Eugene Teo, 34, began lifting weights at the age of 13, looking for validation. \u201cI was short, skinny and I thought it would give me confidence,\u201d he says. \u201cBodybuilding for me was the ultimate expression of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now living on the Gold Coast in Australia, with his partner and daughter, the fitness coach spent from age 16 to 24 training and competing. At times, he lifted weights for up to four hours a day, aiming to get as muscular and lean as possible. The ideal he was chasing? \u201cIf you grab your eyelid and feel that skin,\u201d he says, \u201cthat\u2019s the skin thinness you want on your bum and abs.\u201d<\/p>\n
That quest became an obsession: \u201cHow can I push myself to these extreme points, and then do it again and again and become better than last time?\u201d He followed unsafe protocols shared by bodybuilding gurus to make his muscles pop, dangerously dehydrating his body ahead of competitions. He ate six to 10 times a day, restricting his diet to foods considered \u201cclean\u201d by the community at the time: sweet potato, brown rice, broccoli and boiled chicken breast. He skipped his own birthday for years to avoid eating off-plan and took scales to Christmas dinner to weigh out his turkey. \u201cThere were a lot of dysmorphic associations around food,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u2018I had negative body image and confidence issues\u2019: Teo in 2015. Photograph: courtesy of Eugene Teo<\/p>\n
His body became a project \u2013 one he focused his entire life around, with little room for flexibility, let alone fun. \u201cThe driving force behind my bodybuilding was negative body image and confidence issues,\u201d he says. \u201cI alienated myself. I lost friendships. I lost partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
His mum often asked him, \u201cWhy can\u2019t you eat what I eat? Why are you not having my cooking?\u201d Alone at home, he viewed his body like a critical enemy. Even at his most muscular, he saw only flaws. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even wear clothes without thinking, \u2018How do my shoulders feel in this? How do my arms feel?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The realisation came slowly to Teo, but his body was screaming for a life overhaul. \u201cI could lift a lot of weight. I looked exceptional,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I was out of breath from simple tasks.\u201d Walking across the gym with clients gave him lower back pain. Even tying his shoes required him to brace himself. \u201cThe sheer size of my body wasn\u2019t supporting all the systems appropriately,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Teo changed his training, shifting the focus from muscle size alone to mobility, power and cardiovascular endurance \u2013 adding running, stretching, jumping and cycling to his routine. He began to ask himself whether his extreme mindset was making him happy, accepting that \u201cthis is now an obsessive trait in my personality, and it\u2019s not bringing me joy\u201d.<\/p>\n
A decade later, his focus is on his relationships and work as a YouTube fitness coach and app developer, rather than his body. He no longer works out every day and, while he still eats well, he\u2019s more relaxed about it. \u201cIf I\u2019m out with my daughter and she wants an ice\u2011cream, I\u2019ll have one with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
His body has changed. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely smaller,\u201d he says. He has lost around 15kg of muscle. \u201cBut performance-wise, feeling-wise \u2013 it\u2019s night and day better. I can move better. I\u2019m more athletic around my daughter.\u201d He can jump twice as high as before and can run 5km in 22 minutes. (He couldn\u2019t even complete a 5km run when he was competing. His first took 40 minutes.)<\/p>\n
\u201cTen years ago, my body was capable of turning heads on the street,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was fun \u2013 but it was the only thing it was capable of.\u201d Now, he says, it\u2019s built for function.<\/p>\n
Eugene Teo is @coacheugeneteo<\/a> on YouTube and founder of the fitness app Ganbaru Method<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eugene Teo, 34, began lifting weights at the age of 13, looking for validation. \u201cI was short, skinny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,538,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-422516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}