Overcoming obesity by becoming an ardent bodybuilder, Seeon Satrohan is a ‘Special Person’

May 27, 2018 Features / Columnists, News, Special Person

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By Sharmain Grainger

 

“You just have to know your goals and I will help you however I can. Be prepared to eat a balanced diet and be dedicated to your exercise…and like always, my help is 100 percent free.”

It isn’t every day a hurting individual could take his or her pain and transform it into positive or even life-saving energy. It is perhaps even rarer to see a person be bullied to a point where their only reason for living is to be better than those bullying them.

Although this may be considered an unlikely phenomenon, it is in fact the reality that caused Seeon Satrohan to become the very outstanding man he is today.

Today, he is easily recognised for his pronounced muscular physique which bulges through just about any outfit he dons. However, as a pre-teen, a few decades ago, the then blossoming Satrohan was classified as severely obese. But according to him, although his condition was particularly bad for his health, he viewed bullyism as by far his worse dilemma.

He recalled being physically assaulted by his older brothers and often laughed to scorn at school by his classmates, owing to his size. But the harshest of his experiences was when he dared to approach one of his female classmates.

“I was extremely obese…at maybe the age of 10 or 11, I weighed like 200 pounds…my nicknames at school were things like ‘fat boy’ and ‘cow’, but I liked this girl and I wanted her to know, but she just turned and laughed at me,” Satrohan recalled. At the time, he was in first form.

His primary schooling was at Mae’s Under 12 where he wrote Common Entrance and gained a place at Saint Stanislaus College. In fact, he was named the most outstanding Maths performer of his primary school when the Common Entrance results were released.

Satrohan remembered commencing secondary school already in a very obese state. He however noted that it wasn’t until he was rejected by his female classmate that he really realised that his appearance was quite off-putting.

He recalled rushing home in tears and pouring out his heart to his ever-loving father.

“I told my father I wanted to exercise…He was happy because he too didn’t like having a son just sitting around getting fat. I really use to eat; I use to eat whole day and anything in the fridge I used to eat out,” said Satrohan, as he recounted the many failed attempts of his father to whip him into healthy shape.

But following his plea for help, Satrohan recalled, “My father bought a set of gym clothes and a York exercise machine for me and I started exercising morning and night. I exercised every day on my own for like a year straight.” He developed an ardent inclination for his exercising and even added martial arts classes to his routine.

Fuelled by the emotions, which engulfed him from being bullied and laughed at, the young Satrohan worked tirelessly to chisel off his extra pounds. But it was a slow and gruelling process.  He started to read too and became aware that his very wellbeing, both mentally and physically, was dependent on him developing a healthy all-round lifestyle.

Now, at just 30 years of age, he is recognised among the outstanding fitness icons in our society. Because of his influence, he has been tasked, on two consecutive occasions, with being the judge for the fitness segment at the Miss World Guyana pageant.

WHO IS HE?

Born February 17, 1988, Seeon is the last of six children raised by his parents Dhanram and Beerkumarie Satrohan. His father is the popular businessman behind the well-known Gandhi’s store situated at Water Street, Georgetown.

During a recent interview, Satrohan recalled growing up in Lamaha Gardens, Georgetown, which was back then considered a very affluent community.

“I remember when I was young, people couldn’t come into that area without police checking on them,” Satrohan reflected.

But things started to change in his life. Not only did his family move to another residence, but his physical appearance started to improve too. Satrohan, who’d hardly ever taken the time to notice his own image in a mirror, started to recognise that he was developing biceps and the rest of his body was becoming quite defined.

Intrigued, he started to read bodybuilding magazines and watched many television shows about bodybuilding. Before long, he was being indirectly mentored by people the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star who was also well known for being an outstanding bodybuilder back in the day.

“I was dedicated to my exercise and I was eating what I thought I was supposed to eat from reading the magazines and watching Arnold…He would talk a lot about eating provisions and meat, so I use to eat a lot of those. He [Arnold] was my inspiration; in fact, I think he was the inspiration for nearly 90 percent of bodybuilders who started in my time,” Satrohan shared.

However, as his physical appearance started to gain him the type of attention he had so longed for, Satrohan, who had in the past been able to balance his schoolwork with his extra-curricular activities, started to develop a preference for only one.

Understandably, his schoolwork suffered. Maintaining his image became everything.  “I started becoming a total dunderhead in school. I was fighting to get places like second-to-last in a class of about 30 students when I wrote my exams,” he recounted, adding, “I just started bodybuilding and completely stopped having any interest in my schoolwork and I was failing badly from forms two into three.”

Although always supportive of his son’s every bodybuilding aspiration, the senior Satrohan also always emphasised the importance of an education. This, however, did not stop the young Satrohan from joining a bodybuilding gym after he laid eyes on what he believed was the “biggest” bodybuilder in the country. The person he saw was perhaps the most popular bodybuilder/trainer, Lindor Burnett, also known as ‘Muscle’, who is credited with training perhaps about 50 percent of the pro-bodybuilders in Guyana.

“I remember seeing this big, strong Rasta guy, he was short, but he was really big, and I wanted to be just like him. He was like 250 pounds with ripped abs; I was stunned,” recalled Satrohan.

“I went straight to him and said, ‘can you train me?’”

Surviving an intense training session with the ‘muscled’ master himself was Satrohan’s ticket to joining his gym, a move, which also gained his father’s immediate approval. This was in fact his official introduction into the bodybuilding world.

His flunking days continued a while longer, laced with many reports of bad behaviour in school being sent to his father. However, towards the end of fifth form, Satrohan’s focus on his academics had taken a turn for the better. Not only was he the only recipient of an award for outstanding Maths performance, but he also recalled being granted the privilege of taking to the school’s prom, the very young lady who rejected him, thereby helping to change the course of his life.

