Satesh Maraj’s incredible weight loss journey
“I cried every day during COVID because I thought I was going to die…”
Six years ago, Satesh Maraj weighed 490 pounds and during the most uncertain time a generation has ever known, he wasn’t sure that he would’ve seen the finish line.
A regular face at our events, and that’s putting it generously – he’s at basically all of them – Maraj is as synonymous with running as Bafasports itself.
A fidelity for the discipline has seen him drop to 210 pounds, and become a Bafasports Ambassador in the process.
But most people have no idea that it wasn’t always like that.
Far from. As a matter of fact, he had to go on an inward journey to transform himself into the running machine that we all know and love today.
“As a fat person, I tell you, you don’t see the weight. You only feel it when you see the jersey from last week, can’t fit you this week,” Maraj explained. “When my son passed for his first choice… I realised, hey, if I have to live, I have to live for him. We made a pact last year that we’re going to start to run.”
And run they did, but that’s only telling part of the story. In order to get to a healthy running weight, Maraj went through the gauntlet with diet and exercise and then started the real hard work.
Clocking in the miles…
“I didn’t start running fatter. I lost the weight before,” he said. “I set little goals… kind of, not impossible goals, but close to impossible just to push myself. So, even though if I got halfway there, I still do (sic) plenty.”
Back when he was 19, he unknowingly ran a full marathon (Clico) back when he was in the army, but this was a different challenge altogether.
Last year, his son inadvertently set the bar where he proposed that they ran 50 races, which amounts give or take to a race for every week of last year.
“That was the first marathon in Fyzabad I think; the Hops and Ham,” he recalled. “He said, let us try to do 50 races because it have (sic) two races for a week sometimes.
And we end (sic) up doing it. You know, so we did it and that’s how I got into the running with Bafa.”
Running in small groups was where it was at first, then came the goal to dip below 30 minutes for a 5K, then the graduation from 5Ks to 10s, to then the full marathon.
All while putting in the work in the engine room.
“Beside (sic) the running, the weight journey was more diet… after you start to read up on how to be a better runner you realise you have to lose weight… your weight is really how you eat.”
The journey wasn’t alone for him either, as his family now actively leads a healthier lifestyle including hitting the gym, spin class, and whatever activity there is out there to keep the body moving.
Six years ago, Maraj was fighting for his life, but now he’s chasing PBs, and making a name for himself on T&T’s roads.
The Ambassador life
“Before I was just running part-time, but now you want to do better because now you have others looking up to you and you want to promote well-being, you want to promote running or even paying attention to your well-being,” he said. “You want people to look up to you, and to inspire people: ‘Hey, this man come (sic) from this to that…’ you know what I’m saying? You’re responsible for the culture, you know, the running culture.”
Hard to think about a more compelling running story in the current culture.
Maraj admitted that he wasn’t even a runner nominally at first. But now he’s a part of the running culture where he routinely blows past runners who presumably look the part with their six packs, and athletic tape.
“I love to pass a strong man in the field,” he laughed. “Losing the weight to me it’s nice to pass somebody who’s probably not fit, but physically they look fit now.”
Getting into running isn’t for the faint of heart.
At first your lungs are on fire, your joints ache, and muscles you didn’t know you had, burn for the rest of the week. But once you stick to the plan there comes a time where you can’t stop running.
It changes from tedious slog of wondering when will the finish line ever reach, to taking in the different faces, and different spaces as you glide through different locations once stride at a time.
And his habits became contagious over the last 24 months as now his whole family forms a part of his running network.
“I think that Bafa are starting to make sure that their races are internationally recognised so that we can qualify for international marathons,” he said. “I would like to run out of Trinidad and Tobago… like in the States because I ran one in January… Central Park run. I think that that’s where I see it going.”
The future is bright
The man who once struggled to simply move, now spends his Sundays looking forward to long runs.
Maraj’s journey wasn’t just about ambassadorship, and clocking in with his smart watch at the finish line, but also about fulfilling a promise he made to himself in the middle of the pandemic.
From diet and consistent exercise to becoming one of the examples in our growing local running culture, Maraj lives by the mantra of “Just finish”.
Because according to him, nobody can say you failed if you finish.
