Singapore #Fitspo of the Week Lucas Lim: 'It is important to not attach my self-worth to how I look'

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: Lucas Lim (@lucasisyourtype)

Age: 27

Height: 1.72m

Weight: 62kg

Occupation: Actor, stunt performer

Status: Single

Food: I avoid eating out and try to meal prep as much as I can. Fortunately, I am not really a foodie and can eat more or less the same thing – rice, chicken thigh and stir-fried vegetables.

Exercise: My first love would be running and I run almost daily and try to clock at least 70km a week in the off-season. I also do various martial arts, and try to include various sessions of boxing and taekwondo three times a week.

For strength, I do enjoy a mix of calisthenics and traditional weights training and try to clock in three to four sessions per week. Between these sessions, I try to work various skills and love outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking and obstacle courses. When I am resting at home, I work on mobility exercises and stretching to increase recovery efficiency.

Q: Were you active in sports when you were younger?

A: I was actually quite an overweight kid and it was my older cousins that walked me through my first workout when I visited them overseas at the age of 11. After that month-long trip, I was hooked. I started jogging with my father and he brought me to the gym and at 12, I got my first gold for the National Physical Fitness Award (NAPFA).

In secondary school, I was in both the school's cross-country and floorball team while dancing competitively. I also enjoyed outdoor adventure activities, climbing mountains in Nepal, kayaking, and camping during the school holidays.

What did you get into as you got older?

For a long time, I was dancing four to five times a week and I had to slot my training sessions between rehearsals and classes. However, during national service, I wanted to achieve a perfect score for the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) and my training sessions evolved from maintenance to daily runs and multiple strength training sessions per week.

Slowly, it became more than just doing a fast 2.4km. I wanted to break all my personal bests, so I went down the line from 5km all the way to finishing my first full marathon at last year's Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon. I also do taekwondo, muay thai and a bit of gymnastics for both my job and to work towards a holistic fitness programme. My day usually involves two to three workouts due to the multidisciplinary nature of my regime.

How did you become an actor?

I started dancing at a young age so I knew I enjoyed performing. While doing my Mass Communications Diploma in Ngee Ann Polytechnic I took an acting elective. What was meant to be an easy pass became an A and opened my eyes to acting as possibly being a career. After I graduated from polytechnic, I was roped in for a few commercials that needed dancers and that allowed me to better understand the audition and casting process in Singapore, which led to my career today.

You also specialise in being a stunt performer.

In 2019, I was cast as an antagonist on the Channel 5 long-form drama KIN. I played a scammer and my character's three episode arc climaxed with a fight scene. Peps Goh, the founder of Sandbox Training Ground and Dilon Ho, the founder of tricking group The Hype Tribe, played my henchmen. I had a great time on set and was looking for a way to do more stunts for film. My opportunity came when Peps decided to open a training space and I went for the interview to join the first batch of students.

What are some of the challenges in being an actor?

The biggest one would be the irregular schedule. It makes it difficult to plan training programmes and workouts with training partners. It also affects recovery and nutrition plans as I can't always decide when to eat or sleep. However as a freelancer, I do have the luxury of training during office hours when I am not on set!

Do you feel any pressure to maintain your physique because of your career?

Yes, definitely, but it is part of the job. I am required to portray a character and in order to do so convincingly, I need to look like the character. Plus, being on the stunt side of things, these characters are usually in uniform or have a militant background. However, I have always been more fitness-oriented than looks-focused when it comes to training, the physique is just one of the many rewards of hard training.

Have you experienced any incidents that made you feel insecure about yourself?

Definitely. I have always been performing and I knew that would mean that I was being seen more often than not. There were numerous instances where I had to be in costumes that showed more skin when I felt I wasn't ready or paired with other performers that had bodies of Greek gods.

I used to crash diet before shows and could go as extreme as a seven-day liquid diet. However, these diets were super unhealthy especially at the intensity I was training at. Over time, I realised that it's not worth risking health for such short-term gains and used these moments as motivation and inspiration to do and be better.

With this pressure I am made to break out of my comfort zone and dial in my numbers such as calorie intake or recovery time, things I usually neglect, to achieve better results.

Did you ever struggle with your body?

Yes, I don't think anyone in our line of work doesn't struggle. It is either a struggle to get bigger, leaner, stronger, faster, or the other way, to get even smaller. I personally struggle with staying lean. As a bigger kid, my metabolic rate is just not what it should be and I am still scrambling to maintain my desired body fat percentage despite running 70km per week. But I personally do enjoy a challenge and honestly, if it wasn't difficult, is it worth doing?

Are you satisfied with your body now?

I don't think that that is the goal. I think the goal is to be in the best shape I can be and not the shape I want to be. I think how I stay so disciplined is to never be satisfied with whatever shape I am in. It drives me to be faster, stronger, more explosive, or whatever I need to be in that season.

However, it is important to not attach my self-worth to how I look. It is a tall order but I realise that when I can focus on the various character traits chasing a better body has given me, such as discipline, determination, follow-through, and resilience and define myself through these things, I am a more confident version of myself.