By Dhany Osman

If you think middle-aged men are all about pot bellies and receding hairlines, Mr Augustine Lee might change your mind.

At 55, he is super-fit and muscular, trains seven days a week as a competitive bodybuilder and also manages his gym, Fitness Factory, in Boat Quay.

You could call him a poster boy for graceful - and healthy - ageing.

'The most important thing is consistency,' Mr Lee said of his training and diet regime.

On a typical day, he has about five or six meals, which are carefully chosen to balance his carbohydrate intake with his activities. A typical breakfast would be four slices of white bread, five to seven half-boiled egg whites and a cup of unsweetened coffee.

For lunch, he has two bowls of fish soup and two bowls of steamed rice, and this is repeated for dinner.

'It's a lifestyle I've got used to, especially when I want to continue competing,' said the 1997 South-east Asian Games bodybuilding gold medallist.

He has to work out harder now just to maintain his fitness level. Still, he won first place in his age category in last year's Asian Men's Masters championship in Shanghai.

He was not always such a fitness buff.

In his youth, he weighed 70kg at 1.8m tall and made his first visit to a gym only in his late 20s. He now weighs 95kg.

He took up bodybuilding at 30, participated in club competitions and got increasingly involved in competitive bodybuilding.

'It became a passion. I got caught up in seeing the changes in my body,' he said.

Meanwhile, he worked as a supervisor at a manufacturing plant.

In 1998, he joined the Ray Wilson California Fitness centre in Orchard Road as a part-time trainer and was soon promoted to fitness manager.

It was there, while in his 40s, that he had what he called a 'severe panic attack' due to job stress and was hospitalised for two weeks.

He found it difficult to continue training after that as physical exertion would trigger palpitations.

With medication, he whipped himself back into shape in two years and started competing again. Since then, he has been managing his condition carefully.

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