Be fit or be damned

BE FIT! OR BE DAMNED!

PERCY CERUTTY

PELHAM BOOKS      1967

Percy Cerutty was 43 in 1939 when he lost his job as an Australian civil servant, broken in health. His will to survive, his courage, and his desperate search for scientific health secrets that would restore his health and strength pulled him through. He ran more than 100 races from 880 yards to 101 miles and went on to become a world-renowned athletics coach to world-record-breaking athletes such as Herb Elliott and John Landy. At 70 years of age his body is medically certified to be that of a young man and his capacity for physical exercise is that of a fit, trained 35 year-old. This book deals with the problem of survival and living healthily to a ripe old age, vital and fit and enjoying every minute of being alive.

Foreword

• This book is addressed to the above-average intelligent, successful, and older man. It was written to supply the essential knowledge that all men should have, and especially for the man who has not had the time, or possibly, the inclination, to study extensively the findings of the Scientists and the Medical Profession.

Preface

• It is not merely that you are alive but how much alive you are that is important. Any book on health and fitness must start with what man is – his physical body, the nature of his mind, and the needs of both.
• Man must have some knowledge of his pre-historic origins: the construction of his body: the skeleton, muscles and organs, and the strengths and weaknesses of the various parts.
• A man will spend many years in fitting himself to earn a livelihood, but spends little or no time in discovering what he is. As he may enjoy good health in his early manhood, he does not consider it necessary to understand his nature and the complicated piece of machinery his body is.
• He acts, thinks and lives, as if his body can be ignored as to its vital needs and treatment. He imagines that his mind (brain) is everything: that his appetites are normal, or that he can abuse, neglect or poison his body with impunity.
• When after years of neglect or abuse he finds he has one of the many diseases common in modern society, he attributes the fact to ‘bad luck’. He seldom realizes that his coronary, high blood pressure, cirrhosis, rheumatism, tumours and cancers, are all preventable, NOT by drugs, but by understanding his bodily organism, caring for it and nourishing it, and exercising it, as he does for his race-horse or automobile.
• He seldom reflects upon the way man evolved, the way he lived for millennia  and how different these are to the way he lives today.
• He believes that his appetite for food is a reliable guide. He has a juvenile attitude to most things because of his lack of knowledge as to his body and its needs. He even believes that his brain produces for him all the right answers.
• Man, mostly, only ‘thinks’ he thinks. The brain is a computer, producing answers as information is fed into it. Feed in one set of facts and we get one answer. Feed in another set and the answer will be different.
• Civilized man has departed from the natural needs of his body and its functions, even to losing the capacity for reasonably healthy survival.
• Man as a highly evolved organism carries within himself the means of resistance to many of the breakdowns, and much of the disease, that assails him. But, powerful as these resistances are in the beginning, once the organism has been broken down by abuse or ignorant ill-treatment, the inevitable collapse is often speedy.
• There is no substitute for a heart that has ceased to beat: for a liver so diseased that it cannot function: for kidneys that can no longer filter. All these, and some others, spell death.
• This book is an attempt to make it clear, and beyond reasonable doubt, that with knowledge and living within the capacity of the bodily functions, man may reasonably be expected to control and prolong his life.
• The rules are simple, but adamant. Self-discipline is essential and knowledge is the Key.

Introduction

• Probably 90% of all deaths are due to a breakdown of the circulatory system -involving the heart, liver, kidney, lungs – plus cancer.
• Knowledge is power. Man can control his destiny. Accurate knowledge provides the means to avoid the lethal factors in modern life.
• Many authorities have stated that man should live for 120 years to 150 years, possibly longer. And this does not mean ‘limp’ along senile, aged, and ineffective, but using his accumulated experience, wisdom and knowledge, in the service of mankind.
• This book is dedicated to the man and woman who has a desire to live – intelligently, usefully, happily, and fully far beyond 70. No sensible man believes in luck as a substitute for work or knowledge. A wise man takes no unnecessary risks.
• The basis of the philosophy is that the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves. The solution to our problems is in our knowledge and awareness. We can control our destiny.

