat anymore, I put a few more pieces of catfish in my mouth. I’m generally not so much of a glutton. But once a year I’ll have that meal. I know what you’re thinking…two reptiles in the same meal? This guy is nuts. But I know once I leave Cajun country, I won’t have that meal for another whole year. I’ll spend the next 364 days being healthy. Why do I do this? It goes back to an old quote my first weightlifting coach, Joe Bonadona, had, “You’ve got to put life into living.”

Back in Biblical times (we’ll call it Biblical times because that’s when the best selling book was put out…the Bible…thus the term Biblical times. But I digress). In the old days, caravans would travel across deserts to other towns. For a lack of better terms, it was a gypsy caravan. They went around selling magic. They were selling snake oil potions and the like. There was one guy who was like the David Copperfield of his time. He was a young Jewish entrepreneur. His tricks have never been matched by the likes of David Blaine and other street illusionists. This guy would make blind people see, make crippled people walk and even feed thousands of people with a loaf of bread. His big finishing trick? You guessed it. He walked on water. This guy was a showman. He was so good that well over 2,000 years later, his book is still a best seller. His birthday is celebrated around the world. He is…the most interesting man in the world. If you haven’t figured out who I’m talking about yet, his name is Jesus. The reason we know he was Jewish? He thought his mother was a virgin, and his mother thought he was the savior of all mankind. (To all Catholics and Jews, before you get offended, I don’t hate any of you. It’s just satire, folks.) I told you that to tell you this. Trickery did not end in Biblical times. It is still alive and well today. I can mention tons of products on the market that couldn’t possibly do what they claim to do. But today I’m going to pick on one. It’s called the Power Balance Bracelet. I’m not going to go on and on about how dumb you would have to be to buy this. I’m a human too, and I’ve bought some stupid things. This wasn’t one of them. Rest assured, this product will not work as stated. Let’s cut to the chase here. It was a bad idea when you bought it. Do yourself a favor and take it off so you don’t look like an idiot.

I’ve actually touched on this first thought before. I was talking to a woman just the other day who wasn’t familiar with this blog. She’s very fit and still relatively young, I’m guessing early 30s. She’s a competitive tennis player. She mentioned she runs five days a week. She said her runs vary between three and five miles. Sometimes she’ll hit the track and do sprints. I thought it was a pretty intense program. I asked what she was getting ready for. She said she just wants to stay highly competitive in tennis. I totally understood. Here’s the part that made me realize she hadn’t read my earlier blog. She told me she was wearing shape-up shoes, like the ones I talked about in an earlier post. She asked if I thought there was any benefit. My answer was not anything that anyone would notice. She said the shoes must do some good. I then told her something that actually shocked her a bit. In her case, the shoes may actually hurt. Now I had her attention. I told you that to tell you this. I went on tell my friend that if she’s working hard on the tennis court and sprinting at the track and running three to five miles outdoors every day, her calf muscles and Achilles would eventually need a break. Wearing a shoe that causes those muscles to overstretch can possibly cause more damage than if she wore five inch heels. If I haven’t learned much in my life as an athlete, I’ve learned this. There is no free ride. Hard work pays off. Secondly, and most importantly, we have to be good to our bodies both nutritionally and physically. By training, we only disrupt homeostasis. In resting, we rebuild the body stronger.

A couple of weeks ago the roof caved in on the stadium in Minnesota. Now, I’m not an engineer or anything. As a matter of fact, I flunked the egg test in school. I don’t even know if they do it anymore. The teacher would have you build a contraption around an egg. Then the egg would be dropped from a certain height. Your egg was supposed to hit the hard floor without cracking. My egg didn’t crack. But I still flunked. Apparently my teacher didn’t have a sense of humor. I took a beach towel and wrapped the egg in it. The egg held up just fine. The teacher said I didn’t follow the parameters. I told her that I thought her test was silly and useless. I explained that I couldn’t think of a situation where I would want the egg in a shell. They taste better with the shell off. If I remember right, I was sent to the office for that one. But I digress. I’m not engineer, as I said earlier, but I gotta be honest with you…who came up with the idea to put an inflatable roof on a stadium? Last time I checked, snow and ice is made of water. And water can get heavy. You need a real structure to handle the stuff. But I’m glad the roof caved in. Now the Vikings are going to play outside in the ice and snow…the way football was meant to be played. I long for the days of ice-encrusted helmets, snow stuck to beards of men on the battle field. I miss the days of those Minnesota fans with their Viking helmets with the horns sticking out bare-chested in sub-zero weather. That’s entertainment. That’s sports. I told you that to tell you this. I miss the days when people just went out to exercise, ride a bike or go for a jog. Hell, I know I’m in the business. I’m not stupid. But it always seems like someone is “training” for something. We used to go out and ride bikes on the weekends. It didn’t matter if it was in the mountains or on a flat course. Now when I get together with the gang, they need to get some hills in. Everyone is going in a different direction. It’s like trying to herd lizards. Nobody takes a five-mile jog anymore. They have to run the 10K. They have to have their Garmin on their wrist, and their heart monitor. Then they have to rush home and plug those Garmins into their computers. What happened to training by heart? You just go out and do it. Even when I walk into the gym to do a little weight lifting, nobody just throws the iron around anymore. It’s very specific. They all seem to have some bottle or jug with a neon colored mix inside that they sip on between sets. Sure, fitness is alive and well in this country. Or is it? For every one of the health zealots, we have 100 times more people fatter than ever. What’s my point? I don’t have one. This is rhetoric. It’s food for thought.

