Friday, May 30, 2025

Milk: The Master Body Builder - Peary Rader (1948)

Sound nutrition is essential 
to the true He-Man! 



Too often readers of Iron Man write in asking how they might gain weight and too often the advice or at least one very important part of it is not followed. 

Whenever anyone asks me how they can gain weight, I always say do the deep knee bend or squat at 20 repetitions with heavy weight and drink at least two quarts of milk per day. The first part of the advice is usually followed but the last part is often omitted with the result being that I receive a letter saying that while they are getting good results, they are not doing as good as others who have followed a squat program. 

"Peary, you lying sonuvabitch. I busted my freakin' keister Leistner-style on a 20-rep breathing squat program for two months and only gained one pound! Also, what is this thing you call 'food?'"

Usually it is found to be because they are not using a properly nourishing diet. More strictly speaking, they are not including enough milk in the diet as they were told. The truth of the matter is that the drinking of milk is as important if not more important than squatting. You know you cannot build a building until you have plenty of the right kind of materials. The food you eat is the material from which you build your body with exercise. Exercise is the tool with which you do the building. You have to have plenty of good food and the better balanced it is in the necessary elements required for body growth and the quicker it can be digested and absorbed, the faster you will be able to grow. 

Milk is the one most nearly perfect food we have. It has nearly all the elements in the right proportion for the growth and well being of the human body. It is not a creation of man but of nature. God [ba dum ssss] made it for man and beast to use as the perfect food. It is one food that can always be used in its natural state without any special preparation. It is very easily digested. Though milk has wonderful curative values for many diseases and ailments, we do not have room to go into that phase of milk in this article as we are now primarily interested in it as a body builder. 

Nothing short of miracles have been noted when milk was used as a body builder and weight builder. Pure milk diets are often used alone without the aid of exercise to build bodyweight in underweight individuals. It is nearly always successful in these cases and when used in conjunction with exercise, it is the one sure weight builder. 

Right here let me say that you will find some prejudiced individuals who, for some reason, do not like milk and who give you all kinds of arguments against milk as a food. They will recite all kinds of dire consequences which result when adults use milk as a food. They will tell you that it is food only for babies. My friend, if milk is good enough for the delicate health of a baby to thrive and grow on, it most certainly can do nothing but benefit an adult. Many a man and woman who has been given up to die at an early age have lived for 40 and 50 years longer than the doctor had given them, just by living on nothing but milk. 

Milk is an indispensable food to the bodybuilder who wishes to gain weight. Many a man can trace most of his gains back to the liberal use of milk. Often exercise is given credit for gains made by milk. In my own case, I doubt very much if I could have gained half what I did on the squat without the use of milk. I realize that many people do not like milk. However, you will find it well worthwhile to learn to like it for your health's sake. You know it is possible to learn to like some foods or eat shit with a smile. Of course, there are rare occasions where milk cannot be taken, but I think this is often due to the wrong combinations of food taken with the milk. 

Many bodybuilders do not get full benefit from the milk they use because they do not take it correctly. I have always found that it was best and most beneficial when I took milk between meals only. I never tried to drink a whole quart at a time as some do. You will find it best to drink but one glass at a time. Eat your regular meals, but take the drink in addition and between meals. Of course it will not hurt you any to take some with your meals if you like it then, but take the bulk of it between meals.

Take a glass at a time. You will also find it best to drink it slowly. In other words, chew your milk well before swallowing. I made my best gains while drinking three quarts of milk between meals. I tried four, but found it filled me too much and I could not do justice to my meals. I gained fine on two quarts per day. I have often had cases of men gaining 10-12 pounds in a week on this milk drinking with squatting. 

You see, the trouble with drinking the milk at meal times is that if you drink a quart of milk you will not be able to eat much solid food. And if you do not eat some solid food too (plenty in fact), you will not gain, because to gain on milk alone, a lifter would have to drink at least seven quarts per day. You see the milk is just an additional easily digested and assimilated food needed for the additional gain in bodyweight. I realize that for some men it will be impossible to drink the milk between meals but most of them can arrange to have the milk at work with they can drink drink it if they are really serious. I do know that most of them are able to get a drink of water when they want it, then why not milk? 

We all know that 80% of the weight or bulk of the body is made up of liquid. Therefore we can see the need for including much liquid in our diet if we wish to gain weight. Without it we could not gain. Milk supplies this needed liquid in copious quantities and in the form of easily absorbed food. Hence its great value as a weight gaining medium. 

