When I was young I didn’t mind very much about Fitness. For me it was enough what was in the school programs. Of course basketball was the best for me, because of my height I was always nearer the basket than the others, but in any case I wasn’t a born sportsman, I had thin legs and a complex caused by my stature. 
When I was 15 years old, I was already 1,85 Meter tall, and I was becoming always taller. Only when I was 17 I got my today’s height: 1,96 Meter.
The girls found me nice, but this helped me few because it caused an higher envy from my school-fellows. They joked at me saying: "Hey, higher, you with your thin legs...."
I used to eat, what was at home on the table and sometimes like the others I ate also an Hamburger, but this changed nothing in my thin body.
Fortunately I didn’t like sweets, since in a certain way I already knew that couldn’t help me to stay healthy and fit. When I was young I already knew I wanted to become an actor, so it was better for me to be in good shape.
But I was not born as "Snapper" or "Knight Rider" Michael or lieutenant Mitch from "Baywatch". I looked after my health and body conditions also because I got these film parts and other TV-roles. But my main reason was easy: I wanted to be proud of myself.
The psychological process is so easy and everybody can do it. When you watch yourself in the mirror and you find good what you see, then you feel good, and you say to yourself: "Yeah, man, the one there is super!". With this attitude also the other people see you in a positive way and they also feel good. This causes a chain reaction that brings necessarily to the success.
You may think now, I’ve always known this thing.......
When I got my first big role as Dr. Snapper Foster in "The Young and the Restless" by CBS in 1975, I should had to have all the reasons to concentrate myself on this fantastic job. In spite of this, everytime I opened the door of CBS, I had stomach cramps. As soon as I got in the studios my negative energy went out. Oh my God! I said to myself, I must learn twenty pages in this bad mood? Impossible! And the many people in the studio the look at you and wait for an your mistake. And all the ways and positions I had to pay attention.....
I thought to my dad, who invested so much money in my education and I thought everything would have been useless. I thought "I’ll not get any other roles from a Movie or TV company".
I went on in this way for two years, since one day I met a girl, I remembered she had been quite fat and not very nice, but now, in few time this girl became thin and very nice. She was as a model and she got sometimes also little movie roles. She watched at me while I was working, she saw my tension and told me: "David, you need help". She suggested me a book "The Strength of your subconscious" written by Dr. Joseph Murphy.
This book shows how a man with a positive conception of the life, can turn in positive his own life and the one of the other people.
I read this book and I felt recharged. I built on my own a new positive attitude, created a new world for me. I took two weeks to become another man, and to start my positive energies at last.
When I went to the studios in the morning, I was used to use a kind of mental power. It was such a countdown: I counted "five"-"four"-"three"-"two"-"one" and I told to myself: I’m David Hasselhoff, I’m good, and they had signed me, because I’m good. I’ve a good work and I’ve the chance to make the other people happy. There were no more doubts, not "I would like" or "I’d like to be" but only "I am"!
I saved such as in a computer what was written in that book, ready to be used in case of necessity. I’ve also visualized it, I saw myself as a winner.
There’s also another famous example regarding the power of these "mental" training: in the USA 15 Basketball player had been trained only in the mental way, so to concentrate themselves only to see the ball inside the basket. Then another team had been trained only in the physical way. The result: The mental trained player had been 100% better and incredible winner.
This power of the sub-conscious, this energy supported by self-consciousness can help e verybody with the school, study, sports and the whole life. Tell always to yourself: I know I can do that, I can manage to do it, and it happens. This positive attitude is the best condition for a salutary life. And this also means that a positive life brings an healthier body.
I was 23 years old when I needed this way to see my life and I suddenly became the most popular star man in the USA series. Everybody loved "Snapper" the doctor of the TV-serie, it appeared for about 6 years on the television screen and presented me a star for the first time.
But I also found out how dangerously thin is the frontier between the self-confidence and the conceit. At the beginning of the 8th year I was used to thought I didn’t have to do anything more for my success. I got easily the job and I didn’t mind of other things. The whole world said me how good I was and I believed it, I didn’t see how I really became: arrogant, lazy and fat.
Immediately after "The Young and the Restless" I got the role of Michael Knight in the "Knight Rider", I had strong competitors such as Don Johnson. After I saw the first recording I was horrified.... I saw somebody, I didn’t stand at all. I saw me puffed up and I also knew why: junk-food, beer and no more fitness.
Self-confidence is good, conceit is a disaster that kill everybody and everything. When you think you do need nothing else for your body and your soul than you get problems.
I recognized it quite in time, because I got in that period a role near Joan Collins in the four parts TV-serie "Cartier Affair" and, near this beautiful woman of course I wanted to appear in good figure.
So I called a personal fitness trainer who recovered my figure in two weeks. Five Kilograms less and I feel as I had seven years less. I found me again OK. From that moment I’ve never lost my form, now that I’m 38 years old I’m still fanatic of my fitness and I try always to be better.
I live following a fitness and diet plan decided with the help of my fitness trainer Heinz Altieri and my doctors, and this has brought me a great satisfaction, I feel myself better now than when I was twenty years old.
It's very amusing when you eat chips and hot dogs but sooner or later you pay for them. And so it's also for the drugs and alcohol. Don't allow yourself to be influenced by the people who say it's "cool". It's a "dead end street", it's a gas chamber.
Who drinks has more or less problems, and this can be lack of self-confidence. This people believe to be stronger after. It's an illusion: in reality this is a signal of weakness.
Remember that life is a wonderful present and you must take care of it. You must take care of yourself as soon as possible, since when you're young everything appear easy, but believe me, when you become older it's very hard to get back in shape and you've to do a lot of training.
Between the terrible conceit and the positive self-confidence I knew: you get from life only what you invest in it. And you can't really imagine, what a power, what a strong is inside you.
Created by Paola Vaccari, Novara, Italy