I was talking to my nephew recently. He told me he was at Wendy’s getting a bite to eat. So I said to him, “What, all this talk about getting healthy and you’re at Wendy’s?” He promptly told me he was getting salad. I don’t know much about Wendy’s, but I get the feeling the salad ain’t so fresh. But I could be way off. Then I admitted something. I did something for the first time this year. It usually happens once a year or every other year. I don’t keep track. I found myself at the drive through at McDonalds. It wasn’t like I had a hankering for a Big Mac. I was out Christmas shopping with Serena. She asked me to pull through. She ordered something called “Chicken Selects,” which I’m guessing is their version of a high end chicken dish. The picture on the screen looked as though it was breaded and fried. I love fried food, I grew up in Cajun country. I like to have it from time to time as a treat. I didn’t want Serena to eat alone, so I ordered one. Unlike Serena, I told them to hold the fries. I wanted to be a just a social eater in this theater if you will. I noticed something on the first bite. It didn’t taste fresh. There was a hint of a chemical taste. Not wanting to waste food, I ate all three pieces. Something funny by the time I got to the third piece. I no longer noticed the chemical taste. I was also wishing there was a fourth piece. Within a half an hour, I swear I felt like someone slipped me a mickey. I felt high. My stomach was off the rest of the day. I generally have a cast iron stomach. As I said earlier, I grew up in Cajun country. We’ll eat anything, and somehow it all tastes good. I told you that to tell you this. My nephew said, “You know, I understand why poor people get fat. Cheap fast food is all they have.” Are you kidding me? Here’s a healthy meal that’s better: Beans. You can find beans for 65 cents. Put some rice in there and you’re eating for under a dollar. You have protein and carbohydrates. It’s a low fat and no chemical meal. I can make an argument for milk. It has fat, protein, carbs – and every milk I’ve seen in my life – vitamin D. If you’re so poor that all you can afford is a Happy Meal, you can certainly afford milk. It may be nature’s perfect meal. Most grocery stores have cheaper cuts of meat. Add it to that inexpensive rice and feed a whole family. That can be bought for the price of a Popeyes fried chicken bucket. I didn’t mean to get off on a rant. I don’t want to steal the words of Dennis Miller by saying that. But I’m sick and tired of people telling me there’s nothing good to eat. Anyone heard of an apple? There was a time before the Industrial Revolution when apples were a seasonal fruit. Mass refrigeration allows us to get a nice, crispy apple any time of the year. Happy holidays, everybody.

Growing up as a young athlete, I felt lucky and privileged to know one of the greatest motivators in sports. One could argue John Wooden, others would argue Lou Holtz. There’s no shortage of great motivators. The one that motivated me was a little less known. He was a man who grew up in Indiana, and was a standout basketball player at LSU. He became a regional rep for the then-small company Converse shoes. He was instrumental in making it what it is today. He signed the likes of Magic Johnson. He also became the athletic director at LSU. At the time, the program was in the red. He got it squarely in the black. The work he did has a lot to do with why LSU has risen to national prominence in sports, including football championships. The man I’m talking about is Joe Dean Sr. I have to put Sr. there because his son Joe Dean Jr. has also done well for himself in life. The elder Dean became a great mentor and motivator to me as both a young athlete, as well as being successful for the past 30 years in the fitness business. Joe Dean ran a small basketball camp in Summit, Mississippi. At the ripe old age of 12 I sold enough fruit and vegetables along Hwy. 308 in Donaldsonville, Louisiana to get the $150 it took to go to his camp. Little did I know at the time that the motivating words of Mr. Dean would carry over to me still today, some 36 years later. I found a way to make it to that camp every summer until I graduated high school. I got to know the Dean family so well, that my parents would eventually bring me to Baton Rouge, then I would hitch a ride with the family the rest of the way to the camp. I still talk to Joe from time to time, though it isn’t very often. The last time we spoke I was hooked to a chemo pump. My phone rang one day and it was Joe. How he found out, I’ll never know. In my eyes, he’s like God…and God knows everything, right? I told you that to tell you this. Mr. Dean had a famous saying. He would say, “Vinnie, did you take the garbage out?” My reply was always, “Yes sir, Mr. Dean, I took the garbage out.” Let me explain. Years earlier, he asked me if my family had a garbage can in our house. I said it was under the sink in the kitchen. He then asked if I had ever found it overflowing with garbage. “Have you ever tried to teeter a can on the heaping pile of garbage?” he asked. I began to laugh. He could sense my shame. He said, “Don’t worry, I’ve done it too.” He then asked why I didn’t take the garbage out when I saw the can was full. I replied, “My parents didn’t tell me to take it out.” I was playing right into the master’s hands. He said, “You know, the difference in an also-ran and a champion is the guy who takes initiative.” It’s the guy who takes the garbage out before he’s asked. He never needs to be told what needs to be done. I see this all the time with young kids in sports. Some kids will do exactly what the coach says and nothing more. Other kids will do everything the coach says and repeat it after practice. Those always become great ones. So think about it. The next time you want to do anything, like ride 100 miles on a bike, compete in a triathlon, etc., you may want to ask yourself after you brush your teeth and turn the lights off…”Did I take the garbage out?”