FITNESS MIND
P21 AN ERGO TRIP P13 GOING THE DISTANCE
In the race for better fitness, does the
rowing machine beat the treadmill?
THE NUTRITION ISSUE
P26 FULL SPEED AHEAD
Whatever your goals, you’ll reach them
quicker once you get reacquainted
with the art of sprinting. Quickly now
P129 BALL AND GAIN
This brutal against-the-clock D-ball
challenge will leave you pumped up
HEALTH
P55 HAPPY PLACE
Nourish your soul and live a healthier,
more joyful life with these practical
tips from countries that have it sussed
P117 THE IRON’S HOT
Sure, you pump iron – but can popping
supps make you strong as well?
P138 SWERVE THE SPIKE
The expert advice on how (and why) to
keep your blood sugar on an even keel
4 MEN’S HEALTH
NUTRITION
P16 A NEW LEAF
When it comes to ultramarathons, could
stamina be a case of mind over matter?
P25 IN FULL FLOW
How the elusive ‘flow state’ of deep
focus can keep burnout at bay
P58 ON A HIGHER LEVEL
The unlikely craze for slow, humdrum
video games might be your best
move to out-play anxiety
WEIGHT LOSS
P34 LISTEN TO YOUR GUT
Is ‘intuitive eating’ any more than
just another Instagram diet fad?
P118 SHAPE UP FOR SUMMER
Blend strength work with a serious calorie
burn using our three-part body plan
P126 THE METABOLISM WHISPERER
Can this handheld device reveal your
body’s inner workings to build a meal
plan that really works for you?
If you’re bored of the same old salads,
these four plates of green goodness
are bound to put a spring in your step
P29 HAIL MARY
Tempted by a Bloody Mary at
brunch? Make it this healthy(ish) one
P124 RAISE A TOASTIE
These five cheesy twists on your WFH
lunch favourite are legitimate gym fuel
MUSCLE
P14 A HEAVY LOAD
Swap farmer’s walks for the Zercher
carry. You’ll soon feel the benefits
P19 THE SLOW BUILD
Don’t be fooled, bulking up takes time.
Use these tips to ensure your hard
work in the gym (and kitchen) pays off
P30 GAINING GROUND
Build yourself for power with Team
GB sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeetey
 IN THIS ISSUE
TIME TO GET BACK IN THE SADDLE

ON THE COVER
P64 BEST & WORST FOODS
Our definitive list of the
superfoods and saboteurs
hiding in plain sight

P70 THE BURGER KING

A new plant-based patty has
burst on to UK menus – could COVER CREDITS
PHOTOGRAPHY CHRIS FLOYD
it really be as good as it looks? GROOMING NAT SCHMITT
USING CLARINS FOR MEN
P76 WHO’S COUNTING? STYLING CARLOTTA CONSTANT
Get to grips with calories, CLOTHING T-SHIRT, SUNSPEL.COM
JEANS, ALLSAINTS.COM
and make them work for you NECKLACE,
CHAINEDANDABLE.COM
P97 FIT AT ANY AGE
Your 16-page guide to
life-long changes.
It’s but a number...

Wheels Of Fortune
Alastair Campbell meets Bradley Wiggins
p42
 EDITOR IN CHIEF

THE EXPERT PANEL TOBY WISEMAN

CREATIVE DIRECTOR HEARST SOLUTIONS
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This is 2022’s Nutrition Issue. We do them quite
a lot, as regular readers will know. They seem to be
popular, probably because most men now realise that, as
far as weight-loss metrics go, the macronutrients you eat
are ultimately more significant than steps taken, power
generated or weight lifted. Even so, I confess the word
‘nutrition’ isn’t one of my favourites. Probably because I
don’t like eating fats, proteins and carbs for dinner. I like
eating food. And food is not nutrition. In fact, culturally,
scientifically, psychologically and economically, food and
nutrition are entirely different things. It’s complicated.
One of the best thinkers and writers on all this is
the US journalist Michael Pollan,
though he has long since turned
his attention from the kitchen
table to the effects of opioids
and psychedelics on the mind.
Still, I consider his 2008 treatise,
In Defence Of Food: An Eater’s
Manifesto, to be the most lucid
account of the fundamental
differences between what we
eat and what we ingest.
Pollan’s rules for sustenance
have become renowned for their
prescriptive simplicity: ‘Eat food.
Not too much. Mostly plants.’ His
seemingly elementary instruction
to ‘eat food’ is also a pointed
prohibition of the abundant
‘edible food-like substances in
the supermarket… novel products
of food science [that] often come
in packages festooned with
health claims’. This shift away
from how one’s grandparents A MEAL IS FAR MORE
might have eaten – dependent
on ingredients that were seasonally available, affordable,
unrefined – towards the highly processed food culture
we now live in, Pollan argues, is largely down to
‘nutritionism’. The suffix is important. That -ism suggests
we’re not talking about a science but an ideology. And
here the ideology is that food equals nutrients.
Of course, such thinking ignores the fact that
nutrients isolated from the context of the foodstuffs
whence they originate do not behave in the same
way. It overlooks the fact that the foods we eat are, by
implication, as significant as the foods we do not. And
that the combinations we eat them in alters the way in
which their nutrients are absorbed. Isolating nutrients
from foods can also lead to widescale misinformation
and indoctrination, as we’ve seen with the
demonisation of fat and the explosion of processed
‘low-fat’ products in the aisles. ‘Oddly, America got
really fat on its new low-fat diet,’ notes Pollan, drily.
It’s easy to blame bad science and greedy business
for all this, and he does. But Pollan is also clear that the
media is complicit. ‘Since nutrients, as compared with
foods, are invisible and therefore slightly mysterious,
it falls to the scientists (and to the journalists through
EDITOR’S LETTER
HERE’S TO FOOD – DOWN WITH ‘NUTRITIONISM’
whom the scientists speak) to explain the hidden
reality of foods to us,’ he says. ‘To enter a world in
which you dine on unseen nutrients, you need lots
of expert help.’ This is where we find ourselves in a
slightly sticky position. It’s also another of the reasons
why the word ‘nutrition’ isn’t one of my favourites.
Is Men’s Health guilty of reducing food to the sum
of its nutrient parts for the sake of a headline? Are we
practising nutritionism? Well, insomuch as we routinely
present the findings of studies around vitamins and
antioxidants in fun ways, and that we have a feature in
this current issue going by the knowingly playful title of
‘50 Best & Worst Foods For Men’,
the answer has to be yes. But in
my time as editor, I’ve always been
adamant that we celebrate food
in its delectable glory. By which
I mean real, satisfying, toothsome,
ambrosial dishes – not things
that have been compromised or
tempered in the name of dietetics.
And that’s because I love food
and want to eat the finest, most
mouth-watering morsels I can,
albeit while understanding the
health benefits – and detriments
– of doing so. In this respect, I
think we deliver. Understanding
calories does not necessarily
mean undermining the value of
a flavoursome bite.
But there are other issues that
further complicate the simple
instruction to ‘eat food’ that have
arguably become more pressing
THAN ITS MACROS since those words were written.
The simple act of eating has
become political, in the sense that what we collectively
choose to put in our mouths has huge ramifications
for the environment as well as our health. Pollan
described the logical assumption that ‘if you eat a
lot of meat [then] you’re probably not eating a lot of
vegetables’ as a zero-sum relationship. But with the
inexorable rise of processed meat substitutes on
supermarket shelves and fast-food menus, there
are arguably more losers than winners.
As our feature on the burgeoning plant-based
food industry suggests, Pollan’s nutritionism is being
replaced by a kind of ersatz conservationism. Plant-
based companies are marketing themselves as
saviours of the planet on account of their eschewal
of meat, never mind that their focus on single-use
crops, far-flung ingredients and factory-produced
chemicals suggests quite the contrary.
Somewhere along the road, the hunger for more
salutary food has led many of us to forget what
constitutes real food. This issue is, in small part,
an attempt to address that.
TOBY WISEMAN, EDITOR IN CHIEF
MEN’S HEALTH 9
03
RAISE
THE BAR
PAGE 14

6 BULK
DELIVERY
PAGE 19

01
PLAY THE
LONG GAME
PAGE 13

14
SOMETHING
ABOUT
MARY
PAGE 29
 01
COUCH
TO 50K
02
TRAIN YOUR
BRAIN A
FITNESS
WHY MINDS RULE NEWSFEED
05/22
IN THE LONG RUN
It takes plenty of willpower and lots obstacles. Crucially, it
of effort to achieve ultramarathon encourages you to focus not
stamina. But what’s the deciding only on your ultimate
objective – completing
factor? Try using your imagination an ultramarathon, say
– but also on the mental
strategies that you need
to overcome smaller

T
o quote one Arnold challenges along the way.  
Schwarzenegger, In the study, two groups
working out is ‘merely of non-runners were given
the physical follow- different kinds of counselling
through, a reminder of the to help them attempt a 50K
vision you’re focusing on’. run for the first time. One
In other words, pushing your group received sessions of
limits is a case of mind over conventional motivational
matter. ‘As long as the mind can chit-chat, in which participants
envision the fact that you can were told to talk through
do something,’ he said, ‘you can’. their reasons for chasing
Psychologists at the University self-improvement; the second
of Plymouth recently put a was put through a course of the
version of Arnie’s rather more visualisation-focused
mystical-sounding credo FIT. Come race day, only a
to the test using a pioneering quarter of the first group
motivational counselling crossed the finish line,
technique called Functional while 85% of the second
Imagery Training (FIT). group managed the full 50K
Developed by professors – by visualising success, every
Jackie Andrade and Jon step of the way.  
May, FIT conditions your FIT has also been successfully
brain to draw on goal- applied in weight-loss
directed mental imagery treatments. When it comes to
to respond to the demands resilience, then, it seems that
of any task, conjuring Arnie was right: success really
up solutions from past does begin in the mind.
successes to out-think your
THINK YOURSELF
OFF THAT COUCH
WORDS: YO ZUSHI. PHOTOGRAPHY: JONATHAN MINSTER

FORM & DON’T THINK: DON’T THINK:  DON’T THINK:  DON’T THINK: 
FUNCTION It’s 7am. The pain of
getting up now will be
I bet this run is just
going to leave me
This is such a massive
slog already! What if
Maybe I’m having a
bit of an off-day – I’m
Want to take on inversely proportional to drenched in sweat I don’t even reach my struggling and, if I’m
an ultra? Here’s how comfy this bed is. and gasping for air. target distance?   honest, a little bored.
how FIT can
get you mentally
pounding the  DO THINK:  DO THINK:  DO THINK:  DO THINK: 
pavement Getting out in the Who doesn’t love If I make it to the end, It felt great reaching this
towards success morning sunshine the feeling of a cool, I’ll feel like a king. And point the first time I ran
will be as delicious as refreshing breeze however I do, I’ll be this route. Let’s see how
my first sip of coffee.   on their face?  proud of the effort.  far I can push myself!

MEN’S HEALTH 13
 A 03
WALK
IT OFF

01
CARRY ON LIFTING LIFT OFF
Place your feet at

FOR A SOLID CORE

Nothing builds a hard midriff and
shoulder width
under a bar.
Bend your
knees, hinge and
grip the bar with a flat
old-school strength like loaded back. Brace your core
carries – THE ZERCHER CARRY and drive your feet
will level up your results in a flash into the floor to stand
with a neutral spine.

