Raymond Gutierrez has run out of excuses

This is the first time that Raymond Gutierrez will ever appear shirtless in public. Today, that public is an entire shoot team, the Century Tuna team, the team, and a video crew for a digital news site, representative of the millions of eyes soon to ogle his sculpted torso as soon as his Century Tuna billboard goes up. After all, this isn’t just another topless photo shoot but a documentation of a transformation; and it is Gutierrez, Manila nightlife golden boy, who is the candidate least likely to succeed.

He walks into the set wearing a robe pulled tight over his chest and asks everyone — save for the shoot creative director Vince Uy and photographer BJ Pascual — to move away from his line of sight for the first layout. “I’m shy,” he confesses. “I didn’t even let Arnold see me shirtless before today,” referring to his trainer Arnold Aninion. He then disrobes, standing in the frame with his stomach in, puffing his chest out, holding his breath, unsure of where to place his hands. He isn’t used to this body. It was his first instinct to suck everything in. Pascual reminds him to lower his shoulders and chest. “Relax,” they say — not his posture, but his mind.

Gutierrez takes a deep breath, exhales, and in the moments before Pascual clicks the trigger, something changes in his countenance. He gets a few layouts in and calls everyone back, beaming. “I’m comfy na.”

Now or Never

The turning point came abruptly. “Before, I was out every single night, I would say yes to every invitation, every dinner, every social event. There were mornings when I would come home from a night out and I couldn’t breathe properly, I wasn’t mobile,” he recalls, making the conscious decision to change in December, happening just in time for Century Tuna’s campaign. He is the creative consultant behind its concept, “No excuses,” which he worked on with Erwan Heussaff, a former fat kid himself. “The tagline was my idea because it’s true you are your own biggest hurdle. Before, I would say, ‘I can’t eat healthy, I don’t know how to cook. My kitchen is practically a dressing room. I’m not a morning person; I can’t get up early just to work out. I’m too busy, I don’t have time to go to the gym,’” he says.

From being unable to do a single pushup, he’s transformed; and it was the addictive, cardio-packed appeal of spinning in Ride Revolution, co-owned by his friend Isabelle Daza, that got him hooked. Aninion coached him for weightlifting, HIIT training, and resistance training. Gutierrez did cardio as soon as he woke up and before he slept. He would join his friends Daza, Heussaff’s sister Solenn, and fiancée Anne Curtis-Smith at six in the morning to do sprints complete with Instagram documentation. Alcohol was one of the first things to go. A nutritionist helped him switch to a pescatarian, fish-and-salads-only diet. He didn’t have to see results before his body started to crave more exercise. He felt pumped and had more energy than he ever had before. In 90 short days, he lost not only pounds but remnants of his former self he wasn’t too happy about.

Even with his supportive family and friends and a burgeoning career, he always felt like something was amiss, and it showed. “My friends would say, ‘Mond, before, you would have snarky remarks, you had negative energy about you, maybe because you were unhappy.’ And maybe I was.”

MoNd but better

He walks over to the monitor with Pascual and Uy to study the raw photos, and grins as he announces, “I look like Chard,” referring to his identical twin, actor Richard Gutierrez. “This is the first time I’ve ever been able to say that. I never knew this day would come!” As if finally looking like his twin brother, only five minutes older than he is, was the standard of looking good.

As identical twins, the existentialist desire for one twin to differentiate himself from the other is understandable. Because his twin was already excelling in athletics and looking the part as one of the country’s choice leading men, did he ever feel like he had to choose the other end of the entertainment industry spectrum, relinquishing fitness and sports in the process, just because that was Richard’s thing? “There is that notion,” he admits. “I’ve always been the chubby twin. He was on the varsity team, I was kind of just on the side. I enjoy my life, but not in sports. Truth be told, it wasn’t because of Chard. He always encourages me. I was really just lazy.”

Gutierrez was the last person in his family to enter the limelight, stepping away from the shadow cast by his family: matinee idol father Eddie, ‘70s sex symbol Annabelle, Miss World 1993 second runner-up Ruffa, and Richard, who before his return to show business was a brown belter all set to compete in Florida for National Championships. Gutierrez created a name for himself, starting by turning down offers to latch onto his famous last name and act, getting into his fair share of bickering and bantering, some of it seen in the four seasons of E! Special reality show It Takes Gutz To Be A Gutierrez.

He wanted to be a host and he became one for TV (programs like Starstruck and

Showbiz Central where his witty, snarky repartee shone) and events, notably those for Magnum ice cream, where he, along with his It girl gang, is also a brand ambassador and creative consultant. He went through the usual application process to become a contributing editor for fashion glossies. He has since branched out to co-owning one of the biggest nightclubs in the country and working long hours, conceptualizing and producing creative events.

Getting healthy was a struggle. Gutierrez first participated in a weight loss challenge with Belo Medical Group five years ago, achieving the targeted weight loss within a deadline through non-invasive slimming treatments, but he gained the weight back just as fast.

Fashion became his security cloak. “I would stick to layering, I would stick to black, loose baggy things, which I enjoyed and managed to do perfectly,” the bestdressed-list regular says, but there were limitations. He has had to set aside pieces like a prized Gosha Rubchinskiy because the Russian designer’s jackets didn’t fall right on his body. Workout gear for Gutierrez meant full compression gear covering his entire body, “and I would even have a jacket on,” he adds, noting

Raymond Gutierrez used to stay back at the hotel while his friends enjoyed the beach. ‘I felt like I had a dark cloud over my life,’ he shares. Now on the other side of transformation, there’s nothing about his old life that he misses. ‘Not even carbs.’

that the gym he goes to has no air conditioning. “Now I wear things like a sando and feel happy and confident.”

‘new life hu dis?’

Last week, he treated himself to a Coachella getaway and has been posting photos of himself wearing everything he used to denounce:

sandos, colors, prints, even shirts unbuttoned down to his chest. His style repertoire is only expanding; he was totally serving up each look. From eating haters for breakfast, he just stopped feeling the need to; a lot of them turned to social media admirers, showering him with praise and lots of likes.

There’s nothing about his old self that he misses — “not even carbs,” he quips. “I really don’t.” He used to be that friend who would stay back in the hotel while his friends enjoyed the beach. He shares, “I felt like I had a dark cloud over my life before.” No prodding would get him to go out, yet days before the shoot, he had been out playing football with his friend and Solenn’s husband, model and businessman Nico Bolzico. The prospect of taking up a new sport as a hobby still has him laughing in disbelief. Levity radiates from Gutierrez, like he’s just been set free from shackles he unwittingly clapped onto himself — or is that a post-workout glow? He affirms, “I totally feel like a new person. After doing this, I feel like I can achieve anything. For me, now is a clean slate.”

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