63-year-old bodybuilder Patricia Light in front of her gym Fitness World Nanaimo, where she spent five days a week training for her May competition where she won her age category in the 'Bikini' competition. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Jordan Davidson

pump it up

Local bodybuilder proves age is just a number when it comes to physical fitness

Jul 27, 2023 | 5:28 AM

NANAIMO — It’s proof you’re never too old to completely change your lifestyle.

While a lot of people her age began baking bread in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, 63-year-old Patricia Light of Nanaimo decided to focus on her health and fitness and put together a home workout routine.

Fast-forward three years and Light is winning her category at a Canadian Physique Alliance body-building competition in Calgary in May.

“There aren’t a lot of women of my age doing bodybuilding, so a lot of the bodybuilding shows only have categories that go as high as like, everybody over 55 or everybody over 45, so my group had everybody over 55, so that was the group that I won.”

Light posing and with her trophy at the Canadian Physique Alliance body-building competition in Calgary in May.(submitted)

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While she started her fitness journey by herself, she eventually hired a trainer and became a regular at the gym once they reopened.

From there, she had a long and introspective journey where she had to drastically adjust her mindset around food in order to get the necessary nutrition needed to bulk up.

“Many women my age have changed sizes many many times up and down, and I think we get to a certain point where we begin to undereat because we’re always afraid of gaining weight, but when you’re doing this kind of exercise, weightlifting, you have to eat, so you have to retrain your mind.”

Light went from losing 30 pounds at the beginning, to gaining 22 pounds of muscle when she decided last December to enter an official bodybuilding competition six months later.

With a strict diet consisting of around 1,100 calories a day of chicken, rice, turkey prior to the competition and going to the gym five days a week, she said the most difficult part of her training was learning how to pose correctly for the competition while wearing high heels.

“I hired a coach, a posing coach, people who just teach you how to pose. And that was probably, I would say the hardest thing to do…I did that for like six months and when I got on the stage I still wobbled.”

Light also found a companion at the gym who also competed in bodybuilding competitions at the age of 81.

“You don’t see that many (older women like her) in the gym itself, like lifting weights, but she was in the gym and I thought, ‘how is it she has amazing muscles for somebody that age?’ I just got to know her, she did her first show at 80 which was a year ago, and then she did her second show at 81 just three weeks ago. She’s amazing.”

She thanks her husband for his encouragement during her training regime while also sharing meals of turkey and rice for almost two years while she stuck to her diet, while also foregoing Happy Hour with her fellow retired friends.

“I really enjoyed it. I don’t know if I would do it again to be honest cause it is really hard…when people did it, I thought it was kind of a frivolous activity, but it’s super hard. You put your social life on hold.”

Light is now shifting her focus from bodybuilding to powerlifting, and is already planning to compete in a powerlifting competition in about 18 months.

She also stressed the importance of staying active as we age, and not being afraid to try new, more intense workout routines.

“It’s super important for women my age to embrace weight training because it is so good for us and the myth that we have to get feeble in our old age just isn’t true. We don’t have to be that, and you can build muscle when you’re in your 60s, you can build it post-menopause, and it’s essential that we do otherwise we are going to end up in places we don’t want to be.”

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