STEVE'S
"EAT LIKE
YOU MEAN IT"
VIDEO SERIES

Steve's presentation schedule

TLGLA presenter

the author
Steve Perkins

CREDENTIALS
Certified Holistic Nutrition/Natural Health Practitioner; Nutrition Consultant; Peer Presenter for The Life Group of LA; Certified Graphic Designer; BA Music Education, Masters Studies in Choral Literature and Conducting; Internet Marketing Professional

BACKSTORY
For a guy not exactly genetically blessed and raised humbly and in a cloud of second-hand cigarette smoke, a lofty goal like being muscular seemed totally impossible ... nothing more than a pipe dream. At age 50 a devastating HIV-related health crisis nearly clinched the deal forever.

VISCERAL GLUE
Indiana-born, corn-fed and raised, schooled in everything BUT physical fitness or nutrition, the passion for bodybuilding was there all along; the actual process just got a late start. Weight-training and smart fueling eventually turned into a potent career tool and a motivating, life-sustaining, life-affirming force. I call weight training, 'my visceral glue.'

INTERVIEW for'THE FIT SHOW' a few days before Excalibur NPC Contest, 2006; Santa Monica, CA

HEALTH CHALLENGES
In the late 90s I stubbornly refused the new modality of HIV treatments lacking confident in their efficacy while trying every other alternative to no avail. Personal losses heaped upon professional misfortunes, three eye surgeries, failing hearing, vertigo problems - my usual keen rationality just took a vacation. Then the talons of depression sank in and took their toll. I'm not proud to admit it, but at one point I really just gave up.

        
1999: Convalescing, 135 pounds

My best buddy at the time (a true friend and personal hero, William Alan Percy) scooped me up into an ambulance partially-conscious, emaciated, blurry and dehydrated, on the brink of death, not cognizant., non-conversant but co-operative - not that I remember any of it myself.

CONVALESCING
1999 -Two hospitals and four months later, I began g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y to resurface. My mind was mush, a dense fog with only sound bytes and a few visual flashes about where I'd been with nothing to cement them together.

Medicinally, per my advance directives, I was put on an HIV two-drug protocol plus Neuronton (a 'sleeper') via California's MediCal convalescent care; collectively, they saved my sweet butt.

Eating was my favorite thing back then in the nursing home ... the only thing I was good for. I craved hot cereal and seconds if I could get it. Chatting ineptly with a few regular chums, medications were cheerfully delivered in-person. Nursing interns  periodically lifted me out my wheelchair to change my dirty diapers and towel-bathe me. I was so out of it, I couldn't offer a better way then.

Things progressed tediously over five months' time (summer 1999). I learned new dimensions of patience as I slowly regained more memory bytes and cognitive synapses. I hated all of it - how I let this happen, where I'd wound up, all my losses, very few options.

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PHYSICAL THERAPY
I got very little PT unless I asked for it; drugs were the main treatment modality. I knew that alone would stall real physical and mental repair, so I helped things along in the nursing home by asking for extra physical therapy, reading everything in sight, helping other 'inmates', earning the staff's trust so I could stretch and wimpy train unattended in the PT room - hip-high parallel bars, a weathered cable machine and a raised padded platform. I did yoga wherever I could find carpeting (the communal TV spot).

When I realized it was available, I insisted on regular morning walks around the block (staffer-attended per the rules) behind an up-graded walker. I schemed scenarios to demonstrate my progress in front of any staffer within ear-shot. I was consciously greasing the lethargic wheels of the release-process however I could. It was such a depressing place to be. I needed out of there as soon as humanly possible if I was going to have any chance of fully recuperating, of getting back into the real world and on with my new self.

PHOENIX MOMENT
In that convalescent facility, if I was aware of anything remotely life-alterating it was that I had been reincarnated after all! Recycled. Repurposed. Essentially I was given a second chance to start over from scratch. I got what I asked for. Wow!

"BLOTTO TIME"
For the whole story, written in more depth and in first-person, the real account of my near-death and miraculous recovery is called "Blotto Time: Pleasant, but Confused" - available only in PDF format.