02

PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES. MODEL: FABIO MANUEL AT W MODEL. STYLING: ABENA OFEI. GROOMING: NAT SCHMITT USING KIEHL’S SKINCARE. CLOTHING: SHORTS, WIT-FITNESS.COM; SHOES, UNDER ARMOUR
LAP IT UP
Begin to squat down
by bending at the
knees, but keep your
torso upright. As you
descend, lift the
bar slightly so it
makes contact with
the bottom of your
stomach. Hold it here
so that as you reach
the bottom of your
squat, the bar is
resting at your hips.

THE BEST
EXERCISE 04
WALK THE
YOU’RE LINE
NOT DOING After covering your
distance, stop and
slowly turn back.
Maintain whole-body
tension; the distance
WHAT YOU’LL GAIN of the weight plates
from your body will
call both rotational
and anti-rotational
muscles into play, for
STABLE POSTURE MENTAL MOBILITY total core mastery.
CORE BOOST GRIT KUDOS

14 MEN’S HEALTH
01 TURN OVER A NEW LEAF 02
Contrary to popular belief, spring – not summer – is peak
THE SPIN DOCTOR
Limp greens won’t inspire
salad season: British leaves grow better when it’s cooler,
you to explore your culinary
says Neil Campbell, head chef at Fitzrovia’s Rovi. The best
creativity. So, the first step to
salads are simple, but quality ingredients are paramount.
a crisper salad is storing your
Buy from small producers, who often ‘pick crops that
leaves. Campbell advises
morning’. Here are Campbell’s go-tos…
sitting them in cold water
for five minutes, then
A PEA SHOOTS drying in a salad spinner
‘A great spring crop,’ says Campbell. (£32.49, lakeland.co.uk).
Keen gardener? Grow a pea plant
Don’t be overzealous.
and trim the tops for a continuous
supply of salad, even before the ‘A bit of moisture is good,’
pods are ready. They’re a strong he says. Store your greens
source of vitamin C, too. in a Ziploc bag. Few gizmos
are needed, but a mandoline
can make quick work of slicing,
from carrot ribbons and rounds
B BABY KALE of onion to thin apple slices.
‘Tender and palatable’ Red Russian is
Campbell’s go-to. Kale is a top source
of vitamin K – excellent for heart
and bone health – and sulforaphane,
which supports detoxification. Some
useful pub trivia for you there.

C RAINBOW CHARD
Chard is in season year-round, and
you can spot this variety by its
colourful stalk. It’s a true vitamin
powerhouse, in particular when it
comes to dishing out vitamin A for
robust immunity and eye health.

D SPINACH
We’ll spare you the Popeye jokes,
but this leaf – at its best between
March and June – supports
muscle function. As well
as helpful minerals, its
ecdysterone is linked
to increased strength.
 04
GREEN
GOBBLIN’
05
SPLASH
OUT A
03
PRESENTATION
POINTS
Now to put your theory
into practice. It’s not just
the quality of your fresh
ingredients that counts,
and a well-stocked larder
goes far: Campbell favours
Belazu for oils (‘I prefer a
light olive oil, something
floral and not too bitter’)
and vinegars (‘they stock
about 10 different types,
from sweet to musky and
appley ones’). These four A B
recipes from Campbell
and the team at Rovi are
ELDERFLOWER-LIME PEA SHOOT & BURRATA YUZU-APPLE KALE & RADISH
bursting with flavourful SERVES 1-2 METHOD SERVES 1-2 METHOD
150ml elderflower Whisk the cordial, lime juice and vinegar 1 tsp yuzu kosho Combine the kosho, vinegar and oil
nutrient-rich ingredients cordial along with a pinch of salt and 5½ tbsp 1 tbsp apple vinegar with a pinch each of salt and sugar
to brighten your workday 5 limes, juiced olive oil for a dressing. Blanch the peas 1 tbsp olive oil (sub in lemon, lime and grapefruit zest
lunches and weekend 1 tbsp chardonnay and sugar snaps (boil for 1 to 2 mins, Salt and sugar if you don’t have kosho). Massage into
barbecues alike. vinegar then refresh in ice water). Toast the 160g baby kale the kale and leave to tenderise for 20
50g fresh peas almonds at 180°C for 5 mins, cool and 6 radishes with tops mins. Slice the radishes, reserving the
50g sugar snaps slice. Cut open the burrata and season. ¼ cox apple tops. Core and dice the apples. Toss
WORDS: SCARLETT WRENCH. PHOTOGRAPHY: JAMIE LAU. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: LOUISA PARRY. OXO GOOD GRIPS SALAD SPINNER AND JAM JAR, LAKELAND.CO.UK

DRESS UP Handful of almonds

A good dressing does
more than enhance
the enjoyment of your
greens – it adds bonus
nutritional benefits, too
1 burrata
Combine the peas with the shoots, add
some torn basil and mint, and lightly mix
10g pea shoots with a glug of the dressing. Place over
Basil and mint the burrata and sprinkle with 4 pinches
Aleppo chilli flakes of the almonds and chilli flakes. Serve.
1 ½ tbsp creme fraiche
Nigella seeds and
the ingredients with the creme fraiche
and arrange in a bowl. Sprinkle with
pickled chillies a pinch each of nigella seeds and sliced
pickled chillies. Campbell recommends
serving it with roast chicken.

HEALTHY FATS
Low-fat
dressings
might keep
the calorie count
down, but there’s
a trade-off: oils such
as olive and avo help
you absorb illness-
fighting carotenoids.

VINEGAR
When
added to
carb-based
meals, even a small
amount of vinegar
can curb blood-sugar
spikes, keeping your C D
energy levels steady
for longer.
BRAISED CHARD WITH GARLIC, TOMATO & LEMON FREEKEH WITH SPINACH, ORANGE & WALNUTS
SERVES 1-2 METHOD SERVES 1-2 METHOD
150g Swiss or ‘I don’t believe a salad always has to 100g freekeh A meal in itself or a side for lamb and
CITRUS JUICE rainbow chard include raw leaves,’ says Campbell. 1 orange, juice flatbread. Boil the freekeh in salted
The vitamin 3 garlic cloves, Separate the chard stems and leaves, and zest water for 15 to 20 mins; strain and
C in your sliced thinly slice the stems and tear the 1 tbsp currants allow to cool. Bring the juice and zest
squeeze 3 tbsp olive oil leaves. Fry the garlic in oil until golden, 60g large-leaf to a boil in a pan, then remove from the
of lemon improves 2 ripe tomatoes, then add the tomatoes and stems. spinach heat and add the currants. Soak for
the body’s absorption chopped Lightly season and cook for 10 mins, 30g parsley 20 mins. Pick the chunky stalks off the
of non-haem iron: the Salt and pepper then add the leaves. Keep on the heat 2 tbsp walnuts spinach and parsley; wash in ice water.
kind found in grains, ½ lemon, juice for another 10 mins, or until the leaves 1 tbsp olive oil Then put through a spinner, if you have
legumes and your and zest are wilted. Finish it off with lemon juice Salt and pepper one. Toast the walnuts for 5 mins in the
leafy greens. and serve at room temperature as a side oven, then roughly chop. Mix everything
dish – or transform it into a pasta salad. together adding oil, salt and pepper.

MEN’S HEALTH 17
 WHAT
HAPPENS
WHEN…

SMALL TWEAKS
CAN TRIGGER
SIZEABLE RESULTS
01 02

04

03 05

…Don’tI TRY TO PACK ON MUSCLE?

let Instagram fool you into thinking that you can
go from zero to Arnie in a matter of days or weeks. Lasting
transformation takes time – and a little inside knowledge

01
STRENGTH
AND SIZE
Getting hench takes
work, says Laura Hoggins,
an award-winning PT, Fiit
instructor and director
at The Foundry Gym. ‘The
process that builds muscle
FOR MORE, FOLLOW @LAURABICEPS. ILLUSTRATION: PETER GRUNDY
02 03 04 05
COMPOUNDS ALL ABOUT MIND YOUR GAIN WHILE
ARE KING THE CALS MACROS YOU SLEEP
‘Structure your sessions ‘You’ve heard about Adequate protein is ‘Surely one of the best
around big multi-joint achieving a calorie deficit essential. ‘Recent research things about training is
movements – squats, for fat loss. Here, you need suggests those training knowing you can work
pull-ups, deadlifts etc,’ to feed the muscles to to gain muscle should eat hard in the gym – then
says Hoggins. They’ll grow bigger,’ says Hoggins. around 1.6g per kg of body recover harder at home,’
fire up your large muscle When ‘bulking’, you need weight each day, from says Hoggins. And don’t

is known as hypertrophy;
it’s the adaptation our
muscles experience when
faced with a “progressive
overload”.’ When we’re
consistently pushing our
limits during resistance
training, our guns repair
and grow bigger to better
handle our future efforts.
‘You can train with a variety
of weights and rep ranges
– you just need to be
lifting close to failure.’
groups. ‘You don’t have to to eat more calories than a variety of wholefood underestimate the role
add weight every week; you expend. ‘Expect some sources,’ says Hoggins. of R&R. ‘Aim for a minimum
try increasing time under trial and error to find what ‘Protein supplements can of seven to eight hours’
tension.’ Combine this works for you. Start with help if you struggle to hit sleep to maximise your
with moves such as rows a surplus of 300 to 500 your target.’ Refuel within overnight growth-hormone
and curls, which target calories – enough to give two to three hours of your secretion. Athletes such as
specific muscles. Start the body extra nutrients workout with protein and Ronaldo are big on taking
with the compounds – for growth, but not so carbs. Consider creatine, naps, too. Struggling?
three to five sets of four much that it’s stored as too. ‘It can help muscles Supplement with zinc and
to six reps – then finish excess fat. A tricky balance work harder for longer magnesium, and schedule
with three to four sets to strike.’ Find your total (useful for progressive exposure to fresh air in the
of higher-rep isolation daily energy expenditure overload) and encourages morning.’ Having a healthy
moves. Flexing in the using an online calculator, water retention in the routine will ensure that you
mirror is optional. then take it from there. muscles for a swole look.’ don’t miss the gains train.

MEN’S HEALTH 19
 Win
£5,000
to spend on a
watch of your
choice from

For a chance to win,

scan this QR code

Or, alternatively, visit

bit.ly/watches2022
Terms and conditions apply, visit website for details.
Goldsmiths, Mappin & Webb and Watches of Switzerland
are part of the Watches of Switzerland Group
 The min/mile pace 40-year-old James Cracknell holds the British
runner Aleksandr Sorokin sustained record for rowing a marathon. That’s
for 100 miles to set a world record a steady 1:46.7/500m on the ergo

Runners battle against gravity, burning FEEL THE BURN Super-efficient rowers have produced some
up more energy. On average, pounding the of the highest VO2 max readings recorded –
tread or pacing the road torches 50 more 6.25 litres/min among top athletes, versus
calories per hour than a sesh on the ergo. around 4.5 to 5.0 for elite marathon runners.

As well as working your quads, hams and TARGET TRAINING Rowing targets your upper and lower body,
glutes, running is great for your heart. activating nine muscle groups and 85%
Studies indicate that even five to 10 minutes 5-10 85% of the body’s musculature. But 50% of the
a day can reduce your risk of heart disease. power in a stroke comes from your legs.

BODY GOALS

Immune boost Stronger bones Brainpower gains Faster fat burn Strong core & back More glute power Healthier joints Quicker recovery
WORDS: KIERAN ALGER. PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES. TALENT: ROB HARTLEY

Running’s high-impact action loads the TOTAL IMPACT Lower-back woes account for roughly half
body with two-and-a-half times your body of rowing injuries, but low-impact sessions
weight per step, meaning longer recovery 250% 1/2 are ideal for beginners who want to build
times. Don’t forget to do your warm-up. cardio capacity and rehab injuries.

