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Ask actor and comedian Robin Williams about fitness and you’re likely to get a nonstop
monologue ranging from the sex life of turkey vultures to the “30–20–45–5
diet.” Not that the Oscar winner (for 1997’s Good Will Hunting) doesn’t take his
workouts seriously. After all, our chat came while he was preparing for the Nautica Malibu
Triathlon at Zuma Beach, California, a benefit for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
In fact, as soon as we hung up, Williams and his trainer, Greg O’Bryan, planned to zoom off
for a 47-mile bike ride in Marin County, where 47-year-old Williams and his family live.
Question: Are you doing all three legs of the triathlon—the half-mile swim, 18-mile bike
ride, and four-mile run?
Answer: No, no, no. God, no. “What’s that little thing floating? Oh, my God, they swam
over Robin. Quick. Call David Hasselhoff. It’s Baywatch in the water getting Robin out.” I do the bike ride. I love riding bikes.
Q: What are you doing for this event, besides your normal workouts?
A: Basically, a lot of long rides and then, in between those days, some weight training and then
running.
Q: Have you intensified, though? I’m trying to find out if your regimen is different for
this.
A: No, you just increase it. And then you have this thing called a stationary bike that works off
of a computer that puts an image on a TV screen, a 3-D image, which is pretty wonderful. If
you’re online with somebody, you could ride against this kinda silver surfer dude who’s
on a bike and compete against him. You can be against Don Knotts or [champion cyclist] Miguel
Indurain. Either way you have an interesting day.
Q: What about the weight training?
A: You do basically free weights. It’s one of those standing stations where you alternate all
body parts. Allllll body parts. But not a lot of legwork because you’re getting that on the
cycle. Look, it’s quad boy. It’s Lou Ferrigno.
Q: Anything else besides the weights and bicycling?
A: Running. Cross-country running in the hills. I don’t like streets. Sometimes I run on
streets if I have to, but most of the time there’re so many beautiful hills and parks and
wonderful places, just exquisite, and you actually run into wild animals, which makes it
interesting.
Q: On four legs.
A: Oh, they’re four-legged and there’s two-headed. There’s turkey vultures which
look like a rat head. Basically, a snake screwed a turkey: “Oh, look. There’s our child.”
You come around the corner and there’s a turkey vulture going, “Fine. It’s yours.
I’m really not into the dead rabbit. Good luck.”
Q: Do you do this every day? I’m losing it here. Did you tell me how often you
exercise?
A: Every other day.
Q: Was there anything else physically that you do?
A: Physically. Well, not without a subpoena. I can’t talk about that. At this time I
misinterpreted the idea. Physically. Um, let’s see. What else, what else, what else, anything
else. No, no.
Q: Can I ask you about diet?
A: Yes, ma’am.
Q: Are you eating differently to get ready for the bike ride?
A: Yes. You have to find your own prey. No, but it’s the survival diet. I think you just
diminish. I’ve just been trying to cut back a little. The weird thing is that when you go for
these long rides and you’ve been running...you do diminish on your own. The main thing is food
replacements and sometimes you use these meal-replacement bars. What are they? Forty–30–40?
Q: Forty–30–30, I think. I don’t know anymore. I just refer to all of them as
protein bars.
A: Yeah. Forty–30–20–45–5. Five–5–5. Forty percent protein. Yeah,
part carbohydrate. You have 10 percent fat. Good for the brain. A little bit of Viagra so you ride
hard. Ride hard good. Oh, yeah, dear God, woman, not now. Not on a day like that. Take that stain
out. That must have been rubbish. She tried to send it to the dry cleaner. They send back—a
little stain won’t come out. What, the stain won’t come out? No.
Q: Could you give me some idea about your breakfast, lunch, dinner? Starting with
breakfast.
A: I start out with a pina colada. So hard to get that coconut up there. I always start out
with—oh, it’s caffeine coffee. Oh, sad but true.
I start off with an English muffin and then some protein—one egg or some cottage cheese and
definitely the caffeine. OK, and then for lunch, it’s a sandwich of—see, basically,
Kevorkian chicken. The chicken took its own life so you have no worry about bad karma, and then
for dinner it’s vegetables and another protein and some carbohydrate of choice and then a
gallon of Haagen-Dazs. And then the Ben & Jerry’s outtake program. You get air-travel miles
from Ben & Jerry to Vermont and back.
Q: Dinner is what again? More chicken?
A: Yeah, you can do chicken. The one that actually was raised on top of an oven, free-range chicken.
I’m sure the chicken went, “Yeah, free range. I had 25 yards to live in, versus the other
ones which are totally drug-infested, whacked out.”
Q: Do you eat dessert?
A: Well, sometimes. I’m not gonna lie. Won’t give daddy some sugar. Sometimes, yeah, I
crave just a little, especially, God, after you’ve ridden that long, you want something.
Q: OK, but like what?
A: God, I don’t know. Oh, let’s see. Berry cobbler. Oh, we have unborn pears picked at a
ranch in Mendocino. What do we have? I mean, sometimes, God, every once in a while you treat
yourself with something nice.
Q: How about water? Drink a lot of water?
A: Lots of water. Hydrate. Hydrate. Carry a CamelBak when you go for the long rides and multiple
water bottles and sometimes those food replacements. You need that stuff, especially now in the
heat thanks to El Nino—and his sister, La Nina.
Niiiiiiino. Where’s Los Besos? Why, the front’s coming your way—Los Besos. A big,
warm kiss of nature. Mother Nature’s hot for you.
Q: Better stop. I don’t think I can go on.
A: Well, you’ve got a shard of an interview there.
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