The summer I left university, I partied like it was 1999. That’s because it was, in fact, 1999. I moved into a house in London with my four best mates and began an internship at a men’s style magazine. Halcyon days, hedonistic nights.
Back then, boy bands were popping up every other week: Take That, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, ’N Sync. As fashion-forward pretty boys, we looked like a boy band when we went out together (and not in a good way). So for a few weekends that summer, we became one. Sort of. We called ourselves G-A-Z-E because we thought it was funny. “What? Gaze!?” “Yes.” To our amusement, easily-impressed girls would often believe us.
Our chutzpah began to get out of hand. The magazine I was working for had its annual Men of the Year awards. I scored some tickets and we managed to get into the VIP area by boldly claiming “We are G-A-Z-E!” and sat at a table with a TV presenter called Cat Deeley who now hosts So You Think You Can Dance in the US. Cat took a shine to my better-looking friend, Rick, and introduced us to a group of nondescript Irish lads. They were funny – especially the larger one, Brian – but to our alarm, they seemed to be spinning a story with a similar whiff of bullshit to our own. They too claimed to be a new boy band.
They were called Westlife.
Westlife had an agent with them. She was the kind of woman who didn’t mince her words. I asked her what she thought of our chances in the music business. Ten years on, I still remember exactly what she said. “Your friend, Rick? Fine. But, you? You’re too fat – you’ll never make it.”Ouch.
It wasn’t the “you’ll never make it” part that hit home. I already knew that − we weren’t being serious about the “band”. It was the “you’re too fat” bit that struck a nerve. It hurt because it was true. Up until that point, I hadn’t really considered myself overweight; I thought I was “well built”. But I realised she was right. The next day, I embarked on a diet and exercise makeover, her words echoing in my head as motivation, as they have done ever since. Within a year, I’d lost 10 kilos.
My weight fluctuated over the years until I took a job on a men’s health magazine. In my first week, I went to see the editor to tell him I thought that the promises on the cover were unrealistic. I emerged from that meeting somewhat chastened, having been challenged to try out the classic: “Get a sixpack in six weeks!”
This time, the makeover changed my life. I did so well in six weeks that the editor said if I kept going, he might put me on the cover to prove that normal blokes could achieve a cover-model physique. Six solid months of hardcore training and dieting later, I became a magazine cover model. I was Mr March 2006. My coverline? “From fat to flat!” Eat that, Brian McFadden!
However, in the process of this radical transformation, I’d gone from being a normal person with a fits-and-starts approach to diet and exercise, to some kind of non-stop gym junkie. I became the person who does food shopping according to nutrition labels; who skips going to the pub because they want to go for a run in the morning; who wonders if there is a gym open on Boxing Day. For the record: there is.
Yes, I had a six-pack and I’d lost my double-chin and I felt fitter and healthier than I’d ever been in my life, but exercising restraint was just about the only exercise I didn’t want to do.
That’s the junction where the road to wellbeing turns into a slippery slope. I needed to scale back.
Most of us begin a dieting or exercising makeover for a reason, but for a while, I was treading a health tightrope. Knowing when you’re there, when you’ve reached the tipping point with diet and exercise, that’s the level-headed wisdom that produces a healthy balance.
From being a five-lunchtimes-a-week gym obsessive, I now haven’t been to the gym once in three years – although I still get up at 6am twice a week for boot camp training in the park.
The challenge with makeovers is to keep up the good work. Although the cover-model physique wasn’t sustainable for me (no carbs + no booze = no fun), I’m proud to say I haven’t put any of the weight back on. I enjoy being in good shape and I feel like I now have a better balance of healthy body and mind. That said, I still wish I had a better body. So, on that note, I’m off for a run.
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