The photo that changed Latido’s chef Fernando Arevalo’s life and reignited his love for wakeboarding

Fernando Arevalo didn’t have a turning point in his fitness journey. By his own count, the Colombian chef-restaurateur changed his life dozens of times before one of those decisions held. What finally made it stick was his wife, who held up her phone to show him a photo of him slouched in a chair last year.

In that photo, he was 105kg and had 31 per cent body fat — the heaviest he’d been since giving up wakeboarding post-Covid-19 because he no longer trusted his own body to land a trick.

What struck Arevalo was the realisation that his three-year-old daughter was old enough to form an impression of him, and that his wife was carrying a second pregnancy with a strength he found humbling.

What followed was, by his own admission, extreme. “I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy,” he says, and it shows: no snacking between meals, tasting his own cooking only to spit it out, tracking calorie targets by the week rather than the day for more mental clarity. 

From last December to June, the 41-year-old worked out with a personal trainer, shedding almost 30kg to reach 78kg and 10 per cent body fat, and he’s held steady since. 

He believes that the real hero in the gym isn’t the person with the chiselled abs, but the out-of-shape novice, gasping through a set that barely qualifies as exercise. “That person is suffering more than anyone,” he observes. The six-pack is the result of consistency, banked over time; the beginner is doing something harder every single rep — the same logic he leans on to get through his worst days.

The hunky chef commits to 30 minutes of cardio exercises every morning, full-body strength training twice a week, and cuts out alcohol entirely, all while putting in six-day weeks on the pass that end past 11pm.

He’s no longer chasing a number on the scale; instead, he’s chasing his toddler son. “I want to beat my son at every sport for as many years as I can,” he says. “My goal is that when he’s 17 or so, I can still do more pull-ups than him.”

A year ago, Arevalo found his way back to wakeboarding — a sport he picked up eight years ago and then abandoned. He suits up weekly (or sometimes biweekly) at the Wakepit, operated by former Singapore national wakeboarder Frankie Ng. 

Commitment matters more than skill, he reflects: hesitate mid-trick and you might get hurt; commit fully and you learn something even if you fall. Half-measures were never really an option, then or now. It’s the same all-or-nothing mindset that once had him cooking an entire menu in black and white for 14 months at the now-defunct fine-dining restaurant Preludio.

On the horizon, Boronas, Latido’s offshoot bakery at Tras Street, is expanding, and there’s early talk of a collaboration with a fellow Colombian chef next year, alongside loose plans to take Latido’s food further afield — Japan, Korea, and Vietnam among the names floated.

Nothing’s locked in yet, but the appetite is obvious. “I feel re-energised,” he says — the same hunger to return to wakeboarding is now aimed at spreading Colombian food further than before.

Photo: Isabelle Seah
Exercise photos: Isaac Yim
Art direction: Ashruddin Sani
Grooming: Benedict Choo