6x Natural Olympia champ Kiyoshi Moody opens up about his past battle with cancer and discloses if he plans to come out of retirement in a podcast interview.
6x Natural Olympia champion Kiyoshi Moody opened up about his battle with cancer and how he reached remission on the Longevity Muscle podcast. Kiyoshi Moody won Natural Olympia for six years, from 2009 to 2014. Moody also discussed many other topics on the podcast, including the IFBB Pro League and the future of bodybuilding. Plus, Moody disclosed if he plans to come out of retirement.
Keep reading to see Kiyoshi Moody’s insight on battling cancer and his future in bodybuilding.
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Battling Cancer
On the Longevity Muscle podcast, Kiyoshi Moody discussed being diagnosed with stage 4 bladder cancer a few years ago. According to Moody, his doctor said he should start getting everything ready (will, arrangements) to prepare for the worse. Moody’s doctor said he had 5-6 months to live. Kiyoshi Moody said:
“My weight just dropped. I mean I was about 215, and I just dropped all the way down to 154. And I was going through chemo at the time. So it was a rough battle.”
Advised by his doctor, Moody eventually quit chemo and went to a resort in Mexico focusing on holistic treatments. The nurse recommended Moody start taking CBD. Moody says his health improved within a month of taking a high CBD dosage. He also completely changed his diet and quit eating meat and dairy. Instead, he ate vegetables and fruit. After a little over a year, Moody was in remission.
Natural Bodybuilding, the IFBB, and the Future of Bodybuilding
Kiyoshi Moody also discussed bodybuilding on the podcast. He confesses that natural bodybuilding will never be like the IFBB Pro league because people want to see freaks. Moody stated:
“They want to see guys that are 250, 270 pounds that are just shredded. As opposed to a guy that is 170, 180 pounds shredded.”
Kiyoshi Moody says that if natural bodybuilding leagues all came together and hosted one big show, the likelihood of big sponsors coming into natural bodybuilding would increase. Moody stated,
“You have all these qualifiers to go to this one pro show. That’s when you’ll have your bigger sponsors come in.”
Kiyoshi Moody also claims that women competitors get screwed the most in bodybuilding because the bikini division draws in the biggest crowd but gets paid the least.
But he does say the INBA PNBA league is growing and pays the most compared to other natural bodybuilding federations (he’s won two cars and an $8,000 cash payout winning Natural Olympia). In addition, Kiyoshi Moody says Denny Kakos, INBA PNBA founder, plans to bring back natural bodybuilding to the Olympics – drug use in bodybuilding took it out of the Olympics.
Will Kiyoshi Moody Come Out of Retirement?
At the end of the Longevity Muscle podcast, Kiyoshi Moody discussed a possible return to natural bodybuilding. Now that Moody’s daughter has graduated high school and is playing college softball, Moody admits his urge to compete again. Moody said:
“I’ve been getting the itch more and more and more because now I’m more consistently in the gym. And my weight started going back up.”
Moody acknowledges that his legs have been difficult now that he’s in his 50s and has had past sports injuries. However, if he steps on stage, he doesn’t want to get on stage to be in the limelight. Instead, he says, “I’m stepping on stage to win.” He went on to say that he plans to compete in 2022.
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