There is a theory, supposedly proven by some experts that the use of milk by adults will cause one to have colds, catarrh and other mucus diseases. They tell you that milk is very mucus-forming. We will not argue with them. This may be the case with some people. We feel however that in many of these cases the cause of the difficulty is overeating without sufficient exercise rather than the addition of milk to their diet. Most certainly the apparent health of the individuals who use large quantities of milk in their diet is usually superior to that of the people who denounce this God-given food. They say, "Yes, God gave it to babies and here he goes into some religious hoodoo I'll omit. 

You will find that nearly every well built man of the present day uses or has used milk in his diet in large quantities. Some have used 4-6 quarts in addition to their regular diet. Many of them use 3 quarts per day when trying to gain added muscular bodyweight. You will have to determine your own capacity. Some fellows loose their appetite when using more than two quarts and some can't take more than one quart per day tho they are exceptions. The majority of you will have access to nothing but cows' milk and will feel that the price if rather high on it, yet you will find it one of the cheapest foods considering its food value. 

Goats' milk is very good for those who can stand it for it is very rich and then too it is quite expensive. It will in many cases give considerably faster gains than cows milk. It is much more quickly digested, taking but one half hour as compared to around two hours for cows' milk. Goats' milk has amazing therapeutic values and is used a great deal in hospitals.   

You will find that certain countries where milk and dairy products are staple articles of food possess very rigorous and long-lived people. Many people have lived long and useful lives on nothing but milk. 

Quite often if you have difficulty in drinking cows' milk you will be able to drink goats' milk without trouble. In other cases it is often permissible to take your milk in the form of malted milk or chocolate or some other similar method of altering the taste and other characteristics of the milk. 

Some fellows who have found it particularly hard to gain have hastened the process by adding cream to their milk, also honey and certain other elements. We do not usually recommend such procedures but in some cases they are justified and produce the desired results. If we told you the content of some of the concoctions that we have known some bodybuilders to use you would wonder how they could get it down and make it stay there, so rich are they.  

















 

14 comments:

  1. Joe, don't know 'bout you but I blame the milk.

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  2. GIVEIT,
    Well, as ol' Don Draper woulda advised Hoffy and Weedy, "Th' milk o' human kindness won't pay for Alda's or Betty's weekly coifurres or daily Valium, so, when you peddle your smoke-mirrors-and-ironwares, milk your customers for all they've got..."

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    Replies
    1. Ya got that right. Polka parties and Betty-girdles ain't cheap, to say nothing of Ben's Napoleon hat collection.

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    2. Fortunately, many lined up to suckle at the Hoff and Weider teets. Not to be confused with Tator Tots.

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    3. Hell, they got almond "milk" now but I've been drinking potato milk for ages. I think it's called Vodka?

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  3. Quote from Georges Feydeau: "In order to be funny you need to think sad first."

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    Replies
    1. GIVEIT,
      Ol' Georges' wins the "Chat en Poche"!

      I (narcissisisisisisisisitically, to be politically correct in this day when every young woman who feels slightly offended when someone refuses to agree with her entitled penchant screams she's been abused by a narcissist) consider muhself privileged to have been born n' raised in an extended family who's unspoken motto was, "Life's a bitter bitch, true, and the only solace is to laugh at yourself."

      So, since about age 16, realizing the ultimate absurdity of it all, I've been extracting the comedy from it all - - from myself, my family, all the personal and societal and global events including the misfortunes and tragedies. Like the character The Comedian in the psychologically-fucked-up-superheroes story, "Watchmen", I chuckle, "It's all a joke."

      It's all sad, yep. Not all the tea in China nor all the Hershey's cocoa added to Hoffman's soy protein powder vat can change that. But, instead of collapsing in despair and hopelessness, my cope has been to see the humor - - nah, the HILARITY - - in our absurd sapient insistence on finding "cosmic meaning" and seriousness in the existence of myself or humankind , to accept reality, then to search for what is actually possible to find: those various "points of pleasure".

      Laugh at it all, then enjoy sipping th' coffee. Or, in the case of my wife and yourself, the potato milk.

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    2. Hello Joe! Cat in a pocket or pig in a poke, I wish there was an English translation of his stuff.

      I love laughing at myself (and of course everyone else), and find it's the only way to survive. Yikes, I smiled. Hahaha, you too were one of THOSE 16 year olds. Wouldn't have it any other way, Brother.