ANOTHER DIMENSION

Upon completing school, Satrohan decided to further his studies at the University of Guyana, with a focus on business management.  This was a natural move for him as, by then, he had envisaged himself one day assuming control of his father’s business.

However, as fate would have it, three months into university life, Satrohan was forced to take a semester break in order to commence management of his father’s business.

“My parents had to go away for a while, so I had to run the business for them,” said Satrohan, who revealed that what should have been merely a semester break turned out to be a life-time decision, as he has ever since been at the helm of the business.

Being thrust into the business, however, did teach him a few life lessons, including that “there was nothing I was taught in school that really prepared me for this aspect of my life. I literally had to learn on the job what was required of me as a businessman.”

This also meant learning the importance of being a charitable individual, a trait that he had seen practiced by his father over the years.

As he developed his ability as a businessman, Satrohan decided that it was about time that he built a family of his own too. Although his marriage to his then sweetheart did not last, the union did allow him to father two of his three children.

But even with his focus on other aspects of his life, he certainly did not forsake his bodybuilding passion. In fact, he decided that it was time that he opened a gym of his own. He continued to train intensely and even had his mind set on competing for the Mr. Guyana bodybuilding title. Indeed, he was well on track to vying when he suffered multiple spinal cord injuries.

“I damaged my spine in three areas and I ended up crippled and in bed. I had to go abroad to do surgery and when I came back I became really small…I had to be in bed for six months straight,” recalled Satrohan.

Recovery was a tormenting period. Although he was eventually able to give a few hours of work to his father’s business, Satrohan had to put on pause his bodybuilding activities, which not only took a toll on him physically but mentally too.

“I started to get fat and I became very depressed…I was depressed for three years straight; I even started to think about suicide,” he confided.

EMBRACING EVOLUTION

But his life was salvage from certain ruin when a few young men, knowing of his bodybuilding abilities, reached out to him to train them. This was a turning point in his life.

“From training them, I started to do a little training myself and I was able to get back in shape,” Satrohan recounted.

He was proud of what he was doing. In fact, the training he was doing became quite popular, when three of the guys he trained competed in a local bodybuilding novice competition and each won first place in their respective categories – heavyweight, middleweight and lightweight.

“That was motivation for me…I started to set my own goals to really get back into bodybuilding too,” he related.

At his gym, which was situated on Sheriff Street, Satrohan was able to train in excess of 11 bodybuilders, at least eight of whom became professional bodybuilders.

“I used to train for free and I would buy thousands of dollars worth in supplements and just share out to them for free too. Every single night, we used to train for at least three hours,” he disclosed.

However, as his life evolved, Satrohan relocated, which meant the demise of his gym.

It was at this juncture that he saw another crucial role for himself in the bodybuilding arena. Recognising that there was no means of highlighting and promoting what bodybuilders do, Satrohan decided to introduce a web page, which shared details about the various bodybuilding activities in the country.

“Nobody knew when there was a bodybuilding show. If you went to a show, the audience was like 25 people, so I started the web page ‘[email protected]’ to make people aware of when there was a show…whether it was bodybuilding, powerlifting or anything to do with weights, you could find out right there on the web page,” Satrohan related. This meant him taking the time to source the relevant information to ensure that his web page was always up to date.

He continued to train other individuals and was again inspired to compete. However, he again aggravated his spine so much so that it required therapy for him to regain his mobility.

 A NEW FEDERATION

Competing, from all indications, was not the path for Satrohan. However, he was enthused by the idea that maybe a leadership role in the arena would suit him best.

It was Coel Marks, a fellow bodybuilder who last year coerced Satrohan to help him form a body to challenge the leadership of the then Bodybuilding Federation. Marks’ move in this regard was premised on his observation that not enough was being done for the sport in Guyana.

At the constituted elections for a new executive for the Federation last year, Marks was elected President and Satrohan its Vice President. With the support of members, all of whom are also ardent bodybuilders, they have been able to transform how bodybuilding is viewed in Guyana. This has included unprecedented support from the Federation to bodybuilders, many of whom have even been provided with financial support to compete overseas.

Those at the helm of the Federation, which also governs the Fitness Federation, have been able to solicit unbridled support from corporate Guyana. Added to this, the Federation has also been able to amass a massive following, through the awareness web page created by Satrohan, allowing the Federation to host sold out bodybuilding shows, which have been raking in substantial funding.

“All of the money we make goes right back into helping the athletes,” said Satrohan who disclosed that the Federation is hoping that it will even be able to help sponsor athletes to compete at the 2019 Olympics, in the recently introduced bodybuilding category.

But, in order to giving the needed support to bodybuilding, the Federation has also been helping to share fitness and diet knowledge with young people across Guyana. This has seen the members making positive strides through outreach programmes to schools and gyms across the country.

“We have been targeting youths in particular, because we as a Federation have realised that a lot of youths have been involved in a lot of petty robberies and other undesired activities, and so we want to help them find activities such as bodybuilding to give them something meaningful to do,” said Satrohan.

“The focus is certainly not only on males alone, as there is also a place for young women to train and compete too,” he added.

Satrohan, who currently trains at Space Gym, continues to lend voluntary support to just about anyone who desires his help.

“You just have to know your goals and I will help you however I can. Be prepared to eat a balanced diet and be dedicated to your exercise…and like always, my help is 100 percent free,” said a beaming Satrohan, who even has his eyes set on one day delving into politics in his quest to help to further transform the Guyanese society.

For his focused dedication over the years, today we at Kaieteur News duly recognise Seeon Satrohan as being worthy of our title, ‘Special Person’.

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