THE PELOTON TREAD LEAN MACHINES THE HYDROW

From £2,545, onepeloton.co.uk £1,995, shop.hydrow.co.uk
For a spacious belt, intuitive speed and For an immersive display, virtual coaching
incline controls, plus expert-led workouts. and a stroke-feel that mimics the water.

MH VERDICT: IT’S A DRAW

Rowing and running are both highly effective cardio workouts. If you want
to burn calories faster, run. If you want a lower-impact full-body blitz, row.
MEN’S HEALTH 21
 01
LET’S GET
DIGITAL
GIVE YOUR HOME 94/100
Jaxjox
DumbbellConnect,

GYM A BIG LIFT

Go hard or go home? Who says
£500, argos.co.uk

you can’t do both? We tested the
best adjustable bells to size up
your gym-free training sessions
Performance
Design
Ease of use
HI-TECH These futuristic
weights make switching the
resistance easy. Pop them in
the holding dock and select 02
the load (max 22.7kg; min

H
ere at Men’s Health,
we’re fans of the gym.
Often, there’s little
more cathartic
than a heavy squat session or a
competitive WOD with friends.
At other times, however,
efficiency is key – which is
why you need a home set-up
that’s fit for purpose.
If you only invest in one
piece of kit for your home
workouts, an adjustable
dumbbell is a smart choice.
While taking up little more
space than a couple of
3.6kg) with the buttons and
the plates attach in seconds.
EXPERT OPINION Weight
changes were simple and
the plates stayed secure at
all times. They’re sold in
pairs, giving them an edge
over single dumbbells, too.
02
EASY
LIFTING

WORDS: HARRY BULLMORE. TESTING: YANAR ALKAYAT. PHOTOGRAPHY: AGATA PEC

shoeboxes, dumbbells in 94/100
different weights can help Bowflex SelectTech 552i,
you forge strength and £249, amazon.co.uk
endurance from anywhere.
Stash a set in the corner of Performance
the bedroom, the cupboard Design
under the stairs or in your 01 Ease of use
car’s boot for an endless range
of workout options, whenever COMFORT IS KING The
required. (For inspiration, we’d grooved rubber handles are
advise signing up to Men’s Health more comfortable than their
SQUAD.) Plus, a variety of weight metal counterparts, while 15
increments means you won’t weight options between 2kg
need a wall-mounted rack. and 24kg (selected using
The best sets don’t come cheap,
however – and be wary of any
MH
WINNER
dials on each end of the bell)
provide plenty of variety for
that do. While dumbbells are your training. 
a worthy investment, it pays EXPERT OPINION The
to ensure you get good compact, rounded shape of the
value. Our Lab team tested weight plates made them easy HOW WE
these five for durability, to adjust. And, as they are WEIGH
versatility, comfort and plastic, there was none of the THINGS UP
user-friendliness. Pick the usual metallic clanging during Our experts tested
11 bodybuilding
set best suited to you and overhead presses or snatches,
GUTTER CREDIT

moves on each set

turn your living room into which will be greatly appreciated of DBs. This is how
a part-time iron paradise. by your neighbours. they were scored:

22 MEN’S HEALTH
 09
BELLS AND
WHISTLES A
03 OLD SCHOOL Mirafit 05
IRON GIANT didn’t see a need to HEAVY DUTY
92/100 reinvent the wheel 87/100
Mirafit 40kg Cast Iron, with these classic MuscleSquad 40kg,
£119.95, mirafit.co.uk  spinlock dumbbells, which come £460, musclesquad.com 
as a pair. They’re fitted with
Performance a selection of hardy cast iron Performance
Design weight plates that can be Design
Ease of use combined to achieve a broad Ease of use
spectrum of loads. 
EXPERT OPINION These BIG HITTERS We’d like to
traditional dumbbells are extend hearty congratulations
reliable and easy to use; just to anyone who can max these
spin the collars into place to dumbbells out on the bench.
secure the loaded plates. There 04 It has 24 weight options up to
are also 20kg, 30kg and 50kg 40kg, which should be enough
sets available, catering to satisfy most lifters. 
to lifters of all abilities. EXPERT OPINION You can
change the weight quickly by
twisting a single dial on each
dumbbell, making these an ideal
drop set companion. The metal
plates wobble and rattle slightly
during some movements, but
that’s our only gripe.
03
04
THE OUTLIER
87/100
Northdeer Steel Dumbbells,
£189.90, amazon.co.uk

Performance
Design
Ease of use

A RARE BREED These
Northdeer dumbbells were
different from anything else
we tested, with the screws and
screw holes built into the plates 05
themselves for attachment. The
weight maxes out at 25kg.
EXPERT OPINION Not for
beginners. The four load options
start at 12.5kg (fairly heavy for
isolation moves such as lateral
raises), but the weights fix sound
in place – good for dynamic
moves such as snatches. 

EASE OF USE  DESIGN PERFORMANCE

Top marks were We wanted Both the ability
awarded to the to find good- to load weights
dumbbells that allowed looking products that smoothly and an absence
us to change the weight at were easy to manoeuvre of any rattling when being
speed, without requiring and echoed the natural, used were a must in order
a mechanical engineering stable feel of a fixed- for the dumbbells we tested
degree to make sense of weight DB, while offering to earn a respectable
the instructions. a range of load options.  performance score.

MEN’S HEALTH 23

GO WITH THE FLOW
TO BEAT BURNOUT
From office workers to jazz musicians,
everyone wants to get into the ‘flow’
– the fabled state of optimal focus. But
it’s good for more than just creativity
F
or American bandleader
Art Blakey, jazz offered
a kind of secular baptism.
Performing it, he said,
could ‘wash away the dust of
everyday life’. Gamers, chess
masters and athletes have long
reported similar feelings of
liberation while immersed in their
own activities; when psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi began
to investigate ‘flow’ in the
mid-1970s, he formalised the
study of a phenomenon familiar
to anyone who has ever pursued
a goal for its own sake – and lost
themselves in that pursuit.
To be in the flow is to enter
a zone of heightened focus. As
WORDS: YO ZUSHI. ILLUSTRATION: ANDREA MANZATI AT SYNERGY ART
RIDE THE WAVES FOR A
HAPPIER MENTAL STATE
10
GET IN THE
ZONE
11
FIND YOUR
FLOW A
with many forms of meditation, JUST
it causes the ego to fall away.
Psychologists describe it as when
ROLL WITH IT
Lose yourself in the
‘optimal experience’ occurs, and
moment with one
its documented benefits are of these flow-state
myriad: a University of Bath study
linked flow states to enhanced
athletic performance, while others
have found that it can improve
inducing hobbies
DRUMMING
emotional regulation and increase
Research
by the Royal
feelings of engagement. In other College of Music
words, a flow-inducing pastime found that a 10-week
is among the best weapons we drum programme
have against burnout.  curbed symptoms
But accessing it is easier said of depression by 38%
than done. That’s why researchers and anxiety by 20%.
at the University of California
recently conducted a study using WOODWORK
brain-imaging technology to Just like
pinpoint what triggers flow spending
states. Tracking the neurological time in nature, wood
responses of 140 people as they can help relieve
played video games, they found stress, according
that they’re most likely to occur to psychologists at
when activities are challenging Tampere University
enough to engage you fully in Finland.
– blocking out all distractions
– but not so difficult as to trigger
stress or frustration. So, pick your BOULDERING
pastimes accordingly, then go Climbing
at them full bore – and when has proven
the flow comes, just go with it. effective in treating
depression, going
beyond the expected
benefits of physical
exercise, reports
BMC Psychiatry.
MIND
NEWSFEED
05/22
 TREND
SECRETS
SPRINTING

YOUR NEED
FOR SPEED
Athletes of all sports are now
embracing the art of the
sprint. If you want to crush
calories, build strength and
supercharge your workouts,
BIG BACK
here’s how to get up to speed Forget relaxed,
steady arms. You’ll
pump your arms hard,
challenging more
mid-back muscle (and

W
hen was core strength) than
the last time you may think.
you really
sprinted?
Running all out, arms
pumping, knees driving,
feet detonating off the floor.
For many of us, the answer
would be during a bleep
test in PE back at school.
For the men and women
who attend Better Every
Day gym in Orlando,
Florida, the answer is now.
They’re members of the
Movement/Athleticism/
Power (MAP) group class,
which was created by
trainer Trevor Anderson
and features, more often of speed can help with athlete became more of a
than not, 10-second sprint
intervals that push you to
each goal. For years, pro
sports teams have used
thing and CrossFit eclipsed
bodybuilding, more
GET FAST
run all out. ‘Sprinting is my speedwork to hone power weekend warriors tried AND FURIOUS
solution when people start and explosive intense and diverse training Not sure where to

THEODORE STAFFORD. GROOMING: SANDRINE VANSLEE. MODEL: THAI RICHARDS

talking about their goals,’
says Anderson, the owner
and founder of Better Every
Day. ‘As long as a person is
healthy enough to do a 10-
second interval, sprinting
can be a viable solution
for a lot of these things.’
The things he’s talking
about are likely already the
reasons you hit the gym:
building muscle, shredding
fat, chiselling your abs and
prepping your body for what
life throws at you. Infusing
your workouts with a dose
Every step athleticism,
but the
you take practice has
demands only recently
power and begun to
trickle down
precision to trainers
who work
with mere mortals.
Sprinting was largely
ignored by most gym-goers
for years, in part because
bodybuilding preached
slow, controlled reps to
forge muscle and long,
steady jogs to melt fat.
As working out like a pro
methods. Over the past five start with your sprint
journey? Choose
WORDS: MILO F BRYANT. PHOTOGRAPHY: JEAN-YVES LEMOIGNE. STYLING:
years, the rise of manually
powered treadmills that one of the sprint
allow you to track your max workouts here
speed has accelerated the
trend even further by TIMING KEY
gamifying sprinting. And
who can resist a good game? SPRINT
Currently, you may run
WALK BACK
in a group fitness class (and
the trainer may even tell
50M JOG
you to ‘sprint’), but you’re
rarely going completely 30S REST
all out in those settings.
Sprinting requires you to
expend max effort, willing