      Pouring rain here on my 72nd birthday today . . . Anyone asks what I got for the occasion, I can say,
      "Old and Wet."

      Made it again!

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    3. That's how I like my women...

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    4. GIVEIT,

      Belate well-wishes to you on observing another birth day.
      I turn 69 on June 30th.

      What's that Kenny Rogers lyric? "The best that you can hope for /is to die in your sleep."

      My dad lived to age 88 and except for the final year when he deteriorated suddenly and rapidly, was energetic and active all along (he considered my passion for bodybuilding strange, but never disparaged me for it; his attitude too was "As long as a man is a productive, responsible, law-abiding citizen, he can do whatever he likes in private.") My mom is still going, mentally sharp-as-tacks and fairly physically well, at age 92. Which leads me to believe I might have at least another 10 years to kick around, assuming one o' life's random punches doesn't prematurely take me out? I dunno about that, though - - both rotator cuffs and a lumbar facet joint are permanently wrecked due to my roofing/building-contractor injuries, making most motion painful in some way or another (I adapt my workouts and guitar-playing accordingly), so I can only guess how much worse those'll be in another decade. Ah, well...we cross a bridge when we get to it, and, usually there's some nice scenery near it, so...

      D'y'notice that, while we've seen a lot of shit happen during our turn on Earth, the memories of some long-ago stuff you were sure you'd never forget has become hazier? I do. Details of stuff that happened in my teens, twenties, thirties even, which I assumed would always be vividly imprinted on my mind, seem to fade as years have passed. Like my old laptop operating system, I suppose - - our brain wiring gradually corrupts and wears out?

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    5. I'm counting on it wearing out and selectively vaporizing some memories. Actually almost all of 'em would be nice. Why hang on to it? Well, to each his own, I suppose, but I don't want any of it anymore really. Free at last, free at last. I got this A to Z plan. If A doesn't work anymore, go to B . . . and then C and all the way to Z, which is ending it by choice. No worries, no big. Life is good, death's inevitable, no problem. It sure does get to be a bit challenging, and I look at it like riding a bike . . . the tires eventually won't hold air and there's no replacements. Take a left at infinity and head out, way, WAY over the hill.

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    6. EVERTHING wears out over time here on Earth; hence all the fear-based absurdities and low-hanging straw clutching we humans love to delude ourselves with. I believe these are called "beliefs." I can't see any of it, honestly. No leap of faith, no do-good as a means to finding meaning. I mean, all you'll find when you search for "meaning" is what you want and it'll only be what fits within the small circumference of what you're willing to see. What's the big stink? Some mammal is so special? Hahaha! Right. Live. Die. Okay then. No problem. Let's get it on and get it over with already. It can be fun! But I may be slightly one-sided in this view of mine, considering I have a permanent copy/paste of . . . "god (rimshot)" . . . at the ready at all times online for those oh-so-learned folks.

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    7. Agreed. If anything doesn't eventually wear out, I've never observed such a thing and neither has anyone else who can objectively evidence it.
      Heh...when people gush, "Oooooh, look at that animal - - it acts like a human does!" I chuckle to myself, "Lady - - it's that humans act the same as animals, because WE are ultimately animals. The fact that animals acts like us just demonstrates that fact, lol"
      Our - - benefit? detriment? both? neither? - - is that we're sapient. A rabbit eats, breathes, copulates, et cetera sentiently but not, as far as anyone seems to know, self-awaringly. It lives its life then dies, blissfully ignorant. It seems to strive to survive, but out of instinct to assure it lives long enough to reproduce. No need for "existential purpose", no conscious fear of ceasing to live.
      But we sapient mammal freaks know that in a relatively short time, we're each headed for the grave.

      Consequently, I've realized since about age sixteen that we do exactly as you described, clutch at straws, create "beliefs", to give us and our brief blips of existence hope, meaning, and reassurance that our last mortal breath isn't the end of us nor of our family and friends.

      I've been and am content living my life with a "no ultimate meaning or point" perspective. I admit not wanting to die, partly because whatever, if anything, may or may not occur to me after death is an unknown (I've never liked surprises), but primarily because I'm disappointed that I'll miss being around to enjoy whatever absurdities will inevitably happen in this world afterwards. "It's all a joke", and I confess to loving to laugh at my own and everyone else's absurdities.

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    8. Oh fer sure.

      We

      Wee rag-wrapped animals
      lost in little dreams
      of meaning

      I LOVE living with no answers. It seems so much more ALIVE than the other, er, death, er, lifestyle.

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