Blotto Time: Pleasant, but Confused
by Steve Perkins,
Certified Nutrition Consultant
PDF FORMAT ONLY $10

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FLASHBACK: Idly reading a sliced bread wrapper, I wondered WHY the flour needed to be refined then enriched? What were they doing to it in the first place? Why did they put chemicals in everything? I mean bread is just flour, yeast, a drop of sweetening and salt and water. Thus began a lifetime of head-scratching and questioning any and all food processing practices. For over thirty-five years I unwittingly pioneered the current and smarter-than-the- FDA-sanctioned food pyrami; always fine-tuned my eating and supplement regime. I know in my gut that tenacity and perseverance saved me when all the chips were down.

2005: age 59, 178 pounds

FLASHFORWARD: I owe my recovery to several factors: first and foremost, the support of family and friends, even strangers when they heard my story, eating well before, during and after my health trauma and largely from being proactive in my healthcare throughout.

Part of the latter came about serendipitous - I found a book called "Built to Survive" by Michael Mooney and Nelson Vergel, which delineated complimentary treatments for HIV/AIDS including judicious, monitored, prescribed use of anabolic steroids to prevent AIDS wasting, facial wasting as well other alternative treatments and a lot of savvy nutritional advice. YES!

For decades I weighed 155 pounds - nothing I tried or did changed that by more than a few pounds one way or the other. I certainly wasn't able to lift heavy or begin to think of physique competing.

When I returned to California, settled into the healthcare system and found the right doctor who was HIV-savvy, a bodybuilder himself and lo and behold, Oviposited too; I knew somehow all this was meant to transpire.

I asked specifically about low-dose anabolic, combined with the HIV medications du jour. Yes, they were part of my prescription plan too (MediCal, ADAP, Medicare). The right steroids used properly, cycled, regularly monitored can be very helpful for some HIV-positive people. I am one of them and have no regrets whatsoever.

FINALLY!
Within a month of weekly injections of testosterone and deca nandrolone, I gained 15 pounds, mostly muscle. I trained harder and ate even smarter. What I saw in the mirror approved; I felt amazingly better, more vital, my self-esteem soared, my spirit rectified. I felt healthy and happy and yes sexual again. My HIV lab results confirmed that these often abused controlled substances were helping my general health and stability as well.

I continue the regimen, weigh generally 180, train a 5-6 day routine (1-2 days rest). I still get told I look better than a lot of thirty-year-olds. That's scary, but of course, very flattering. I must be doing something right, huh?

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BOOK JACKET BLURB
"From an emaciated virus-ridden beanpole at death's door, I know now it was HIV-Related Dementia that nearly got me. You usually don't recover from that. It took five years of focus, resolve, big attitude shifts, hard work and lots of patience and diplomacy, but I willed myself stronger, more vital and more muscular. If I am a medical-miracle, I hope at the very least that I testify to self-advocacy and aggressive proactive nutrition. I just want to share my zeal with the world.

There is hope IF you dig deep, explore all the options, and fuel right!"

–Steve Perkins, Certified Nutritionist, Certified Holistic and Natural Health Practitioner

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PHOTO GALLERY

2001: COLORADO RECOVERY

150 pounds but getting it back

2006: PHYSIQUE - CONTEST PHOTOS

2006: GAY GAMES | MUSCLE BEACH VENICE

2006: EXCALIBUR, DEC. 2
3rd Place, MASTERS 60+

 

2007

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2014 PHOTOS

2014: Putting on some beef lately

2014 Movie Time:
$7.00 senior admittance fee
$7.50 small popcorn
$4.50 bottle water
WTF?

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HOW TMK CAME TO BE: So many people asked me over the years, "How do you do it? How do you look so good for your age? I hope I look half as good as you when I'm your age. Spill all the tips and secrets, please!" .... etc.

I AMASSED THE materials, scrutinized shaping them, formalized. The first version was printed, definitely a rough draft in order to get some feedback, marketing surveys and reality checks, of course.

THEN the web site evolved, and continues to evolve.

Weighing the marketplace, the competition, users' options, it was blatantly clear that just another muscle-oriented diet scheme would not be noticed or important. Skirting the one big element in my personal success which is key to future versions of this project - I'm HIV positive and a bodybuilder and a nutritionist and a graphic designer and going the make the very best of everything and help make a positive difference in the process.

Minimizing my 'cooties' status would be a huge disservice to my own resolve, reality and honesty itself - more so to all those we've lost to the disease and imperfect medications.

I'm one of lucky long-term survivors, so far. The Muscle Kitchen must and will pay homage to our special compadres for whom we live now.

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