26 MEN’S HEALTH
 MUSCLES WORKED
12
FAST-TRACK
STAMINA
13
TOP
GEAR A
CORE CONTROL ON SPEED DIAL
Your early strides have you
yourself forward with every What do you wear during
powerfully driving your knees
to your chest as your body ounce of power you can a sprint? Start with this
leans slightly forward, a moving muster. (Even big-toe
mountain climber of sorts. This strength matters in a sprint.) i.WIT LOGO DROP
challenges your entire core (abs, So intense is a true sprint ARMHOLE TANK
lower-back extensors, obliques, that it’s over in 10 to 15 Good for more than just
and much more) to brace tightly,
seconds (or less), and you showing off your guns,
a constant-tension challenge
for as long as you’re running. need minutes to recover this tank is lightweight
before you’re ready to go and breathable.
again. A sprint challenges £25, wit-fitness.com
HAM IT UP your body the same way a
Your hamstrings play multiple single ultra-heavy deadlift
roles on every single stride. They rep might, forcing you to
drive your knees to bend, key generate strength and
to getting your back leg off the explosive power.
ground and in front of your body
on each step. Your hamstrings
Yes, all this is as energy
then work again, helping you draining as it sounds, so
straighten your legs in line with Anderson gets why you
your torso and push off the floor. may initially be afraid to
give it a try. ‘When people
hear the word sprinting,
they think of Usain Bolt,’
MAX GLUTES he says. ‘They think that
For a split second in every stride, every sprint means there’s ii. LULULEMON
your torso and back leg should a guy running a 10-flat SURGE TIGHTS
form a straight line, propelling you 100m and that’s what These extra-light Surges
forwards. Called ‘hip extension’, will prevent chafing
this moment requires your
sprinting is all about.’
glutes to kick into overdrive, Except you’re not while still allowing you
which builds athleticism and sprinting for a world record to drive your knees.
bulletproofs your lower back. – and neither are most of £88; lululemon.co.uk
the people in Anderson’s
MAP classes. But you’re
supercharging your body
in a way that most training
(and everyday life) simply
can’t. During most exercises,
you can relax for a moment,
THE 10-MINUTE BEGINNER BLITZ GAME PLAN whether that means going
Sprint 10m. Walk back
10 to the start. Repeat easy on a bicep curl or
daydreaming through
INTENSITY

as many times as
possible for 10 mins. part of your Peloton ride.
Add 5m each week,
working up to 100. But every step during a
0 Do this twice a week. sprint is about power and
10M 10M 10M 10M 10M
precision, and this improves
THE CARDIO/EXPLOSION HYBRID GAME PLAN your first step in, well,
Sprint for 100m, then everything. From pick-up
10 jog very slowly for basketball to chasing after
INTENSITY

50m. Repeat this 7

times. Rest 6 mins. your toddler, your body iii.NIKE AIR ZOOM
(Yes, really.) Repeat learns how to start any PEGASUS 38
0
the sequence. Do motion quickly, and you’re Skip fancier shoes and stick
this twice a week.
100M 100M 100M 100M 100M insulating yourself against with a basic runner. Nike’s
the muscle pulls and strains Pegasus delivers a smooth
THE 9-WEEK SPEED PROGRAMME GAME PLAN
that come from sudden and comfortable ride.
Sprint 20m, rest 30
10 secs. Do this twice unplanned moves. £109.95, nike.com
INTENSITY

a week. Repeat 10 Try these three super-

times in weeks 1, 4
and 7; 15 in weeks 2,
quick sprint workouts
5 and 8; and 20 times any time, anywhere.
0
20M 20M 20M 20M 20M in weeks 3, 6 and 9.
 THERE’S ONLY
ONE RIGHT
14
HIGH
SPIRITS A
WAY TO...

…MAKE A BLOODY MARY

Go back to basics with this classic pick-me-up
for the ultimate healthyish brunch
tipple. It’ll put a spring in your step

01
SIMPLE IS
SENSIBLE
Hold the celery – and
while you’re at it, the
bacon, prawns and THE EXPERT
cheeseburgers, too. David Wondrich is
Under the ruse of the James Beard
award–winning
‘brunch’, some eateries author of cocktail
junk up the drink to jack books. He’s even
up the cost. The original, studied the history
post-Prohibition recipe of the Bloody Mary.
uses just vodka, tomato
juice, lemon juice,
Worcestershire sauce,
and Tabasco. Yes, that’s
03
all there is to it. MEASURE AND MIX
In a cocktail shaker,
shake or roll (ie, swirl the
shaker around in small
02
INTERVIEW BY KURT MAITLAND. PHOTOGRAPHY: DANNY KIM / THE LICENSING PROJECT. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES

circles) the following

ingredients with ice: 120ml
NATURAL tomato juice, 40ml vodka,
REMEDY 15ml lemon juice, and
Instead of a vegetable dashes of Worcestershire
blend, go with 100% sauce and Tabasco to
tomato juice for a taste. Strain everything
balanced base. Tomato into a highball glass over
juice is a great source of ice. (If you’re really thirsty,
inflammation-fighting double this recipe and
and heart-boosting serve in a pint glass.)
carotenoids, which
should temper some
of the effects of the
booze, at least.
04
Squeeze fresh lemon OKAY, YOU
juice to avoid having CAN GARNISH
the chemical tang If you’d like a bit more
of store-bought burn, stir in prepared
concentrates. horseradish or freshly
YOUR NEW ground pepper. Maybe
COCKTAIL TRICK
To decrease the time it takes to make add a lemon wedge or
ice cubes, use hot water. It works an olive. Just don’t go
because of the Mpemba effect, a overboard. As Dirty
phenomenon proposing that hot water Harry once said, ‘A
sometimes freezes faster than cold man’s got to know
water, possibly because heat is
released from its surface
his limitations.’
more quickly.
MEN’S HEALTH 29
 HOW I
BUILT MY
BODY IT’S NOT ALL DOWN
TO GOOD GENETICS

TAKE THE FAST

LANE TO RESULTS
Prodigious Team GB sprinter Harry
Aikines-Aryeetey knows that the
quickest way to boost performance
is to go flat out. Can you keep up?

I
‘ ’ve been blessed with good
genetics, obviously,’ says
Harry Aikines-Aryeetey.
That’s an understatement.
As proven by an old family photo
from a holiday to Ghana, the
Team GB 100m sprinter had pecs
aged 13. He first beat his dad in
a race aged just seven or eight.
Aikines-Aryeetey can pull up
with 80kg attached, but doesn’t
even lift for his upper body. What
he does do, of course, is sprint:
pumping his arms, withstanding
ground reaction forces up to five
times his 84kg mass (on each leg)
and stimulating muscle growth
all over. Which is something that
most people, he says, don’t do past
a certain point in their lives. They
run or jog and lose the capacity to
go at full throttle. ‘It’s a lost skill.’
Sprint training is about gradually
building up your speed and pacing
yourself – over the season, that is.
Aikines-Aryeetey is on the track increase the rest by a minute or squat variations (he likes to do
three or four times a week. A few two. Eventually, on max velocity split squats), Romanian deadlifts
days before speaking days, he’ll hit 11.3 and step-ups – and progressing
to MH, he ran six metres per second – from eight to 10 reps earlier in his
‘Don’t overly focus over 25 miles per hour
WORDS: JAMIE MILLAR. PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK
JAMES. ADDITIONAL IMAGES: GETTY IMAGES

rounds of 200m, with programme to three to five reps,

three minutes’ rest in on lifting heavier. – and rest between but not always going heavier.
between, in 27 seconds Get good at lifting ‘reps’ for 15 to 20 ‘It’s all about the speed of the
– which is way off his minutes. Acceleration bar,’ he says. In the weeks before
PB of 20.46, but he was one weight well’ days are about getting recording his power-clean PB
just back from holiday up to his top speed; of 170kg, he had been ‘getting
and in ‘flats’ rather than ‘spikes’. speed-endurance, staying there. comfortable’ at 130kg, whereas
In a few weeks, he’ll do 200m Twice a week, Aikines-Aryeetey most people would’ve tried to
intervals in 25 seconds, then does work in the gym on some key squeeze out 135kg. ‘Nah, just get
exercises, such as power cleans,

30 MEN’S HEALTH
 15
OLYMPIC
EFFORT
16
CHANGE
GEAR A
HARRY AA’S
QUICKEST TIPS
How to build yourself
for speed – beyond
actually sprinting

UNILATERAL TRAINING
‘Sprinting is about
taking a large force
single-legged and
projecting yourself,
control and stability. In the gym,
the first thing you want to do is
single-leg training, whether that
is split squats or step-ups.’

BUILD ENDURANCE
‘Superset your main
power exercises with
a weighted step-up
or some form of jump,
such as depth or dumbbell
rocket. You’re learning to control
a movement pattern and then
move with the force again.’

7%-8%
INCREASE STRIDE LENGTH
‘Bound: hop or leap
from leg to leg, taking
longer strides each
time to build and carry
momentum. Keep your chest up
and hips square. Drive your knees
and land on the balls of your feet.’
BODY FAT

good at lifting that one weight

very well,’ he advises.
What Aikines-Aryeetey also
doesn’t do is run for longer than

9.90
five or 10 minutes at the start of
a session, or 500m sprint reps.
By his own estimate ‘90% muscle’
(seems accurate), he’s not built
for distance. Plus, he’s asthmatic.
The 33-year-old recently ran his
first 5K with CBD brand Puresport’s 100M PB *
run club. ‘I was in bits,’ he says. *
WIND-ASSISTED, 10.8 ‘LEGAL’

GET A GOOD FOOTWEAR RESISTANCE BANDS SKIPPING ROPE TRUNDLE WHEEL

New Balance FuelCell For muscle activation: To warm up your To set out cones
MOVE ON trainers or SD spikes. high knees, single-leg tendons. to mark out
Aikines-Aryeetey’s adduction/abduction, distances
sprint-training extensions. for reps.
essentials

MEN’S HEALTH 31
 17
ACTION
PACK A
06 05
CONCEPT2 POWER
KIT TO KEEP YOU SKIERG
This standing rower
‘gets you into a deep
BLOCK
ADJUSTABLE
DUMBBELLS
ACTION-READY squat while you pull
down on the ropes, so
it’s great for a full-body
Schreiber loves
these PowerBlocks
– they have an
For his role in the new live-action workout’, he says. easy-to-use pin
Halo series, Pablo Schreiber had to £700, shop-uk. to change weights
wear a 20kg suit for 14 hours a day. concept2.com and are built to last.
‘They’re my go-to
These tools kept him in fighting shape dumbbells,’ he says.
Prices vary,
amazon.co.uk

01
IRON NECK
Since turning 40,
Schreiber has been
adding more recovery
and mobility exercises
into his workouts.
This halo-shaped
contraption helps
to strengthen 04
his neck. ‘It also NORTHERN LIGHTS
bulletproofs your CEDAR BARREL
upper spine,’ he says. This cedar barrel doubles as a cold
From £262.50, plunge and hot tub. ‘I get a ton of
iron-neck.co.uk use out of it,’ Schreiber says.
From €6,292 (around £5,256),
northernlightshottubs.com

THE GEAR
CHANGE
WORDS: CHRISTIAN GOLLAYAN. PHOTOGRAPHY: RICHARD KNAPP (SCHREIBER); COURTESY BRANDS (PRODUCTS)

PABLO
SCHREIBER

03
CROSSOVER
SYMMETRY
Schreiber uses these
02 cables to stretch his
PSO-RITE shoulders and stave off
Schreiber lays his training-related pains.
stomach on this ‘They’ve helped me stay
horseshoe-like in the game,’ he says.
contraption £145, uk.crossover
to relieve hip symmetry.com
tension. ‘It accesses
PABLO SCHREIBER
the psoas muscle,’ In the adaptation
he says. And of the iconic game
after he uses it, franchise Halo,
his ‘back pain goes actor Schreiber
plays Master Chief,
away immediately’. the main character
£79.99, pso-rite.co.uk

