The Bhutanese Leading the way.
39-year-old Yeshi Lham, a mother of two children, has won the Women’s Sports Model category at the third edition of Mr Flex 2025, held in Jaigoan, bordering the southern town of Phuentsholing.
She was the sole representative of Bhutan competing with 59 other participants from Nepal and India.
She said that it was a significant day, as her hard work bore fruit.
Yeshi said, “The struggle during my workouts and devoting my time in gym which otherwise could have been spent on my family really paid off. I was very happy to represent the country and I am satisfied with the outcome.”
She said that despite being a mother of two, she could break the barriers and social stigma of being held back as a woman to become a notable bodybuilder.
She said, “Women are often expected to be doing domestic duties and criticized that they can’t outperform men. However, participating and winning the competition has broken all such stigma.”
She shared that the competition was a gateway to opportunity for her to mark her progressive journey towards the goals that she always dreamt of.
She said the sacrifices and the efforts that she has put all those years and the encouragement from her colleagues and family motivated her to partake in the competition.
She said, “It was a challenging competition because one should have a mentality of a winner to prevail over those equally determined competitors. The most challenging part in my journey was following a strict diet which sometimes weakened me physically. The diets were strictly to be calorie deficit where consumption of sugar and salt are prohibited.”
She said that her body building career started from 2018 after giving birth to her second child. Then participating in Miss Fitness for three consecutive years starting from 2021, 2022 and 2023 where she secured runners up in 2021, first in 2022 and 1st runners up in 2023.
She has been a trainer in Dragon Fitness since 2021.
Yeshi said that winning the competition has made her more determined to represent Bhutan in the international stage. The journey of struggles, hardship and critics has further given her the courage to keep going.
The Mr Flex 2025 event was hosted on 12th January 2025, in association with Jaigaon Police. It is one of the biggest body building events in North Bengal.
