John Terilli

John Terilli is an Australian former professional bodybuilder.

Background Terilli was born in Italy and he moved with his family to Sydney, Australia, when he was eight years old. For most of his pre-teen life he was an over-weight child. In an effort to change himself he developed anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa at the age of only 11. However, he managed to turn this around when he was 12 years old and started following a more sensible nutrition and exercise program, developed mainly from his own observations and experimentation.

Bodybuilding career

Beginnings He began bodybuilding after first seeing his lifelong inspiration Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover of a magazine. He started his amateur career at home by lifting bricks tied to each end of a broomstick handle.

By 1976, Terilli had developed an impressive physique mainly through calisthenics with very little actual weight training in a gymnasium. In that year he entered his first bodybuilding competition, the Teen Mr. New South Wales, which he won. The general consensus, amongst the audience attending the event, was that Terilli had won.

In 1985, Terilli moved to the United States and in 1986 he qualified for Mr Olympia at the 1986 Professional World Bodybuilding Championships (now dubbed The Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic). He also succeeded in becoming a finalist in the 1986 Mr Olympia competition.

Experimentation Thereafter, John shifted his focus to experimentation with dieting, nutrition and training protocols. He was able to gain access to the St Luke's Roosevelt Woman's Hospital Obesity Centre in New York, where he worked with a team of medical practitioners to study the effects of food on body composition and body fat levels, as well as ways to accurately measure body fat. He developed a keen sense of the way you should eat to maintain body fat levels and body composition. In 1989 John returned to Australia and kept working in this field and as a personal trainer until he opened gymnasiums in the Sydney Area in 1992. Terilli retired from participation in bodybuilding competitions in 1994.

Married Life – Post Competitions John married in 1990 to Angela Terilli and they had their first child in 1991