- April 22, 2024
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Reggie Best works out twice a day and eats a lot of salad. His new lifestyle has helped his mother battle diabetes.
Reggie Best loves chocolate cake. But he can’t eat it anymore.
“I have to stay away from the grocery store,” he said. “It’s so bad.”
Best, a 28-year-old Palm Coast resident, is currently shaping his body to compete in an all-natural body-building competition next month. Best will be competing Sept. 24 in the men’s physique class — a new class of the National Physique Committee — in the Daytona Beach Classic. This competition will mark the one-year anniversary for Best in body-building competitions. He began training for various events in October 2010. Since, he has competed in four events, taking two second-place finishes and two sixth-place finishes.
Best moved to Palm Coast in November 2009. That’s when he started lifting weights.
“I wanted a six pack, and so it was just a goal of mine to get in shape,” Best said.
Then, someone told him he should compete in body-building competitions. Best obliged, and it wasn’t just because people told him to get involved.
Best said there are two things that pushed him into living a healthier lifestyle.
“The longevity of life is what I’m striving for,” he said. But he’s also in it to help his mother, Donna, battle Type 2 diabetes.
“She was a major motivation and I didn’t want to keep anything unhealthy in the house,” Best said. “I’d say 90% of trying to be healthy was seeing what my mom goes through.”
Eating six meals that account for a combined caloric intake of 2,200 calories per day isn’t easy though, Best said.
“It’s supposed to be really, really strict,” he said. “But I’m still human and I’ll mess up some stuff.”
Best said his diet consists of a lot of salads and minimal bread. He also eats rice cakes.
Best works out two times per day, which puts a strain on his body because he isn’t taking in as many calories.
Most times, he works out around 4 a.m. That’s when he gets off work. He’s a bouncer at a nightclub in Daytona Beach.
Because the Palm Coast Anytime Fitness is open 24 hours, Best is able to get in a workout early in the morning. Anytime Fitness sponsors Best.
“I always say that when I workout with my friends and stuff, I’m building character in the gym,” he said, adding that a lot of the workers at the gym are close friends.
He knows that no one is watching him work out at 4 a.m., no one is telling him not to eat that small piece of cake, or that hamburger from a fast food chain.
But the discipline has helped him — and his mom.
“It was a weird experience because I went without (going to McDonald’s) for almost a year,” Best said. “And then someone asked me to get something from there for them, and it felt like I was doing something illegal.”