MEN’S HEALTH 33

THE BIG QUESTION
I KEEP SEEING
THE PHRASE
‘INTUITIVE
EATING’ ON
SOCIAL MEDIA.
IS THIS JUST
ANOTHER FAD?
Neil, Penge
W
e’d forgive you your
scepticism, Neil. But,
technically, it’s the
opposite. Laura
Thomas, nutritionist and director of
the London Centre for Intuitive Eating,
describes it as ‘an anti-diet approach
to eating’, rebuilding an uncomplicated
relationship with food by tuning in to
your body’s wants and needs. That
might sound suspiciously simple –
and in a way, it is – but if you’ve been
bouncing from keto to paleo, carb
cycling to calorie-counting, 5:2 fasting
to 16:8, it’s likely you’ve lost the ability
to properly recognise and respond to
hunger – or to identify what you
actually want to eat at any given time.
There are 10 principles of intuitive
eating (google them, if it interests you),
built around ideas such as binning the
ASK MEN’S
HEALTH
05/22
STICK A FORK IN THE FOOD
FADS AND TUNE INTO WHAT
YOUR BODY REALLY NEEDS
concept of cheat foods and
avoiding excessive hunger.
Worried all this sounds like
a recipe for weight gain? Well,
weight management is somewhat
WORDS: LUCY GORNALL; TOM WARD; SCARLETT WRENCH. PHOTOGRAPHY: STUDIO 33; JOBE LAWRENSON; GETTY IMAGES. ILLUSTRATIONS: HARVEY SYMONS
beside the point. Though some
Instagram personalities might
claim to sculpt their six-packs by
‘eating intuitively’, this is not a system
suited to those prioritising fat loss.
However, Professor Thomas says,
‘Depriving yourself [of the foods you
like] is more likely to lead to eating in
a way that feels out of control, with
binge-restrict patterns and food
preoccupation.’ Giving yourself
unconditional permission to choose
foods you enjoy – not just those that
meet your predetermined macro- and
micro-targets – can help break these
patterns. As she puts it, ‘If we know
we can always eat pizza, we create
more space to ask ourselves if that’s
what we really want to eat right now.’
Learning to select your meals
intuitively doesn’t mean swerving
vegetables in favour of processed
junk either; believe it or not, your
body and taste buds will sometimes
crave the very stuff your go-to diet
plan endorses. ‘But remember: trust
is a two-way street,’ Professor Thomas
says. ‘It takes time to believe your
body can be trusted to call the shots.
But we also need to prove to our
bodies that we will always feed them
satisfying foods, in amounts that
give us enough energy.’
 18
NEVER SAY
DIET
19
WORKING
LATE A
FITNESS FIX

WHAT ARE ‘LAZY GLUTES’

AND HOW DO I WAKE MINE UP?
Thomas, Leeds

Remote working and increased laptop hours can cause our glutes to switch off
during everyday tasks, leading to a rise in injuries and imbalances. Get them back
on side with this pre-workout activation plan from S&C coach Bret Contreras

TEXT A PT

HOW LATE IS TOO LATE

TO FIT IN A WORKOUT?
Cameron, Stoke-on-Trent

SIDE-LYING QUADRUPED HIP ELEVATED It’s 8pm and I haven’t managed

CLAMSHELL
10 REPS ON EACH SIDE
Lie on your left, your head
resting on your arm. With
your legs stacked, bend your
knees slightly; ensure your
heels are in line with your
behind. Raise your right knee.
Pause. Return to the start.
After 10 reps, swap legs.
EXTENSION GLUTE BRIDGE
10 REPS ON EACH SIDE
Start on all fours, your hands
under your shoulders and
your knees under your hips.
Raise your right leg; keep the
knee bent at 90 degrees until
the sole of your foot faces the
ceiling, then lower it down.
Do 10 reps, then swap legs.
10 REPS TOTAL
Lie on your back with your
knees bent at 90 degrees,
your heels propped on a
bench in front of you. Lift
your hips, so your body is
straight from your knees to
your shoulders. Hold for 2
secs, then lower back down.
to squeeze in a session yet.
Should I just sack it off?
It’s never too late! A recent study
by Concordia University found that
the ideal time for a HIIT workout is
two hours before bed. Smash out
a few sets before lights out and you
could actually improve your sleep.
So, if I usually turn in at 10.30pm,
a quick session now could actually
be a good thing?

Exactly. Another study by the

DOES IT WORK? Australian Catholic University found

WHAT’S THE evening workouts not only improve

metabolic health but might also
reduce blood glucose and
DEAL WITH cholesterol levels, too.

COLLAGEN I’m not sure I have the energy for

SUPPS?
Jack, Loughborough
a full 45 minutes, though.

No problem. Even 10 minutes of

HIIT can help. A good weekly goal
Colnatur Collagen Imedeen is 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic
Complex Zooki Collagen
Natural £27.99, Shots activity and two strength sessions.
Required for skin elasticity, plus Flavour yourzooki.com 10 X 15ml Hit that target and it doesn’t matter
£26.99, £35, boots.com how you divide it up.
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collagen makes up roughly 30% is coated in You might not reap
of all the proteins within your ‘Hydrolysed quite as many Gotcha. What about refuelling
natural lipids
collagen is easy benefits due to post-workout?
body. Unfortunately, ageing and (fats), ‘which
for the body could improve ‘small amounts
collagen production don’t go to absorb,’ of collagen and
absorption by In future, aim for a carb-rich
hand in hand, so a supplement says nutritional our bodies’ cells’, vitamin C’, says dinner at 6ish, then neck a protein
can help, swerving the need to therapist Gail says Madalena. Madalena. On shake post-sesh. Your body will
Madalena. Vitamin the plus side,
rely on shellfish, chicken and However, at £1.75 repair itself while you sleep. It’s
C and magnesium a pouch, there it’s sugar-free, good like that.
gallons of bone broth. These aid post-exercise tastes nice and
are cheaper
are a good starting place: recovery, too. options, she adds. is easy to take.
Good for: Your Good for: Good for: A
porridge smoothie boost Rachel Lines is a PT at RL
People on the go rachellinesfitness.com

MEN’S HEALTH 35
 20
JOG THE
MIND
21
WEIGHT
LIFTED A
WORK
NEWSFEED
05/22
THINK SHARPER
AND FEEL CALMER Researchers at the University
of Tsukuba, Japan, found that a

IN 10 MINS FLAT
Lost your mojo at work? Here’s the
10-minute jog can increase blood
flow to regions of your bilateral
prefrontal cortex associated with
PUSH THE RESET cognitive function and positivity
simplest way to recharge your focus BUTTON ON YOUR – boosting not only your mental
FLAGGING BRAIN
during your lunch hour or screen processing power but also the way
you feel. Even moderate running
break – minimal effort required makes enormous demands
on your brain, forcing it to
coordinate complex
processes involved in

T
o become a balance, movement
world-class and propulsion. To test
triathlete, Lesley whether this had measurable
Paterson found herself spin-off benefits to the mind,
pushing her limits ‘beyond what the scientists assessed the ability
most thought were healthy’. of 26 participants to inhibit
Missed birthdays, early ‘cognitive interference’
mornings, holidays ruined by before and after a run
searching for a pool to train at half their maximal
in – her account of what it aerobic capacity. The
takes to reach the top will study, which involved
inspire some, but terrify identifying colours
WORDS: YO ZUSHI. IMAGE MANIPULATION: SCRATCHINPOST.CO.UK. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES. TALENT: ANDREW TRACEY

others. And with many of while ignoring

us finding our motivation verbal distractions,
in all aspects of our life confirmed that even
sapped by working from a quick plod around
home, such commitment the block results in
seems out of reach. Might significantly enhanced
as well give up trying? problem-solving skills
If that thought has as well as heightened
crossed your mind, ‘pleasure levels’.  
remember that exercise – and So try fitting a brief jog
the benefits it confers – isn’t into your working routine.
an all-or-nothing proposition. It’ll brush away the cobwebs
Even a small amount of it could and restore your vim just in
be just what you need to fire time for your big presentation.
you up once more – and that’s Consider the aerobic benefits
in both your work and life.   an added bonus.

Start a running clock

JOGGING and complete one set
A SLOG? every minute, on the
minute (EMOM).
Then grab a Perform your three
set of heavy-ish sets of 10 cleans first,
dumbbells and building up to the rows.
do this 12-minute Rest for the remainder DUMBBELL CLEAN FRONT SQUAT PUSH PRESS RENEGADE ROW
workout instead of each minute. 10 reps 10 reps 10 reps 8 reps each side

MEN’S HEALTH 37

GREATER DEPTH?
Every man loves a dive watch, but
rarely do they encounter a sea bed.
No matter – the best divers perform
as well above water as they do below
W
hen
Alexander
saw the
breadth of
his domain he wept, for
there were no more
worlds to conquer.’ Thus
spake the villainous
German, Hans Gruber, in
Die Hard. In actual fact,
Alexander the Great did
nothing of the sort, but
that’s not relevant here.
The point is the idea
that conquering was
completed more than
2,000 years ago is now
risible. Imagine Big Al’s
reaction on learning that
not only has mankind
been to the moon, but its
wealthiest few are treating
space flight like a hobby.
Hundreds of people
climb the world’s highest
mountain every year and
the record for diving to
the deepest points in the
oceans is now held by
an investment banker.
All of which is to say
it’s easy to underestimate
how hard these things
are, and perhaps none
more so than diving.
We’re ill equipped for life
underwater. Every 10m
you descend adds an
atmosphere’s worth of
pressure; at 100m – an
entry-level depth for
a diver’s watch – the
pressure is 10 times what
you’d feel at sea level.
It also has to be said
that watches aren’t really
suited to aquatic life
either. Or rather, they
38 MEN’S HEALTH
WRIST
ASSESSMENT
DIVE
WATCHES
weren’t, before WW2
commandos decided that
they could really do with
knowing how long they’d
been underwater. Today,
watches capable of
withstanding dips of half
a kilometre or more are
everywhere. And in their
ubiquity we overlook how
impressive that is. Perhaps
it has something to do
with the numbers: in most
minds, 300m underwater
is fairly indistinct from
500m. After a while, it’s
all just cold, dark and
alien. But in reality,
anything over 100m is
ample for even the most
ambitious amateur diver.
Nevertheless, not so
long ago, brands were
intent on creating watches
rated to ever more extreme
depths. Only recently
have some of the biggest
names brought out
models with a lower water
resistance, presumably in
the realisation that if the
hardware isn’t quite so
industrial in construction,
you can have more fun
with it. Others have noted
that their watches can
keep the tech specs, yet
not take themselves so
seriously – hence the
introduction of arty dial
designs or retro bronze
cases. Take a look at six
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN MCALISTER
new watches that show
the dive watch in all its
current forms.
Chris Hall is Mr Porter’s
senior watch editor
 22
DEEP
DIVE A
01 Tissot Seastar 2000
Professional, £895
A textbook dive watch: sturdy
46mm steel case and bracelet,
ceramic bezel, even a helium
release valve. But Tissot keeps
things fresh with an au courant blue
dial and 80-hour power reserve.

02 Oris Sun Wukong

Limited Edition, £1,900
Prefer your dial a little more
decorative? Oris’s latest Aquis
celebrates Sun Wukong – aka the
Monkey King, a legendary figure
from Chinese folklore. The second
hand resembles the king’s staff,
with a dial pattern evoking
movement as it swings around.

03 Tag Heuer Aquaracer

Professional 200, £2,300
Tag’s latest Aquaracer is another
watch rocking a slightly reduced
depth rating (still plenty unless
you’re drilling for offshore gas). But
the new additions are both refined
and considered, as shown by the
utilitarian – and impactful, we’d
say – stainless steel bezel.

04 Bremont Argonaut
Bronze, £3,195
Bremont’s Argonaut is one of a trio
of designs sanctioned by the MoD.
The naval piece features a marine-
flavoured bronze, which will develop
a weather-beaten patina over time.
But don’t worry, it can always be
polished back to ‘dress uniform’
spec if that’s more your taste.

05 Tudor Pelagos FXD,

£3,000
Tudor’s Pelagos is highly respected
as a dive watch, which is why it
surprised pundits when this version
dropped its water resistance from
500m to 200m. But fear not: the
military-inspired single-piece
titanium case is still extremely
robust and comfortable to boot.

