I used to speak to Vic a lot a few years ago and got to know him a little. I never got the impression that he hated to diet. He never said anything bad about any of his peers , to me anyway. He did seem pretty bitter about the fact that Weider was so rich and almost all of the competitors were broke and never got anything back from the sport. He said he never saw the logic in trying to kill yourself over a trophy.
He said the only reason that he turned pro was he used to get a lot of guest posing appearances for NPC shows and a certain someone told the promoters that hiring Vic was taking away from the pros so they were not to hire Vic since he was not a pro.
I once brought up the 30,000 cal story a nd he just laughed. He said it was more like 12,000 and it just got blown out of proportion.