I realized if I was going to reshape my body and turn myself into a champion, I would have to do it on my own. My brother-in-law suggested that I go on a hard-boiled egg and water diet. "That'll take off the extra pounds," he assured me.

From that day on it was goodbye milkshakes, hello hard-boiled eggs. From now on I was in training and nothing would interrupt my progress.

I began making visits to Brenning's News, the local newsstand. I used to buy my "Dennis the Menace" and "Richie Rich" comic books there. It was also the first place I had seen a copy of Iron Man. I was about 9 years old at the time, and I thought bodybuilders were born looking that way.

Now I was ready to switch my interests from comics to bodybuilding magazines - magazines like Musclemag International, Muscular Development, Muscle Builder/Power, which later became Joe Weider's Muscle & Fitness, Muscle Training Illustrated, and Strength and Health.

Now I was going to turn my fat, out-of-shape body into the image I wanted - a muscular Greek god like Hercules or Adonis.

I'd discovered a copy of Schwarzenegger's autobiography, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder. The book was filled with photos of Arnold in a variety of poses. His body looked like it had been carved out of solid granite. Some day I wanted to look like that. 

On page 32 Schwarzenegger had written: "I announced to my family that I would no longer go to church, that I didn't believe in it and didn't have time to waste on it."

That struck a note with me. The more I got into bodybuilding, the less I attended church, too. 

It didn't take long before I began to see results from my diet. The pounds began melting off. I found myself looking into a mirror a lot as I flexed and posed. I pored through the Joe Weider course and magazines trying to figure out his secrets. I was becoming a believer.