06 Breitling Superocean
Dive
Automatic 42, £2,840
For Pearls Don’t be fooled by its poppy, brash
The Rolex Oyster, looks – with 500m water resistance,
created in 1926, was it’s one of the more highly specced
, models here. Those oversized
the world s first numerals and red pointer second
waterproof watch. The hand are intended to deliver
iconic name lives on maximum legibility and help to give
the watch a fun, easy-going feel.
to this day

MEN’S HEALTH 39
Alastair Campbell
Journalist, mental Talking Heads
Alastair Campbell
health campaigner
and Men’s Health
contributing editor

meets Brad Wiggins

Wheels
Of
Fortune
Ten years since conquering the world and making
cycling the coolest of all sports, Sir Bradley Wiggins
has ridden a bumpy, occasionally treacherous path
towards becoming the 41-year-old man he is today.
But now he has started falling in love with the bike
again – and begun finding himself in the process
Photography by Chris Floyd
After a complicated
relationship with
both his sport and
his fame, Wiggins
has reached a place
of acceptance
Talking Heads
Alastair Campbell
meets Brad Wiggins
A
full decade has passed since that great time
to be alive and British: London 2012. It felt as
though the entire nation had taken some kind of
happiness wonderdrug. Yet one of the athletes at
the forefront of that great sporting and cultural
success was somehow failing to get with the
mood. Bradley Wiggins was knighted following
his Olympic gold and becoming the first British
cyclist to win the Tour de France just 10 days
earlier. Surely the pinnacle of any career? But
for all the show of V for victory, seated upon a
throne that cemented his regal status in the sport,
he was not sharing in the joy, nor enjoying the
adulation that came his way. He is a man of many
contradictions, not least in his surprising choice
of hero… read to the end.
I had been warned he doesn’t like interviews,
yet I found him very open, sparing no one in his
analysis, not least himself. We talked over a series
of childhood traumas – an absent father, who only
made contact once his son became successful, and
was later murdered; being groomed and abused
by a coach as a teenager; being witness to violence
and even murder – and his embrace of cycling as
a means of escapism. He admits that for all his
talent, he could be a total… can I use the C-word
in Men’s Health? He certainly does, about
himself, explaining how he has since apologised
to teammate and rival Chris Froome for his
handling of their relationship, and – as a term
of endearment, he insists – about the cycling
supremo Sir Dave Brailsford.
He admits to a love-hate relationship with the
sport that made him famous, though appears
currently to be in an affirmed ‘love’ phase. He
clearly enjoys his current role covering big races
for Eurosport from the back of a motorbike, calling
himself a ‘preacher for cycling, its history and
its drama’. Though heavier than in his pomp,
he still keeps fit, with daily gym sessions, and
ventures out for long rides on his own. He refuses
to join in the character assassination of Lance
Armstrong, nor the attempt to expunge him from
44 MEN’S HEALTH
cycling history. He is coaching his
son, Ben, who has been selected by
Team England Futures ahead of the
Commonwealth Games. He is even
looking forward to an event to celebrate
the 10th anniversary of his famous time
trial ride at Hampton Court. Though
the contradictions still run through
him, he gives the sense of a man finally
coming to terms with himself, and
a success he has sometimes wished
he never had.
AC: So the series is Talking Heads,
Brad, so let’s talk about your head.
How are you feeling about life
right now?
BW: Up and down. Some days it makes
sense, some days it doesn’t. But I don’t
know if that is my age. I’m 41, five or six
years into retirement…
AC: You see yourself as retired?
BW: From cycling, not from work per
se. But stopping sport is a big event for
anyone. It was all I knew.
AC: How hard was the transition?
BW: I found it easy because I crave
normality. And I had stopped enjoying
it. I didn’t enjoy being me.
AC: When did that start?
BW: 2012, after winning the Tour de
France, then winning at the Olympics.
Life was never the same again. I was
thrust into this fame and adulation
that came with the success.
‘I didn’t know
AC: Why didn’t you like it?
BW: Because I’m an introverted, private
person. I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, so
I adopted a kind of veil – a sort of rock who “me” was,
star veil. It wasn’t really me.
AC: Has your head always been
so I adopted a
up and down?
BW: I was so institutionalised, from 13
rock star veil. It
really. I was essentially a professional
cyclist from 13 and I didn’t have any
really wasn’t me’
perspective of what normal life was.
AC: So you didn’t enjoy it from 2012
onwards, but kept on for four years?
BW: Yeah. It was probably the
unhappiest period of my life.
Everything I did was about winning
for other people, and the pressures that
came with being the first British winner
of the Tour. I really struggled with it.
AC: Yet that should have been the
highlight of your life?
GUTTER CREDIT
BW: It’s a strange contradiction. Part
JACKET, £239, ALLSAINTS.COM; T-SHIRT, £55, FOLKCLOTHING.COM; JEANS, £99,
GUTTER CREDIT
ALLSAINTS.COM; RING, £80, SERGEDENIMES.COM; NECKLACE, £170, CHAINEDANDABLE.COM

himself as a sort
Wiggins now sees

achieved so much
of preacher for the
sport in which he has
 After a series of
traumas, cycling
offered Wiggins
a means of escape
of me believed it would never happen
– it was the kind of thing that happens
to other people. But another part of me
knew I would do it. Big contradiction.
Then, when it happened, I started
assuming a character. I was loving the
adulation and playing up to it, but then
I would get indoors and hate what I
had become. I wanted it all because
I understand the history of cycling.
But I was hit with a stick to do it all by
the powers that be. I don’t mean I was
being forced to do it – I wanted to do
it and they gave me the best training
and equipment. But there was this side
effect, whereby if you don’t win, you’re
scrutinised heavily, and then you’re off.
46 MEN’S HEALTH
AC: Cycling is fascinating like that:
it’s a team sport but you’re all also
out there on your own.
BW: It’s very cut-throat.
AC: Do you have much of a
relationship with [former British
Cycling coach and Team Sky
manager] Dave Brailsford these days?
BW: Not really. The occasional message.
AC: Any bond at all?
BW: Oh yeah, we go back 20 years. He’s
like a big brother, just maybe one I don’t
talk to all the time. But you couldn’t go
through all the success we had – British
Cycling, Team Sky – without a bond.
AC: Is it his ruthlessness that makes
him successful?
BW: Absolutely. He probably expected
me to be more like him. My problem was there
was a human being inside me. Dave is a big
cunt, a proper cunt, and I say that as a term of
endearment because to be successful you have
to be. I was at times, Chris Froome was. You have
to be ruthless and cuntish. It’s not nice, and you
know you’re doing it, but you know if you take
your foot off the gas, you’re going to pay a price.
AC: How is your relationship with Chris?
BW: Good.
AC: It wasn’t always, was it?
BW: No. I reached out. I wanted to apologise
to him for the way I was.
AC: What were you apologising for?
BW: For the way I handled certain situations that
amplified the distance between us. There were
situations I could have handled better. I was 32

‘I think my drive
on the bike
stemmed from
adversity’
years old and acting like a petulant
child. Athletes can do that because you
think it all revolves around you. You
think you’re better than other people,
you blame other people if things go
wrong. You become very self-unaware.
AC: So you were apologising for
being a cunt?
BW: Basically, yes.
AC: What was the worst thing
between you?
BW: The public fall out and never really
chatting about it. Also, Dave played us
off against each other, trying to push us
both harder. He knew one of us would
fall by the wayside, and most probably
me, because I did that kind of thing. So
meets Brad Wiggins
then Chris would be his pawn for a few years, and
then the same happened to Chris, and now it’s
happening to Geraint [Thomas] a bit. Meanwhile,
Dave stays. That is what makes him successful.
AC: You must feel proud, though, of being part
of that whole British cycling revolution?
BW: I do now. For years I wished it never happened.
AC: You’d rather have failed?
BW: When you’re at rock bottom, like I was a few
years ago, you can’t see the good. I was very low.
AC: Why?
BW: A lot of it was trauma-based.
AC: From childhood? Your dad?
BW: Yeah, coming to terms with things that
I had buried.
AC: Do you think cycling was all about
running away?
BW: Yes, escapism. I realise that now.
AC: What are the things you were running
away from?
BW: It was definitely to do with my dad. Never
getting answers when he was murdered in 2008.
He left us when I was little, so I met him for the
first time when I was 18. We rekindled some kind
of relationship but then we didn’t speak for the
last couple of years before he was murdered. He
was living in poverty. I never went to the funeral.
AC: How did you feel about your dad [Gary,
an Australian professional cyclist] when you
met him?
BW: He was my hero. I wanted to prove myself to
him. He was a good cyclist – he could have been
really good – but he was a wasted talent. He was
an alcoholic, a manic depressive, quite violent
Talking Heads
Alastair Campbell
and he took a lot of amphetamines
and [sports] drugs back then. Even
though he had left us, my mum idolised
him. She glorified him as a cyclist, she
glorified his behaviour as a person – the
violence, the drugs, everything.
AC: He was violent to her?
BW: Yes.
AC: When he died, what happened?
BW: They still don’t know. He went to
a party, was struck over the head, his
body was dumped, but they don’t know
who did it.
AC: How did you feel when he died?
BW: Very mixed emotions. I had a
daughter who was just one year old at
the time and it made me determined
to be a better parent.
AC: It can’t be easy bringing up kids
as a professional cyclist, travelling as
much as you do?
BW: The kids were the grounding for
me. When I won the Tour, they were the
reasons I didn’t want to get back into it.
They stopped me doing more because
I was craving normality.
AC: What else were you running from?
BW: A lot of stuff. I was groomed by a
coach when I was younger – I was about
13 – and I never fully accepted that.
AC: Groomed sexually?
BW: Yes.
AC: Blimey. We’re getting it all today.
BW: It all impacted me as an adult.
AC: The grooming… did you realise it
was a big thing, or did you just bury it?
BW: I buried it. My stepfather was
quite violent to me, he used to call me
a faggot for wearing Lycra and stuff,
so I didn’t think I could tell him. I was
such a loner.
AC: Was this guy touching up the
other kids?
BW: Probably, but I didn’t talk to
anyone. I just wanted to get out of the
environment. I became so insular. I
was quite a strange teenager in many
ways and I think the drive on the bike
stemmed from adversity.
AC: Proving yourself to a dad who
wasn’t there?
BW: Yeah, but to get out of the whole
environment, too. Where I lived, it was
opposite St George’s School in Maida
Vale, where the head teacher, Philip
MEN’S HEALTH 47
Talking Heads
Alastair Campbell
meets Brad Wiggins
Lawrence, was murdered in 1995. He
got stabbed by a gang and I witnessed
it. But it felt normalised; it just went
over our heads as kids. There were all
these things in my childhood that were
traumatic, so I was never happier than
when I was on my bike.
AC: It sounds to me like you have a
love/hate relationship with cycling?
BW: I have had. For the first time, I’m
starting to accept that I should love it.
That day, 10 years ago, when I won
gold in the Olympic time trial, I was
the catalyst for an explosion in British
cycling. Of course, there were lots of
other people involved – Froome, Chris
Hoy, Vicky Pendleton – but it was me
doing it as an individual, just days
after winning the Tour de France, that
put the booster rockets on. They were
selling Wiggins sideburns!
AC: And you sat on that throne…
BW: That was the introvert putting on
an act. I had such extreme focus for
the event that I didn’t know how to
behave afterwards. So when I did the V
for victory signs, that was the introvert
hiding. I didn’t enjoy the attention.
AC: So you’d happily have quit then?
BW: Yes, I would.
AC: And when you did quit, did you
have a plan or did you make it up as
you went along?
BW: I made it up. You hand your body
to coaches and then you hand yourself
to a management team. They had a
pathway, A League Of Their Own kind
of thing. I ended up on a TV show
called The Jump and I wondered to
myself, ‘What the hell am I doing here?
This is not what I want to do.’ There
is a temptation to do all sorts to make
money out of what you have achieved,
but that kind of thing is not fulfilling.
AC: So what is the plan now?
BW: To be happy.
AC: Big goal. How?
BW: Fuck knows. The pathway for me is
taking control of what I want to do. For
the first time in five years, whether or
not I have a love/hate relationship with
cycling, I accept the love. I’m not going
to pull back from it, not do other stuff.
AC: You seem to enjoy the Eurosport
commentary on the back of the
motorbike.
48 MEN’S HEALTH
01
BW: I love it.
AC: I’m always amazed that people
who have played at the top level – like
Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher
with football, you with cycling –
don’t just see punditry as second best?
BW: There is an element of that, but
you can find something different and
unique. They have found that. I have
that with the motorbike. My passion
comes out when I am on the motorbike,
01. In 2012 Wiggins out on the course. I took my love for the
became the first sport for granted for too long and now
Briton to win the Tour
it has come back. It’s not about my ego,
de France. French
media dubbed him it’s about trying to inspire other people.
‘Le Gentleman’ AC: Say you meet someone who
doesn’t know who you are. You’re
02. Just 10 days later
he won Olympic gold not allowed to talk about your past,
in the men’s time but they ask what it is you do. What
trial, prompting a do you say?
cycling explosion
BW: I say I preach about cycling.
03. Wiggins appeared AC: You’re a preacher!
to take to fame and BW: I am a broadcaster. I am a
adulation like a duck
to water. The truth
storyteller. I’m trying to inspire people
was anything but to get on their bike, partly through
the inspiration of that day 10 years
04. In 2015, shortly
after leaving Team
ago. Last Friday, two people came up
Sky, Wiggins broke to me on separate occasions and each
the noted hour record thanked me for what I did for cycling
02
that day. That’s better than going on
The Jump or going into the jungle.
03 People used to ask, ‘Are you Bradley
Wiggins?’ And I would say, ‘I used to
be.’ Now I accept it, and it’s fine.
AC: Are you political?
BW: Not really. I pay a bit more
attention than I used to, but I wouldn’t
know how to debate. Mind you, I’m
not sure half the people running the
country know what they’re doing.
AC: Johnson?
BW: Last thing I heard he was having
a party in lockdown. Shouldn’t be
doing that. I don’t know.
04 AC: You know it’s wrong, though.
BW: I don’t believe anything on the
telly or in the paper. It all gets twisted.
AC: Do you read your own media?
BW: No.
AC: You said you don’t like doing
interviews.
BW: I don’t mind this because I think
what I’m saying here will still hold true
in five, 10 years. With most interviews,
you’re doing them for a reason at that
A natural introvert,
Wiggins felt he had
to put on an act at
the height of his
competitive career

