Former Mr. USA may return to competing

By JEFFREY SAULTON, jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com
PARKERSBURG — A former Mr. USA winner has returned to his roots.

Jerry Alexander, 62, graduated from Belpre High School in 1963. He moved to Florida to attend college and worked for Sprint for 27 years as a network and design engineer. He now splits his time between Florida and Belpre, where he recently built a house.

Alexander said the only exercise he did while in high school was running and rollerskating. He said he did not participate in school sports.

“Back then I was so small I would have been killed if I played basketball or other sports,” he said. “I mostly ran.”

Alexander got into lifting weights at a relatively late age— 31.

“I was working full time and I went to school at night and that was when I got into weightlifting,” he said. “I was 31 years old and I weighed 131 pounds when I started.”

Alexander said he ran a lot then and when he started lifting one thing led to another.

“I was challenged to enter a contest down there,” he said of Florida. “I didn’t think I wanted to do that. I got in that and I won it.”

That was in 1980 when he won first place in the middleweight class in the Mr. Florida AAU contest.

“I competed for 10 years and I promoted bodybuilding shows in the area for nine years, the NPC Citrus Cup and the Mr. and Miss Orlando show,” he said.

Through the 1980s, Alexander won bodybuilding championships in Florida and in southern region competitions.

Alexander competed at 193 pounds with 4.3 percent body fat. His last competition was 19 years ago. Since then, he has gained two pounds, now weighing 195 pounds with seven percent body fat.

In 1989, Alexander won the NPC (National Physique Committee) Mr. USA title. At that point he was eligible to apply to become a professional competitor, but he decided to not pursue the professional card. Alexander said as a professional he would have been required to compete in at least seven shows a year and commit to a training schedule which was not possible with a full-time job and promoting bodybuilding shows.

Alexander is considering competing in the Master’s Olympia series, which is made up of past Olympia winners and others who have excelled on the amateur level.

Alexander’s last competition was in 1989 and he retired from his job in June 2004. He splits his time between the Mid-Ohio Valley and Florida, living here from about May 1 to mid-November.

For a time in Leesburg, Fla., Alexander ran a gym owned by a friend.

“He had other business interests and he asked me to run the gym,” he said. “I had personal training clients there.”

Alexander said he has not started personal training on a large scale in the area yet, but he has an agreement with the Parkersburg YMCA where if an individual joins he can train the person at the Broad Street facility.

Alexander said his system for weight loss is not a diet, but is a system called the Lifestyle System, which changes what and how one eats.

“In my mind diet is a way of saying temporary and failure,” he said. “It takes time to lay a foundation for weight loss. If you build a house without laying a good foundation it will collapse. If you don’t have a good foundation for weight loss, you will fail.”

Alexander said in his system, it takes six weeks to lay the foundation by making changes in foods.

“This is based on what I used when I competed,” he said. “It’s not as strict, but it will work.”

Alexander works with individuals to determine how many calories they need in a day. He said the number varies for each individual and it takes time.

“They ease into the changes rather than making changes immediately,” he said. “It takes six weeks to go over what you eat. The rules are change, substitute or eliminate foods from the unhealthy to healthy.”

Alexander is passionate about the plan. Those who follow it commit to it for themselves, he said. He tells them to keep the rules of change, substitute and/or eliminate in mind. When they see their waist size decrease, body fat drop and energy increase, they can see it works.

“It’s a nutrition education process,” he said.

Alexander said using the plan has allowed him at age 62 to maintain the 32-inch waist he had when he began bodybuilding at age 31.