He Was Built Like A Brick House, But...: Tom Venuto's Bodybuilding Secrets Blog

He Was Built Like A Brick House, But…

Tom Venuto

I could hardly believe me eyes when I saw it. Especially *where* it happened… at a bodybuilding competition… of all possible places!

It was during intermission when I walked outside to get some fresh air after watching the men’s novice, the women’s figure and the men’s master’s divisions.

As I walked outside the auditorium, there he was… One of the competitors – In fact, it was the guy who WON the men’s masters division in his weight class.

PUFFING AWAY ON A CIGARETTE!

The guy was built like a brick house… but he smoked like a chimney!

I could not believe it! I had to rub my eyes and do a double take to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

It was the most INCONGRUENT scene I had ever seen in my entire life! (It would be like seeing Jack LaLanne drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels!)

By all rights, this guy looked like the picture of health. He was ripped, tanned, with chiseled six pack abs, bulging biceps, muscles popping out everywhere, wearing an “XYZ health and fitness club” tank top…

This was a NATURAL bodybuilding competition too – where they tested for steroids and other drugs. Think about THAT one for a minute.

You know, I would have been even more shocked if this were the first time I had witnessed such a scene. But it wasn’t. Far from it!

For nearly 16 years, I worked in health clubs as a personal trainer, manager and club owner. I lost count of how many times I walked outside of the gym, and there was a personal training client, puffing away just minutes after a training session.

Sometimes, by their body language and facial expressions, I could tell I had “caught them in the act.” In other cases, they were totally nonchalant about it and they just said, “Hey, what’s up Tom?” as if it were perfectly normal to build some muscle and get the heart and lungs pumping… then proceed to fill them with tar and carcinogens.

There is something terribly wrong with that picture.

When I saw that “natural” bodybuilder smoking at the competition last month, I started doing some research on smoking statistics in 2006 and what I found was absolutely shocking.

25.5 million men and 21.5 million women in the United States alone still smoke cigarettes!

It’s hard to believe the number of people who still smoke given the known effects on your body and your health.

Its not even one of those controversial subjects like, “Are artificial sweeteners bad for you?”

It’s not like one of those things where “more research is needed.”

There’s no question. No debate. No gray area…

SMOKING KILLS!

Smoking causes heart disease, high blood pressure, emphysema, aneurysms, cataracts, pneumonia, leukemia and cancer… and that’s just the beginning of the list.

According to a report from the Surgeon General’s office, 400,000 adults die every year from smoking-related illnesses.

So why do so many people continue to smoke?

Even more perplexing, why do so many people who are involved with bodybuilding or a fitness lifestyle still smoke?

I’m not sure…

Mystery of the universe.

I know some bodybuilders actually smoke because they say it keeps them leaner (or keeps them from gaining fat). But as near as I can figure, there are only 4 other possibilities:

1) The smoker does not want to quit. They enjoy smoking. They enjoy the buzz. They like the way it makes them feel, so their motto is, “Live fast, be a hedonist, enjoy life, die young…and who cares what anyone else thinks about it.”

2) The smoker doesn’t care or doesn’t know either way. They are indifferent, unaware of the severity of the dangers

3) The smoker wants to quit, but is not in a hurry because their health is still fine and it seems there are no immediate consequences of continuing to smoke. Theres no urgency… no “need”… no big “reason why” to quit. They figure they’ll give up the habit in a few months or years, or whenever

4) The smoker wants to quit and needs to quit, right now, maybe desperately – but has tried and failed before. They found it extremely difficult and don’t know how to kick the habit.

Some smokers simply don’t want to quit, but I have to believe there are a lot of people who do want and need to quit right now, who simply need help quitting.

The problem is, they believe it is extremely difficult or even impossible to quit.

If you smoked, or if someone you love smoked… and if you found out about an easy way to quit, would you at least try it? Would you at least investigate and consider it?

I imagine you would.

But again, you might be saying to yourself, “quitting smoking is one of the hardest habits to break.”

Some experts say that smoking is more addictive than cocaine or heroin.

But what if that’s a big lie?

What if there really were an easy way to quit that has been swept under the carpet while the “powers that be” have been conditioning your mind for years to believe otherwise and you accepted it into your subconscious belief system?

That is probably a lot closer to the truth.

There are other reasons I decided to write a message about the importance of quitting smoking today. It’s not just because I saw a natural bodybuilder toking away at a competition.

Just months ago, the mother of one of my best friends died of lung cancer. She was a lifelong smoker.

It was painful for me watching my friend suffer through this ordeal.

In the ten years I had known him, I never saw him so distraught. It was devastating for him watching his mother dying. It did not happen quickly.