time. Last year I was doing media for
the Unicef On Yer Bike campaign and
I was walking up a hill with Molly-Mae
off the TV or something. Maura Higgins
off Love Island.
AC: Why were you publicising Love
Island?
BW: They gave me 10 grand to publicise
On Yer Bike and I had to do that. It was
like the Soccer Aid one but with bikes.
I did the bike one with Freddie Flintoff.
AC: I did the Soccer Aid one with
Maradona. I win.
BW: Yeah.
AC: So you will never do the jungle?
BW: Never.
AC: Never do Strictly?
BW: Never.
AC: Good man.
BW: It’s not fulfilling to me. I want to
talk about cycling, the history. I’m part
50 MEN’S HEALTH
Wiggins is a strong
believer in the power
of sport to promote
better mental health
of a lineage. We should pay homage
to those before us – Tommy Simpson,
Sean Yates, Barry Hoban. I’m still
earning a living working in it and I have
embraced my love for the sport again.
AC: How many years did you not
love it?
BW: I could never get away from it.
I used to say stuff like, ‘I was a cyclist,
but I’m better now.’ Putting it down.
But secretly I had the biggest collection
of memorabilia you could find.
AC: Full of contradictions.
BW: Yes, but I am self-aware enough
to recognise that and make change.
AC: So I get depression, take
medication every day. Do you get
big mood swings?
BW: Not the same way as you, but there
are triggers that can cause me not to
be in the best state of mind. I have to
have routine. Training every day, it’s
important. Not drinking too much. My wife has
bipolar and she has bad episodes, so she has to
control the triggers. With my depression, if I’m
not looking after myself it manifests more like a
mania. I always thought of depression as taking
you to a dark room in a stoop. I try to be funnier
and end up being shocking and contentious.
AC: Are you and Cath still close, despite
splitting up?
BW: Yeah.
AC: What is your exercise regime now?
BW: Gym, running and, now that the weather is
improving, I’ll get out on the bike more. I’m doing
a ride from Edinburgh to the Isle of Wight for the
charity Health in Mind. Cycling is such a good
thing for mental health. An old friend of mine,
Phil Griffiths, is 72. He has cancer. And he said this
wonderful thing to me: ‘No therapist has ever been
able to do for me what a bike does.’ The bike is a
great antidepressant.
AC: Is there anything else in the sport itself
that you want to do?
BW: I’m coaching my son and he has just qualified
for the Commonwealth Games team. I’d love to be
a national coach but I don’t think my face fits that.
AC: What’s with all the tattoos?
BW: I love them. I don’t wear expensive watches,
I don’t need material things. So I’m into body art.
AC: Are you a good friend?
BW: I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of friends. I
think there’s such a falsity around friendship.
You can only be good for people if you’re in a good
space yourself. The better you are, the more useful
THIS PAGE: RING, £80, SERGEDENIMES.COM; NECKLACE, £170, CHAINEDANDABLE.COM; COAT, BRADLEY’S OWN.
you are to other people. I have tried to help people,
OPPOSITE PAGE: T-SHIRT, £350, TOM FORD AT MRPORTER.COM; NECKLACE, £170, CHAINEDANDABLE.COM
sometimes at the expense of myself, probably to
make myself feel better about myself… I don’t know.
AC: So how many really, really close friends
do you have?
BW: Probably none. I’m still working through that.
AC: Too wrapped up in yourself?
BW: It’s not important to me at the moment.
I’ve been focusing on getting myself back. A lot
of people have come and gone, but actually,
maybe they were only friends with me because
I was Bradley Wiggins.
AC: Any cyclists you’ve stayed close to?
BW: Steve Cummings and Mark Cavendish. It’s
about longevity more than anything. We knew
each other before we got famous.
AC: Which other sports stars do you relate to?
BW: Mike Tyson. I like his brutal honesty. I have
been reckless like he was, and when I hear his
honesty and his self-awareness as he assesses his
life, I recognise things.
AC: Do you still keep in touch with Lance
Armstrong?

‘You can only
be good for
people if you’re
in a good space
yourself’
BW: Now and again, although not
for a year or so.
AC: How do you view the whole
Lance thing now?
BW: It is what it is. It’s nearly 10 years
now. He’s paid a price. There will
always be an open wound in the sport,
GROOMING: NAT SCHMITT USING CLARINS FOR MEN. STYLING: CARLOTTA CONSTANT.
but people’s love for cycling hasn’t
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES. ILLUSTRATION: NICK HARDCASTLE
diminished. He is part of the sport’s
history. Taking his name away from
seven Tour victories is irrelevant.
People remember him as winning them
and you can’t eliminate history. You
leave it there and learn so it doesn’t
happen again. I think success for some
people is Lance dead in a hotel room
like [Italian cyclist] Marco Pantani. He’s
a human being, a good father. It’s more
of an example that the sport should
never be like that again.
AC: When you got all that grief over
TUEs [Therapeutic Use Exemptions],
was that all part of that open wound?
BW: It was part of it, and more sinister
things. I became collateral damage for
the wars in British Cycling and Team Sky.
AC: In your pomp, how much of your
success was physical and how much
of it mental?
BW: They went hand in hand. I had
an acute ability to understand my
body inside out. I don’t think I had
extreme physical talent, it was an
understanding of how to make the bike
faster. In time trials, I could ride to one
watt of where I was meant to be. Others
surge and go 50 watts over. I could
manage it – like a car’s cruise control.
That’s physical and mental together.
AC: I’ve been on Mont Ventoux
when the Tour is going up there. I
mean, what on earth is it like riding
through those crowds on the road?
BW: Immense. Sometimes it can be
hostile. When we climbed Ventoux in
2009, I was going toe to toe with Lance.
There were lots of Spanish supporters
backing Contador against Lance and
they were spitting at Lance and all
Talking Heads
Alastair Campbell
meets Brad Wiggins
A combination of
mental and physical
strength were key to
success for Wiggins
sorts. But when the crowd backs you, it’s like
a tunnel of sound. It’s another level.
AC: Does it make you faster?
BW: If anything it makes you slower because it
takes you out of the extreme focus. The thing
about real focus is that you block out the pain. If
something takes you out of the bubble, takes you
out of that focus, you suddenly realise it hurts.
AC: You told me earlier that no one has asked
who your non-cycling hero is. So who is it?
BW: Christopher Hitchens. I just love him. Blunt,
so articulate, no nonsense.
AC: You said you weren’t political. He was
very political.
BW: It wasn’t so much his politics. He just made
everything so clear and simple.
AC: What about his brother?
BW: Not keen on his brother. He tries too hard
to be like him. Christopher was great.
Brad will be riding from Scotland to the Isle of Wight
on 25-29 April for Shoulder to Shoulder: Conversations
from the Road with Sir Bradley Wiggins, brought to
you by Mr Porter Health in Mind and Le Blanq. For
more information, visit mrporter.com
MEN’S HEALTH 51
YOUR
PERSONAL
TRAINER ON
THE MOVE
GREAT
REASONS
TO GET THE
DIGITAL
EDITION
Subscribe to the digital edition of Men’s Health.
Packed with expert advice on improving every area of
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 Good Health Starts Up Top

7 Secrets HAPPINESS
IS ALL ABOUT
THE JOURNEY

For

Better
Living
From
Around
The
World
Some countries are just more joyful than others – and that’s science,
not conjecture. You (probably) can’t relocate to another part of the world,
but you can steal some of their happy strategies from afar
WORDS BY LAURA WILLIAMS

