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Outside Magazine September 2003

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Mr. Big (Cont.)


	Next up for Phillips? Writing a screenplay. "It'll be like what Sly did with Rocky," he says. "Inspirational." (Jeff Riedel)

EAS AND MUSCLE MEDIA were twin juggernauts, but it was the Body-for-Life Challenge that really put Phillips on the map. The contest wasn't anything new—it was derived from the crash routines bodybuilders use leading up to a pose-off. Phillips had tried out the idea a couple of years earlier, in 1995, when he advertised a similar competition in MM2K for Physique Augmentation Systems, a now-defunct division of EAS. The ad hinted at his fondness for before-and-after pictures, a potent marketing gimmick that spun all the way back to 1950, when Charles Atlas created his cartoon narrative about the scrawny guy who gets his babe snatched away by the buff beach bully, bulks up, and then wins her back.

Body-for-Life advanced the form with more sophisticated workouts and diet, and it did so at a fortuitous time. Headlines everywhere were screaming about escalating health issues like obesity, increasing rates of adult diabetes, and heart disease, problems that are still on the rise. Just as important, Phillips was playing on deep-seated emotional insecurities: Were we hot? Probably not. And it didn't hurt that the age of the Superbod had descended, kicking off with Arnold's stardom and growing fast to include a platoon of representatives like Sylvester Stallone, Fabio, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and, more recently, Vin Diesel and the Rock. The secret—not that it was very well kept—was bodybuilding. When Sly wanted to bulk up for his role in Cliffhanger, he turned to Phillips for a training plan. Demi Moore's one-arm push-ups in G.I. Jane? Phillips was behind those, too.

Body-for-Life promised a celebrity physique to anyone willing to commit themselves to 12 weeks of weight lifting and sweaty bouts on the treadmill. But the hardest part wasn't the exercise—it was, and is, the diet. "The program is like 60-40, food to exercise," says Jack Quinlan, a 37-year-old BFLer I met during the champions' tour in New York.

This is where diet supplements come in. Participants who enroll in the Body-for-Life Challenge are required to use at least two different EAS products during the contest, the most popular being Myoplex shakes and bars. Never mind that the bars taste like an eraser and the shakes like Milk of Magnesia; they offer nutrient density you just can't get from the glass case at Starbucks. But, hey, no pressure: You can either plan, prepare, and diligently consume whole-foods meals six times a day, six days a week...or you can go to a GNC, stock up on supps, and keep them conveniently on hand.

Is it worth it? Quinlan, a Body-for-Life runner-up in 2002, thinks so, and says that eating the BFL way is pretty economical. "I was skeptical, too," he says. "I didn't want to look like a bodybuilder. My boss had talked me into doing the New York City Marathon, and I was 30 pounds overweight and hadn't put on running shoes in a year. I was desperate."

When Quinlan started Body-for-Life, he was pasty and plump. But in his "after" photo, he's slim and copper-colored, posing sideways, hands clenched by his hip, one knee cocked forward.

"It's hard—you have to give up a lot—but it works," he says, almost pleadingly. "What, are you gonna fault these guys for trying to make a buck off me? Hey, welcome to America."

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