Calm The F*ck Down

Don't get conned into the pursuit of perfection

Photo by Dex Ezekiel on Unsplash

My first job after leaving university was at Mens Health magazine, which was a somewhat improbable success at the time. This was 1997, when lad-mags still sold by the millions and the hedonistic culture they espoused prevailed among most young men. But Mens Health, a British rendition of an equally successful American magazine, was a lone voice on the newsstand, encouraging men to drink in moderation, go the gym regularly and be nice and sensitive towards the significant women (or men, there was a large gay readership) in their lives. In other words, it was very worthy, if a bit dull.

I loved working there. It hadn’t been my first choice, of course. I knew nothing about exercise, moderation or sensitivity and would have been a lot more comfortable among the unreconstructed editorial teams at Loaded or FHM. But I was a begger, not a chooser and the only contact I had in the whole publishing business happened to be working at Mens Health. He was kind enough to give me some advice on becoming a journalist and, eventually, gave me some work experience which later morphed into paid employment.

I learnt a great deal about working on magazines from all of the smart, kind people who worked there. Along the way, I started to learn a bit about healthy living too. I’d just spent three years as a layabout, drug addled student who thought one game of five a side every month represented a more than adequate concession to personal fitness. Within a couple of months writing articles about proper nutrition and abdominal crunch techniques, I was obsessed. I became really immersed in the importance of eating a low fat diet (which was the big thing at the time) and exercising every day. I got really skinny and started to become a bit of a bore about it, to be honest. My girlfriend had to be very patient as I lectured her every night about the nutritional content of the pasta we had knocked up for dinner.

I would waste whole lunch hours fretting over what you buy in the food section of Boots. I became that cunt you see eearnestly examining the ingredients label on the side of a sandwich box.