Chapter 1: What man is; how long on earth; the time scale; how he lived for countless centuries; caves; wild animals and stress; exercise; food

Summary of chapter 1

• Man has been, in some form, on the earth upwards of 2 million years. Practically the whole of this time he was uncivilized, a primitive, a barbarian. Civilization, as we know it, is only a tick of the time scale clock.
• No organism (man or any other creature or vegetation) can have its environment markedly altered and expect to survive. It is this marked alteration in man’s living habits – food, exercise, sedentary work – that are the factors that have reduced his capacity to live healthily and survive reasonably.

Chapter 2: Statistics; longevity; recent high averages of life expectancy; expectancy in animals as against man

Summary of chapter 2

• Infantile deaths of previous centuries has been arrested. Because of this the average longevity has been increased statistically, whilst actually, those who attain manhood today do not live as long as those who attained manhood a century ago.
• In the Australian Public Health Department it was found that the average period of retirement was only 2 years. Too many, by 45 years of age, are afflicted with inefficient hearts, higher than normal blood pressure, rheumatoid diseases, and loss of sexual potency.
• Man has survived for aeons of time on the simple foods as found in Nature.
• In animals the relation of age to attaining sexual potency can be considered as 15:1; for man it is seldom higher than 5:1. If he dies at 60 it is merely 4:1.

Chapter 3: The physiology of man; the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys

Summary of chapter 3

• The 4 main organs upon which man’s survival depends are the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys.
• The lungs are the only organs directly in contact with conditions external to the body. The other organs are indirectly in contact via the stomach and the intestines.
• The lungs need air as pure as possible. City air is contaminated by irritants and destructive gases. There is further contamination through inhaling tobacco smoke with its toxic poison, nicotine, and its irritants that set up lung cancer.
• The lungs have not the power of rebuilding themselves. We breathe and live as long as the lungs remain free from clogging substances – the treacle-like substance from tobacco, dust and similar contaminants.
• The lungs are in 2 sections, the upper and lower. Civilized man has increasingly lost the power of using the lower lung. Residuals accumulate in the unused lower part of the lungs. Athletes mostly run using the upper lobes and run out of air much sooner than they need.
• Without ample clean air the blood cannot be fully oxygenated. Blood is the fuel to the body’s pump, the heart. Without good fuel it is impossible for the heart to function properly.
• The heart is a highly specialized organ but should be the last organ to cease to function. It is mostly the first to break down and cause death today.
• Every day the heart pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood. Yet we ignore it, ill-treat it, starve it of good fuel, and wonder why it fails us.
• The normal pulse is said to be 72. But that figure is arrived at on ordinary citizens, most of whom are subnormal as to fitness.
• When an adult is really fit his resting pulse rate is around 62 or even lower.
• The heart of a 60 beats-per-minute man works 367 million times less than a 70 beats-per-minute man; he will live 10 years longer, other factors being equal. Since many men have a pulse rate of 80 beats per minute, the gain to the 60-beater can be 20 years or more.
• A powerful, exercised heart is an asset. It could be the asset.
• If you have a good strong heart, it can be taken for granted the liver will be in good order. Apart from the congestion that can be caused with poor foods such as animal fats, it is excess of alcohol that is the No. 1 enemy and destroyer of the liver.
• When the heart and liver are in good condition, it can be taken for granted that the kidneys will be in good order and functioning well. It is excessive protein foods, meat in all forms, that overtaxes the kidneys. Be reasonable in your intake as to red meats, fish and poultry, and you are likely to have few kidney troubles, much less bladder trouble.
• Life is what we make of it and it is the same with our bodies. Our organs are just as good as we intelligently feed them.

Chapter 4: The brain; mind; illusions; disillusionments and frustrations

Summary of chapter 4

• Because we have been highly educated, successful in business or in our profession, it does not mean that our brain can be trusted to direct us when it comes to fit, sensible and healthy living. It is obvious that the brain is doing little in safeguarding those with coronaries and cancers.
• To be clever in some fields can be a trap since we assume that we are clever in all the varied departments of living.
• The brain does not guard us instinctively. If it did no one would smoke, drink alcohol, eat denatured foods, or live in air-contaminated cities.
• It is not fate or bad luck that some die whilst others live. A long and reasonably healthy life is a result of instinctive wisdom and experience. We do not have to die rich and successful at 60. Indeed, it is the rich and successful who have the means to make long life and fitness certain.

