Singapore #Fitspo of the Week: Joshua Woo

Life goes beyond the digits on the scale and your body is capable of so much more. Yahoo’s #Fitspo of the Week series is dedicated to inspirational men and women in Singapore leading healthy and active lifestyles. Have someone to recommend? Hit Cheryl up on Instagram or Facebook.

Name: Joshua Woo (@tidusjwoo)

Age: 27

Height: 1.79m

Weight: 87kg

Occupation: Intellectual property, privacy and tech lawyer/coach at F45 Training Amoy Street

Status: Married

Diet: I follow a “see-food” diet! Jokes aside, I believe in eating sustainably. I typically don’t restrict myself to any foods if I’m not preparing for an event or a shoot, though I believe in sustaining a balanced diet. So if I have an unhealthy meal, I will try to offset the caloric impact by eating clean for my other meals or working out more.

Training: I try to listen to my body, so I hit the gym anywhere from four to six times a week, depending on how my body feels. My training comprises a mix of HIIT (high-intensity interval training), CrossFit-style workouts of the day (WODs) and strength training.

Q: For the first 15 years of your life, you struggled with fitness, failing your NAPFA test every year till you were 15.

I failed my NAPFA test all the way till I was 15. Having been in the Trim And Fit club (a club for overweight kids), exercise was always a pain and a chore. I remember running 400m while trying to prepare for my 1.6km run, only to give up after the 400m, and ingest more calories than I had burnt from a bottle of Gatorade.

Back then, I obviously wasn’t very well informed – I didn’t know what a calorie was, I didn’t know how much calories I was ingesting or that I would have to exercise to burn those calories off. The only thing I knew was the kinds of food that tasted good to me.

I’ve obviously come a long way from then, but being an overweight kid definitely shaped my journey in crafting the person standing before you.

When did that change?

I had a tough time transitioning to secondary school. Being in an all boys’ school, the other guys didn’t pull any punches when teasing me about my weight or size. It definitely didn’t help that I still wasn’t interested in exercising and had a deluded perception of myself.

Things came to a head during a prefect camp where we had to do dragonboating as part of a team building activity. The teacher in charge stopped the boat during one of the sprints, and then called out the “fat boy who wasn’t pulling his weight” – this had me looking around in my boat – only to realise that he was talking about me. This was a rude awakening, and was the catalyst for my eventual transformation.

A month later, a friend in the canoeing team (which was under the charge of that same teacher) asked me if was interested in joining. It was then when I decided to make a change and joined the canoeing team. The canoeing team was great because it gave me my first taste of what a regimented fitness programme would look like. Being part of the team also marked the first time I set foot into the gym.

But you quit the canoeing team later.

Alas, I quit the canoeing team to focus on other commitments, but I was still hitting the gym four times a week. Of course, this was before the proliferation of the #fitspo culture on YouTube and even before Instagram came about. All I had was Bodybuilding.com.

I feel like I knew what I was supposed to do during the workouts, but I didn’t know how to engage the right muscles. I also avoided hitting compound exercises (squats, deadlifts, barbell bench presses) as I was misinformed and afraid that this would stunt my growth.

Eventually, having seen minimal results after one year in the gym, I decided to concentrate my efforts elsewhere and turned to playing squash instead. By then, I was at the end of Secondary 4 going into Year 5.

When did you start to be more conscious of your looks?

Having been in an all boys’ school till I was 16, Year 5 was a turning point since that marked the first time I had female classmates. This made me a little more self-conscious about how I looked (I was still overweight then), so one fine afternoon during the June holidays, I decided to run as far as I could to try and lose weight. I ended up running 12km – not bad considering the furthest I had run before that was 4.8km (the previous year was the first time I passed my 2.4km run).

I then resolved to do the army half-marathon (AMH). It was about eight weeks out from the AHM at that point of time, so my parents thought I was quite mad. I eventually completed that in 2 hour 9 minutes, so I would say that it wasn’t too bad an effort.

I then went on to run the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon that December, and the Sundown Marathon the following year, 13 days after I turned 18 and was legally allowed to run the full marathon.

After a couple of years of running, you decided to take part in a physique competition. What made you do so?

Even though running helped me lose some of the weight and get fitter (I got my first IPPT gold during BMT and maintained that through OCS), I was never really satisfied with how I looked, so I resolved to do my first physique competition one year after I commissioned as an officer.

What are your fitness goals now?

I can’t resist good food, so I guess you could say I work out to eat, so I can stay in decent shape. I would also like to be able to compete in the CrossFit Opens some day. I’ve been doing the workouts on my own these past two years, but I often find myself unable to complete some of the workouts due to my technical deficiencies (I still can’t do a muscle up, snatch, or double unders). Thus these are things that I am working on, while trying to get stronger and fitter at the same time.

How do you balance training, work as a lawyer, husband duties and well, life?

I think I am able to balance everything because I make fitness a priority. Having a supportive and understanding wife who shares similar interests also helps. Having a partner to hold you accountable is great from a programme adherence standpoint.

That said, owing to our packed schedules (our day starts at 6am when we work out before work), we don’t get a lot of sleep, which is something we try to address by sleeping in every two to three days.

You are also a fitness trainer, what made you decide to teach?

I became a trainer seven years ago because I didn’t want others to make the same mistakes I did – to spend time, effort, money, yet not see any results. I also like the fulfilment of being able to help others achieve their fitness goals.

When did you feel the least confident about yourself?

Notwithstanding how I come across, I think body image issues are a struggle that most, if not all, people deal with, no matter how skinny, fat or ripped they are. Personally, I’ve always been very self-conscious about my lack of abs. I guess I’ve come to accept it over time that everyone has their own journey and their own body type, and that it is a meaningless exercise to constantly compare yourself to the next person.

Are you satisfied with your body now?

Linking back to my answer above – I don’t think I am satisfied with my body (shoulders too narrow, upper chest not full enough, arms small, undefined abs), but I’ve also come to accept that it’s part and parcel of life – that we’re all genetically different and that all I can do is to work with what I’ve got.

Have you ever received any comments about your body?

My masseuse says I have a perky bum!