Former Leaders of the New School member and multi-platinum solo artist, Busta Rhymes has always been one to be animated, cool, but not always buff. Starting off as a tall, thin wiry figure, the veteran MC has grown and bulked up.
“I work out like four days a week, then if I’m not crazy with the work schedule, I’ll do five or six days a week. The least amount of training is always three days a week. I’ve been strong and consistent with that for like the last two years.
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“In addition to my normal weightlifting routine during the week, I usually walk or ride the bike every day. I don’t like to tear muscles so I ain’t really into running. I used to do a whole lot of running but I couldn’t get the size that I wanted because you’re tearing your muscles up. I want my muscles to grow. I used to train with Mark Jenkins, and he’s a cardio beast. He’ll jump rope for two hours straight, and he’ll want you to jump rope with him for 45 minutes, and then he wants to go run for 3 to 6 miles, and for the last 100 meters of the run he wants you to sprint. But as brilliant as he is—and this is when I got in shape for The Big Bang album, where I was down to about 210 or 220—I didn’t have the size that I wanted. I mean, I was lean and I had my six pack and I was happy, but then I got with my new trainer Victor Martinez and that’s when I started to learn a new approach where I could get lean but still build my muscles by just making sure that I implement cardio while I’m training.”
“So, for example, on a chest day, in between every two exercises we go hit the bike for like 10 minutes. That way, by the time you finish the workout, you got in about 45 minutes of cardio while you were doing weights. So instead of resting, you’re riding the bike and burning calories and your heart rate stays up. By doing that, I started to enjoy cardio, because I didn’t have to do it for an hour straight. That shit gets boring to me. But if I am doing like a straight hour of cardio, I’ll put my favorite album on from top to bottom and that helps. I’ll always throw on Nas’ Illmatic, and then probably skip through Stillmatic and do the elliptical or the bike or do like 20 minutes on each machine.”
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Busta’s fitness inspired someone close to him to get in on the routine: his mom, Geraldine Green. The 57-year-old Geraldine, recently lost more than 100 pounds and uses her experience as an example for others fighting obesity.
On November 1, 2002, Green began her diet weighing 328 pounds. She is 5foot-9. She reached her goal weight of 183 pounds August 6,2003, and has kept off the 145 pounds for more than a year now. “It wasn’t easy, but with dedication, lots of prayers and exercise, I made it,” Green tells JET.
One of the events that persuaded her to take on a diet plan occurred in 1997. Green was diagnosed with diabetes. “My husband is a diabetic and I said one of us has to be healthy to take care of the other, so I decided I was going to try to lose weight,” Green relates.
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“It took three months of me praying and thinking day and night about this diet and finally coming to terms with myself, because it’s all in your head.”
Green keeps a strict routine to help keep the pounds off. “I don’t call it a diet, this is my new lifestyle,” she explains. “I’m maintaining by cutting out [carbohydrates], having vegetables and salads and I watch portion size. When I do have fruit, if it’s a big apple, I will have a half. I drink a lot of water. I eat beans and fish. I don’t cook with a lot of grease; I bake, broil, I steam, I rarely fry. No cakes, no bread, no pasta, nothing like that. I go to the gym five days a week and run four miles on the treadmill and lift weights Monday through Friday before I come to work.
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