Chapter 5: Life is a challenge; repressing emotions and the blood pressure; stress and ulcers

Summary of chapter 5

• Accept life as a challenge and keep ambition within reasonable attainment. It is far more sensible to enjoy a full and happy life than to be the busiest, richest and most successful man in the cemetery.
• Being over-ambitious can destroy since it leaves little time to live, to know and to realize.
• The demands and needs of the physical body cannot be ignored. A lip-service to exercise, i.e. weekly golf, or a fishing excursion, is not good enough.
• Life is to be lived, not just laboured through. Repression stultifies life, expression enjoys life. Learn to live with women, love them, serve them. It is a policy that pays off.
• It is far better to express your feelings than to repress them. Even if plain speaking may cost you in promotions, it pays off in the long run. Standing up for principle wins support and respect.
• Fear creates stress and tension. Learn to turn fear to your account, enlist it in your service. When we understand and overcome fear, we overcome most things that tend to kill us.
• It is fear rather than ambition or duty that causes us to overwork, ending up in coronaries, heart attacks, ulcers and other ills of many ‘successful’ men.
• Make a decision, express yourself, take your holiday. There is no true success where there is ill-health, or sub-health, or a lessening of human masculine functions.

Chapter 6: The chief destroyers: de-natured foods; nicotine not worry; alcohol not overwork; barbiturates; gambling a cause of stress.

Summary of chapter 6

• Man is the food he eats, the fluids he drinks, and the air he breathes. If they are poor, denatured, or contaminated, he cannot be fit and healthy.
• Tobacco is the prime killer today. Nicotine affects the heart. Tars and other irritants in the smoke cause lung cancer. These irritants circulating in the blood stream may cause tumours and cancers in other parts of the body. The juice of tobacco causes mouth, throat and stomach cancer.
• Alcohol in excess can cause death through cirrhosis of the liver. In moderation, alcohol is kind to the heart, reduces the pulse rate, relieves tension.
• Alcohol is a sedative and depressive; nicotine an excitant and stimulant. How foolish to imbibe both simultaneously.
• Pain-killers, sedatives, tranquillizers and sleep-inducers may be justified occasionally  but they are all habit-forming.
• Avoid the stresses and tensions of reckless or desperate gambling as it is not likely to lead to fitness or health. Work for certainties or near certainties.

Chapter 7: A sound basic philosophy is necessary; the need to recognize what life is; realism and religion; self-reliance and saviours; wealth; privileges; investments and even pensions can disappear; fitness can always be there.

Summary of Chapter 7

• Do not live in the past. Live in the present. Apportion time each day/week/year to doing and enjoying something disassociated from success, finance, earning and ambition.
• What better than physical fitness and robust health as one of those disinterested pursuits, especially as when you are older, your high level of physical fitness and health can enhance the success you seek.
• It is the ‘all-round’ life that is living. Too much specialization is like ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’
• The zest for living is based in emotion that arouses enthusiasm, the desire to live fully, to do something useful. Where there is emotional content, the will is aroused. Without emotion intellectual thinking seldom provides enough to carry through a project.
• Hereafter ‘rewards’ are illusions and can be an admission that today is dull and we cannot alter it. They are substitutes for living satisfactorily today. Only the poor dream of riches; only the sick of being healthy; only the frustrated are unable to dominate their environment; only the incompetents and the unhappy dream of rewards in heaven. The realist realizes his rewards today. He lives.
• It is far more intelligent to search out the laws of life and living and co-ordinate with these laws than to remain ignorant and expect some miracle or some prayer to be answered. Life does not work that way.
• The fit man is reasonably fearless. Whatever financial, political or natural cataclysm overwhelms him, he is able to wrest a subsistence from his environment and will never feel the desperation and panic that the unfit feel.
• Fitness, real muscular, glandular fitness that embraces all aspects of life, and women, is the only true bulwark in this changing world.
• Most of what happens to us is to test us and to teach us. What, to the unfit, may be a calamity to the fit may be the end of an outworn era and the commencement of a new era in which we succeed bigger and better than ever before. For the fit, all things are possible.