CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - Christo Jose didn’t waste any time orienting himself on the Maritime bodybuilding map.
The Thrissur, India, native landed in Charlottetown in 2016 with his family and earned the best poser award at the P.E.I. regionals that year.
Since he’s become a Maritime overall champion (2017), won the title at the Naturals Classic this year in Halifax, N.S., along with best poser, earned silver medals in the senior and novice categories at the recent Atlantic Classic in Moncton, N.B., and nabbed a bronze medal at this year’s P.E.I. regionals.
Pretty good, eh? But Jose, who competes in the lightweight class, has a couple of trade secrets to his success.
“A lot of people go to the heavyweight. The lightweight class is very easy for me,” Jose said. “Hard work, strict diet and I don’t go on social media. I have no time. The most important thing is time, and I don’t waste my time.”
What won’t be easy is his entry into the GNC Allmax Supershow set for June 2-3 in Toronto. He’s qualified for the open event which draws bodybuilders worldwide.
The pose downs are the easy part, the hard part is coming up with the $3,000-$4,000 needed to participate. So Jose, who works as a dishwasher at Hunter’s Ale House in Charlottetown, is seeking sponsorship to defray the cost of travel, hotel, food, entry fees and tanning.
Tanning? Yep, those browned, shiny physiques don’t come cheap.
“The fee for tanning is $160 for one day,” he said. “If I don’t get any sponsorship, I can’t go.”
Jose trains six days a week stuffed between shifts at Hunter’s and hopes land a gig as a personal trainer, something he’d done in India for several years.
Now 36, Jose has pumped in 20 years into body building and he’s all natural, no steroids or growth hormones. He’s proud of that, and it’s something he loves about the Island’s closer-to-nature small scale approach to farming.
“I eat natural food. The food’s really good (here).”
Jose’s wife Aswathy, a champion powerlifter in India (she was third in the sub-junior class at the 2002 under-18 world championships) is from Thrissur, too, and admits with a wry smile bodybuilding and powerlifting is seen as a waste of time where they’re from despite her and her husband’s portfolios bursting with winning certificates.
So she knows what work and time goes into success on the bodybuilding stage.
“In bodybuilding, it’s your experience. Experience will help. We all have blunders and we all learn,” said Aswathy.
Christo and Aswathy waited six years to emigrate to Canada. They brought with them 11-year-old son Kardhik and welcomed Arjuna last August, born at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, and Christo couldn’t be prouder of his new son and his new home. He turned down offers from mainland sponsors to live on P.E.I.
“My son is an Islander,” said a beaming Christo of Arjuna. “I needed my family to be safe. It was the best here for my family.”
Christo also hoped to compete at the GNC Allmax natural Canadian championships Aug. 4 in Toronto and the open Canadian nationals in October, also in Toronto.
Contact Christo at 902-394-1341.