If there were a way to make quitting as easy as possible, without gaining weight, without cravings and without patches, gum or drugs, it really could save lives couldn’t it?

There is a technology for quitting that works.

I did a lot of research before I found this and when I did find it, I knew it was one of the most effective methods if not the single most effective method to quit smoking.

The reason I know this quit smoking program works is because it is based on NLP and other mind-body approaches, which do not focus only on the physical, but also on the mental and subconscious programming and belief system levels.

This method works because smoking is not just a physical (body) problem – it is a mind-body problem. A true solution must address this body and mind connection and not just treat the body.

I sincerely hope that there are not many subscribers to this bodybuilding website list who need this method to quit smoking. However, I’m definitely an optimist – to the point that my friends sometimes tell me I’m naïve.

The harsh truth and reality – which I realized after my experience at the bodybuilding contest last month – is that there are not only a lot of smokers left in the general population, but there are a lot of smokers who are bodybuilders or fitness enthusiasts.

They go to the gym regularly, they’ve made changes to improve their diet, they are conscious of their weight… and they smoke.

If you smoke and you want to quit, or if you have a friend or loved one who smokes and you want to help them quit, take a moment to visit my quit smoking page.

This web page could save someone’s life…

www.bodybuildingsecrets.com/quit_smoking.html

Published on 28 June, 2006

Comments

Dan Wood said:

If you go to this site:

http://www.trulyhuge.com/mikementzer.htm

There's an interesting article by a guy that worked out with Mike Mentzer. He was shocked to see the "High Intensity" Mr. Olympia contender light up after the workout!!!

Posted on Jun 28, 2006 10:32 AM

Robert DiMaggio said:

IFBB Pro bodybuilder Marcus Ruhl also smokes.

Posted on Jun 28, 2006 10:34 AM

Tiago said:

Hey Tom, thanks for writing this article. It bothers me to see people who are in excellent in health, very athletic, give into smoking. I just hope that I don't see any personal trainers, bodybuilders, or even teammates of mine smoke. It would be foolish to give up all the talent they have just to smoke and cause problems for themselves later on.

Posted on Jun 28, 2006 11:40 PM

Sarah-C said:

Trouble is, most smokers are aware of the risks and dangers, and mostly feel they're being harassed by the "intolerant" non-smokers! When I mentionned this to one smoker, he said "well, let's not get all fanatic about this health thing!" And why not may I ask? It's better than destroying your health willingly, isn't it?

Posted on Jun 29, 2006 11:31 AM

sayeed said:

I used to smoke socially, went cold turkey 6 months ago and have not looked back. No matter how disciplined your are as a bodybuilder, you are not maximising your potential if you smoke. In the back of your mind you always think of the detrimental effects of what the habit does to you and that both directly and indirectly affects yor training and nutrition. The biggest setbacks are the mental ones I believe.

Posted on Jun 29, 2006 11:54 AM

Dean said:

I bought the book in 2001 and read it then left it. i was 260 lb. at the time and was that way since 1998. It took me a while to have the words in the Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle e-Book burn into me. when they did...dude. In June of 2005 I set a huge GOAL. I was going to be 172 lb. and have 10 - 15 % body fat in x amount of time. now I am 185 lb and eating like a king of God. That does things to you. you can think clearly. you can run forever. And you can lift like no man!

Three weeks ago I ran 15 miles easy. Then, went to the gym to lift. Ya it was overkill... I don't care. I felt like it. Right now me and my trainer are getting me gargantuan. by protein cycling, lifting, Eating (the prescribed whole foods that are recommended in the book) and resting.

Their are people like me who don't build but get big (fat) and it is very very dificult to find a way out. My way to the limit was to gut it out. It was to sit there and eat hardly anything if I was not doing anything. And Eat tons if I was doing tons. like today, there was nothing to do. So, nothing equals nothing. that works right now on me.

a few days ago was Inpendence Day and I bought alot of candy; tried giving it away to my friends. they denied the goods whowever and I was stuck with all of those grotesque items. The next few days were horrendous. I felt myself getting sick and had a decrease of energy and an increase in normality! No! Never unless it is offered to me. I think I'm Addicted to good Health. oh and to anyone reading this, Buy Tom's Book!

Posted on Jul 08, 2006 02:48 AM

Dan Taghan said:

The reason more people don't quit is simple - it's addictive. The thing is that most people, when they start going to the gym, try to quit, and those that succeed stay quit, because they're exercising and feeling better about themselves. The ones that don't feel worse about themselves and smoke more to compensate.

Hell of an image that, though - a bodybuilder smoking seems like something of an anomaly!

Posted on Jul 10, 2006 07:23 AM