https://www.the-sun.com/guy-rival-health-strategy/PROFESSIONAL bodybuilder Ken Waller has revealed how starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger impacted his life and how he stayed fit.
Standing at six feet tall and weighing 230 pounds, Waller was one of the most successful amateur bodybuilders of the 1970s.
In 1975 he won the coveted Mr. Universe title and the win was shown in the 1977 film Pumping Iron which starred bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The docudrama focused on the rivalries behind the famous Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions.
While the film helped Schwarzenegger become famous, it also earned Waller a bad reputation.
Waller became known by some as a kind of villain after the film portrayed him as the antagonist of fellow bodybuilder, Mike Katz.
In the film, Waller tries to break Katz's concentration in the Mr. Universe competition by hiding his lucky T-shirt.
This was a fictitious incident put into the movie for dramatization.
In real life, Katz and Waller were friends, however, Waller said the film had real-world repercussions for him.
"I would go to contests and get booed, after that!" he said in a later interview.
The year before he also starred in a comedy-drama called Stay Hungry.
Ironically, this was Waller's strategy for keeping fit while he was competing in the sport.
In 1978 he explained how he would regularly diet before an upcoming competition in order to cut fat and become even leaner so his muscles would pop.
Though he would sometimes engage in binges while on a diet, his main strategy was to "stay hungry."
He told Muscle: "I stay hungry. For me, that’s eating only four times a day.
"I eat four eggs and a piece of meat almost every meal. If I eat chicken, it will be four big breasts, that sort of quantity.
"That’s not a lot of food when you are training like I am several hours a day."
The bodybuilder usually followed the Ketogenic diet which focuses on cutting out carbs.
This was the typical diet for bodybuilders in the 1970s.
However, he admitted that even the most rigid and professional athletes can still slip and overindulge.
He revealed to Muscle in 1978: "Just the other night I ate two pints of ice cream and a bag of cookies, and a half a cream pie.
"I thought my stomach would burst. I’m notorious for excesses, but I manage to control them.
"You can get away with that now and then, but don’t try it every day."
His key point was to ensure he never overindulged in the four weeks running up to a competition.
This strategy along with his isolated workouts saw him become a bodybuilding legend and still cut a healthy figure at the age of 81.
