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By Prof Ed H. Pangilinan
Ten years ago, JM Rodriguez was a jiggly
200-pound young man who did not care if his belly was sticking out
of his trousers. He admits that fastfood outlets and restaurants
were his favorite hangout places. “I was a common fixture at
McDonald’s, KFC, TGIF, even Goodah. I was so huge, I couldn’t
care less.”
Fresh out of college and setting his sights on a
theater career, Rodriguez was given father roles immediately even if
he was only in his early 20s. “My hair was colored gray, I had
Avon pencil lines drawn on my face every single show. Imagine, I did
a show called the Fantastiks and I played the father of Raymond
Lauchengco! I remember watching him in the movie Bagets and there I
was, playing his dad!” he says in disbelief, eyes wide open.
One day during rehearsals, Rodriguez narrates
that the late director Zenaida Amador was in a very bad mood and she
happened to glance at his fat behind. The following words of Amador
still rings clearly through Rodriguez’s mind until today: “If
you want to improve your career as an actor, you better lose weight,
you lazy twerp. Imagine all the beautiful songs you could sing as a
romantic lead!”
He admits that during that period, never did he
have grand illusions of becoming a lead actor on stage. “I was
setting my sights on funny roles, but then I realized it would be
cool if I did shed a couple of pounds. So, I decided, okay, maybe I
could starve myself to death every evening and just drink a Diet
Coke (that was what it was called before the Coke Light and Coke
Zero generation –ED.) and pineapple juice, or maybe eat my
favorite fried chicken and twister fries for lunch and just not eat
anything in the evening.”
He also reveals that he initially hated anything
about exercise. For four months, Rodriguez sacrificed the things
that made him happy—and full. “I lost a whopping 60 lbs. From
200 something I was down to 140 and the people around me couldn’t
fathom how JM Piggy became JM Twiggy. It was more or less the worse
diet you could ever do because when all the actors was enjoying
their meals at TGIFridays after curtain call, I was hanging around
them drinking only Diet Coke.”
Although he knew that that was not the right way
to do it, he was seeing results. “I thought everything was paying
off because I was playing one romantic lead role after another,
singing all the beautiful Broadway songs and never played daddy
roles again, “ he continues.
But he noticed that he was beginning to become
underweight so he was alarmed. “When I ate a little, I gained a
lot. I even had nightmares that I would wake up in the morning and I
would be fatboy once more, so I decided to read up on eating healthy
and exercise because I did not want to be anorexic or bulimic which
I felt was starting to be, which is another long story.”
His realizations helped Rodriguez to follow the
right path to fitness. He started swimming and running at least four
times a week. “I learned about all the healthy foods—brown rice,
broccoli, carrots, a lot of tuna and buko juice—and my life
changed for the better,” he beams.
When he looked fit, jobs started to fall onto
his lap without him having to sell himself. Rodriguez became a
favorite host for corporate events and up to this day, he is almost
always included in the “must-be-invited” list for the many
parties and events in society circles.
A few months ago, Rodriguez was handpicked to be
an image model for the Century Tuna brand, beating out the models,
the athletes and the more popular hunks. “For a few seconds while
I was doing that photo shoot, my ‘fat days’ flashed back all of
a sudden. I am glad it’s history now. Life is beautiful. It pays
to be fit, it pays to be healthy.”
This is the inspiring story of JM Rodriguez.
Anything is possible if you believe. Anything is achievable if you
work on it.
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