Most everyone who reads this has a shared experience we all know, but most of us won’t do anything about it. Whether you’re in high school or a senior center, the condition is known to both genders and no physical examination is required for the news.
Most everyone who reads this has a shared experience we all know, but most of us won’t do anything about it. Whether you’re in high school or a senior center, the condition is known to both genders and no physical examination is required for the news.
You get out of the shower one day, glance in the mirror and, yep, you know. You really should lose some weight, maybe just 10 or 15 pounds, maybe quite a bit more. But beyond carrying too much weight, you also know you aren’t physically fit.
What to do? Start running? How much? Is it OK to walk? Would it be better to join a gym? Which one? Is lifting weights smart for someone out of shape?
Gerald Saragosa, a landscaper in Hilo, has been there, he’s done it. He has a few suggestions.
“The most important thing is to realize that you have to make a commitment that will change your life,” Saragosa said the other day, “and it means you have to get out of your comfort zone. Most people say they’re ready, but they’re not ready, it’s just talk.”
Saragosa looked in the mirror one day in 2012 and didn’t like what he saw — a pot belly, no muscle definition anywhere and a dreary face staring back at him.
“I wasn’t happy,” he said. “I wasn’t exercising, I was drinking too much, basically being a slob. I told myself I wasn’t going to keep being like that, I just saw myself five years down the road and it kind of scared me.”
He started eating protein, avoiding carbohydrates and says in 10 weeks he went from 206 to 160, but relatives thought he might have been using drugs. He lost a lot of weight but he didn’t look good.
“Get the nutrition right, first,” he says now. “It’s so much easier on you.”
Saragosa researched nutrition, started going to a gym and before he knew it he had six-pack abs and muscle definition all over the place. With the encouragement of his wife, Marla, he decided to enter a body building contest. One thing led to another, which led to mainland competitions and today he remains the only individual on the island with a pro card for National Physique competition, not to be confused with the other side of men’s body building. Physique competition is more about muscle symmetry and balance whereas body building competition is essentially a race to see who can get bigger than anyone else.
Saragosa trained for competitions, won his pro card in a tournament in Pittsburgh in 2014 and has since been holding local competitions on the Big Island. His third attempt will be at Sangha Hall, March 26, with complete details available at his website, highintensity808.com. He planned to be competing all this time, but the death of his brother Justin, 30 — at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Pearl Harbor in late 2014 — caused Gerald to put things on hold.
“I still carry that day with me, think about it every day,” Saragosa said. “I had to refocus things a little bit, I felt like I had to unplug for a while. I still want to compete again but right now I’m just trying to keep the interest level up.”
Saragosa’s accomplishments were spread throughout the community and where there were once a handful of body builders — male and female — on the Big Island, he now says “there are dozens just here, alone.”
The payoff in this discipline, he says, is how you feel, and you get it every day.
“That thing of when you look good you feel good? That’s at the bottom of it, but the feeling is a huge confidence booster, it’s the best feeling in the world and the accomplishment of what you’ve done just builds,” he said. “But it is a selfish pursuit, you need good people around you.”
Saragosa has that. When he got back from his first national competition, having not come close to placing, he told his wife if he wanted to compete he would have to bulk up, start using growth hormones, maybe the steroid treatments body builders are known for.
“It was kind of simple,” he said of that brief conversation with Marla. “She said, ‘Go ahead, if that’s what you want, but you can divorce me if you do that.’”
So yes, Gerald Saragosa uses no drugs or supplements. It’s safer that way, and it feels better.
“Losing my brother taught me how precious life is,” he said. “Body building is a great way to get in shape and feel good about yourself.”
But first comes the mental commitment to change your routine, change your life. Without that, Saragosa said, you will only get six pack abs in your dreams.