Journal

LIFE INGREDIENTS with Robert Irvine: Issue #33

Mar 17, 2026

Hey folks,

Welcome back to Life Ingredients, the place where we take care of the whole person—spirit, mind, and body. Every edition is a reminder that real health isn’t about chasing perfection, but about building habits that make you stronger and more capable of creating a life you love.

We start the way we always do—by moving. Now let’s get to work!

LIFE INGREDIENTS FITNESS

BACK & BICEPS

After months of making me take my “medicine” my trainer Steve Wrona is finally letting me have fun again! That is, he’s getting back to my bread-and-butter bodybuilding training style—at least for a little while.

Back and biceps go together perfectly, kinda like cookies and milk. Why? Because the biceps are a synergist or helper muscle in every back movement. To do machine rows and pullups and pulldowns the right way, you need to think of your upper body as a crane; your back muscles are the motor, while your arms are just cables. This visual should get you to focus most of your attention on your back muscles (I know a lot of people who have trouble with this) but your biceps are always getting some work in throughout the session.

That’s why when you take a look at the workout below, you want to do it in exactly this order. If you start with the curls first, your biceps will be too gassed to do the pulling moves effectively, and your back muscles—lats and rhomboids—will get shortchanged in the process.

Have a look at the video here to watch Steve explain it in more detail.

View Complete Workout

Now, let's get to the food.

LIFE INGREDIENTS FOOD

GUINNESS CHEDDAR BANGERS & MASH

For much of my life, home was wherever the best pub in town was. I love a good pint and I have a deep affinity for pub food; many of my recipes are variations on the theme, whether trying to elevate the category somewhat, or make it a bit healthier.

This month’s recipe accomplishes both of those aims, on top of being a Saint Patrick’s Day special of mine. Bangers & Mash made with Guinness is a touch cleaner when you use chicken sausage (if you’ve got the calories to spare and feel like it, by all means use pork), and it’s plenty hearty and supremely satisfying.

Best of all, when you cook with Guinness you have to at least buy a four-pack, meaning you can help yourself to one while you cook, and another when you sit for dinner.

Erin go bragh!

View Complete Recipe

LIFE INGREDIENTS MOTIVATION

“What you think about comes about.” – Earl Nightingale

I met a fan recently who shook my hand, complimented my career and all my hard work, then asked if “luck” had played a role in my success.

Without hesitation I replied, “Absolutely.” But I went on to explain that luck plays a role in all our journeys for good or for ill. The good news, I told this person, is you get to make your own luck.

This person didn’t really take my meaning at first. To them, it sounded like I was dispensing some pablum about working hard and eventually finding yourself into the right place at the right time.

What I really meant was that, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more of a believer in the idea that our minds work like magnetic fields, attracting more of what we think about. While I don’t believe you can sit on the couch and manifest your way into winning Powerball, I do believe each and every one of us is a creative force of nature. If you catch yourself in the midst of a negative thought—maybe replaying some argument in your head or focusing on feelings of lack and powerlessness—and make a conscious effort to stop the process right there, you create space for a whole different type of energy to enter your life.

Not only that, but when you focus your attention on something negative, you’re putting your body through the real thing. Your adrenals get to work, your heart-rate elevates, and the fight-or-flight response is initiated. And when you have no one to fight and nowhere to fly to, this energy, with no proper outlet, puts an inordinate amount of stress on the body and mind.

If you can redirect your mind to think of a positive future, concentrating on harmony instead of discord, your friends and loved ones instead of your enemies, and abundance instead of lack, you pull more of those good things into your life.

Can I prove any of this? With a scientific paper, maybe not. But I can’t ignore the evidence my own eyes have been giving me for the entirety of my sixty years on this Earth. People with a negative outlook on life tend to draw more negativity into their lives. People with a positive outlook pull more positivity into their lives. Above all, they’re happier.

My own journey backs this up completely. I started with very little. My parents did not have much money at all. Life in the British Royal Navy was an appealing route for me at least in part because I knew where my meals would come from for a while. Making a career for myself took a lot of hard work, sure, but making the leap to TV and all that’s followed? Well, it’s more than just hard work. Each time I took a risk and put myself out there, I had a relentless focus on what could go right instead of what might go wrong. In my heart, I know that attitude made all the difference.

If you were watching from the sidelines, you’d probably say I was I lucky.

Damn right I was. But I made my own luck, and so can you.

Sound impossible? Come on, now. You already know the motto:

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.