MEN’S HEALTH 55
 Head
Strong

02 04

N
BHUTAN:
Breathe Deep
Bhutan’s government
tracks the country’s ‘gross
national happiness’. It uses
an index that includes nine
factors to measure how the
nation is doing. The idea is
ever did I think I’d return that the country can’t truly
to Costa Rica alone so many times, but I did because progress and be considered
of my husband. You see, Costa Rica routinely appears ‘healthy’ if the people and
on ‘happiest countries’ lists because people living environment aren’t supported
there have a strong sense of community and family, in their wellbeing. Dr Dorine
spend tons of time outdoors and eat a fresh and van Norren, an independent
varied diet. They even have an unofficial slogan, researcher, diplomat and
‘pura vida’, which means ‘pure life’. policymaker, says Bhutan
has ‘indigenous beliefs in
After I lost my otherwise healthy husband two
harmony and balance – with
months after his diagnosis of stage four kidney cancer,
oneself, community, nature
I needed pura vida – the idea that you should embrace,
– and self-development
live and enjoy each day, just as you are. In Costa Rica, through spirituality’. Deep
in my grief, I felt a realness, a solidity, an understanding breathing and meditation,
– maybe an acceptance – of the good and bad parts as well as centring activities
of life that I didn’t feel when I was in the States. such as chanting, are adopted
Something in me started to shift. I began looking as regular, daily practices.
at what other countries knew about happiness. Those ‘When balancing yourself
global happiness indexes only got me so far: cultural
definitions of ‘happiness’ aren’t necessarily the same
in Finland as they are in Bhutan. So I went deeper and
– from living standards to
good health and culture – you
can interact better with others
talked to sociologists and psychologists about what it
and your surroundings.’
is that creates happiness in different countries and
how to bring what they know into your own life –
wherever you live on this earth.
03
NORWAY:
Get Outside
PARAGUAY:
Smile More
Paraguay is the most
positive (that is, smiling and
laughing a lot) country of all,
according to Gallup’s 2019
Positive Experience Index.
Those displays of happiness
aren’t just for show. ‘Smiling
has big benefits,’ says Brian
Johnson, philosopher and
founder of the online
platforms Optimize and
Heroic. For one, a 2019
meta-analysis found that
smiling can elicit small
improvements in mood –
both yours and those of the
people around you – while
(surprise!) frowning can have
the opposite effect. ‘Feelings
follow behaviour, and the
little things you do matter,’
Johnson says.
05
ICELAND:
Forge Strong
Social Bonds
Maintaining a few close
friendships could help you
attain the same feelings
of happiness that Icelandic
citizens have. Research* has
found that 98% of Icelanders

01
FINLAND:
Nations’ 2022 World
Happiness Report. ‘It’s
“unseemly” to want more
Aim For ‘Just The than what’s “just right”,’
Right Amount’ Dr Savolainen says of the
mindset. ‘It’s the opposite
Finnish people tend to of being flashy. Less is more.’
subscribe to the Nordic If ‘keeping up with the
Norway (eighth in the
World Happiness Report) is
dedicated to spending time
outdoors; it’s entwined with
the country’s culture – the
government has even
sponsored ‘libraries’ for
borrowing outdoor gear.
‘believe that they know
someone they could rely
on in a time of need’.
Granted, the majority
of the small population is
in and around Reykjavík.
But just a couple of tight
relationships can make
PHOTOGRAPHY: JARREN VINK/ART PARTNER LICENSING (OPENER).

philosophy of lagom, or Joneses’ is embedded in But you don’t have to cross a difference in long-term
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES; STUDIO 33; JOBE

‘just the right amount’, your thinking, try tapping a fjord to reap the benefits happiness, according to Dr
says Dr Jukka K Savolainen, into gratitude. There’s a long of nature. Just being outside Kevin Gilliland, executive
professor of sociology at history of research on the can enhance feelings of director of the counselling
LAWRENSON. *SOURCE: OECD BETTER LIFE INDEX

Wayne State University.
How that’s related to your
happiness makes sense: if
your basic needs are met,
there’s no great drive to
strive for more, which
makes contentment and
happiness more attainable.
That may be a reason this
country topped the United
link between gratitude and
feelings of wellbeing. When
you appreciate what you
have, you won’t be so
inclined to feel the
pressure to achieve
more – or the
disappointment
when you may
fall short.
happiness – hanging out near service Innovation360. ‘You
water or in parks, fields or need people you can have
forests offers the greatest conversations with and who
mood perks. The more will be honest with you.’
often you do things Chances are, they’re in your
outdoors, the more life already; you just have
likely you are to to spend time staying close.
have improved Do anything that helps affirm
feelings of mental your connection and gives
wellbeing. you time to really talk.

56 MEN’S HEALTH

06
ISRAEL:
Take Food
Inspiration
From The Med
This might sound strange,
but one big factor behind
Israel’s happiness – on the
cusp of ranking in the top 10
– is the consumption of fruits
and vegetables. Dr Catherine
Hezser, professor of Jewish
studies at SOAS University
of London, says that a typical
Israeli diet ‘consists of fruits
and vegetables, especially
aubergines and sweet
potatoes, which are
available year-round, as
well as melons, mangoes,
chickpeas, and tomato
and cucumber salad. There
are many greengrocers who
sell only produce, and meals
are usually homemade’.
‘There’s ample evidence
to suggest that food impacts
neuroplasticity – how our
brain forms and reorganises
synaptic connections – and
inflammation. And the latter
is a major factor at play in
depression,’ says Dr Drew
Ramsey, author of Eat To
Beat Depression And Anxiety.
Even switching out one
The Three
Key Pillars
Of Happy
Living
Happiness is an equally
weighted combination of
the following principles,
according to one theory
from the 1970s. Rate each
factor on a scale of one
to 10; if one or two areas
are lacking, think about
how to bolster them by
making changes in how
you think, act or relate
to those around you.
‘Having’
refers to the security
of the things you have:
a stable government with
quality healthcare; a safe
home; money in the bank.
‘Loving’
pertains to solid,
reliable relationships
with family, friends
and even yourself.
‘Being’
is focused on a purpose
– a drive and feeling of
fulfilment with who you
are and what you offer
to the world.
packaged,
grab-and-
go-type
meal a day
for a nutrient-
dense meal can help
change your mood. Think
of it as filling up on great
food, not cutting back on
less-great stuff, and not
ruling out foods. ‘I see a lot
of patients who are adhering
to a lot of ideas around food,
and they aren’t very happy
about them,’ Dr Ramsey says.
Eating plans that sap the joy
from your life defeat the
happiness-promoting
purpose of healthy eating.
Axis Of Happiness
07
SOUTH AFRICA:
Embrace The
Ubuntu Spirit
There’s no denying that life
isn’t perfect in South Africa.
It’s a diverse country with
a complicated history and
its fair share of countrywide
problems. Yet, South Africa’s
happiness rankings have
been on an upward trajectory
recently, and it may be due to
the country’s ubuntu spirit,
or the concept of ‘I am
because we are’. What that
means is that people define
themselves through other
people. ‘Their family first,
then their clan and their
community. It’s not
self-centred and it’s not
individualistic. It’s all
about humaneness, about
making sure that your
neighbour is okay, that
people in the community are
okay. I’m only happy if you’re
happy,’ says Dr van Norren.
The opposite is true as well.
‘If you diminish the dignity
of others, you diminish the
dignity of yourself and
your community. It’s
all interlinked.’
In one study in the
Journal Of Happiness
Studies, researchers found
that people who wrote about
a time when they acted
compassionately were more
likely to experience gains in
happiness and self-esteem
than people who just wrote
about their day. Compassion
takes practise and requires
empathy, but simple things,
such as volunteering your
time, can help to hone
compassion and inspire you
to develop a more ubuntu
way of living.
MEN’S HEALTH 57
 Head
Strong

Can Playing
Video Games
Be The New
Meditation?
Mowing lawns. Unpacking. Driving
a tractor trailer through Nevada.
Here’s how the strange world
of monotonous computer games
can actually energise your brain
WORDS BY JOSEPH LONGO

O
ne cloudy afternoon in
November, I found myself
sitting at a gaming
computer for the first time
since secondary school. I was playing
Lawn Mowing Simulator, hell-bent on
masterfully cutting the front lawn of
the serene Old Nook Cottage while
navigating a digital lawn mower around
the idyllic British countryside as part
of a virtual landscaping business. I was
hypnotised, watching cut digital grass
turn a slightly lighter shade of green.
It was a far cry from my adolescent days
playing the action-packed blockbuster
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, though
the bad posture remained.
A game like Lawn Mowing Simulator
sounds boring, but it’s actually as
captivating as a first-person shooter
– without the moral quandaries. I don’t
imagine I’d enjoy playing Call Of Duty
today. When I was growing up, the
game fascinated me: its intensity, its
unpredictability, and the possibility
of digitally dying at any second. Now
that’s just a day on Twitter.
The pandemic and a generally
depressing news cycle have changed
my idea of what constitutes excitement.
Euphoria has been traded for a
constant state of stress mingled with
‘eh’. For much of the pandemic, my
antidote to malaise was TV – seasons
of Survivor chased by whatever prestige
drama was popular that week and
Superstore as a nightcap. More than professions like aviation (Microsoft
two years later, even TV feels rote. Flight Simulator), long-haul trucking
Lawn Mowing Simulator makes (American Truck Simulator) and
me think of that internet meme, ‘No farming (Farming Simulator) have
thoughts, head empty.’ Playing a round a rich history in the simulation genre,
offers a glorious alongside alternate-universe
opportunity to games like the record-
stop thinking
‘Doing a virtual breaking Animal Crossing:
and stare at job for hours seems New Horizons and the
lush, computer- resurgent Sims. Lately,
rendered trees silly until you look at appreciation has grown for
while feeling as if what’s really going games involving mundane
I’ve accomplished tasks like power-washing
something. on when you play’ and, yes, unboxing, in
That may be which you just remove
one of the reasons the game developed household items from cardboard
a huge fan base shortly after its release boxes. Unlike IRL moving, the game
last August by Skyhook Games. In Unpacking is evidently enthralling.
September, Lawn Mowing Simulator It’s currently one of the top sellers on
had more viewers on Twitch than the the online game platform Steam.
juggernaut Call Of Duty: Warzone. Sitting for hours doing a virtual job
Similar games are accruing mass or housework seems silly until you look
followings, too. Machine-operating at what’s really going on when you play.

58 MEN’S HEALTH

Boredom on the brain
After two years of the pandemic, many
of us need new ways to release stress.
There are only so many houseplants
to buy, candles to make and sourdough
loaves to bake (and eat). So it’s fitting
that video game usage went up at the
start of Covid. Fifty-five percent of
gamers said they used gaming as
stress relief during the pandemic,
according to a 2021 Entertainment
ILLUSTRATION: NANA RAUSCH
Software Association report.
Research hints that they’re on
to something. Dr Michael Wong, a
neuroscientist and assistant professor
at McMaster University in Ontario,
Canada, co-authored a 2021 study in
MOW A VIRTUAL LAWN
FOR A CUTTING-EDGE
FORM OF RELAXATION
Trends In Psychology that showed
some stress-relief benefits from video
games. People in the study either did
a body scan – a classic mindfulness-
meditation exercise – or played the
video game Flower, in which players act
as the wind and blow flower petals into
the air. Though the meditation had an
edge in mitigating stress, the video
game had benefits, too. One theory is
that they both change activity in your
brain to ultimately tame signals from
the amygdala, which is involved in fear
and anxiety. The changes in the brain
thought to be occurring here may be
associated with reduced stress hormones
and increased tone in the para-
sympathetic nervous system. It’s our
parasympathetic nervous system that’s
‘soothing’ and makes us feel chilled.
So could boring video games be
the new meditation? The new yoga?
Level Minded
‘The jury’s still out about the
specific mental-health benefits of
entertainment escapism, or video
games specifically, but I get why it’s
relaxing,’ says psychiatrist and MH
advisor Dr Gregory Scott Brown.
Just be cautious that the escapism
doesn’t allow you to avoid what’s
stressing you out and doesn’t evolve
into isolation, he says.
What’s At Play
Behind The Game?
After playing Lawn Mowing Simulator,
I found myself more relaxed than I’d
been all day. The swaying of the
tall grass. The musical hum of
the mower. Wong suggests it’s
these ingredients in a video
game – the sights and sounds
– that may spur stress relief.
Sanatana Mishra, of
Unpacking developer Witch
Beam, says that a crucial
component to the game’s sensory
experience and success is its many
Foley sounds, the name for everyday
audio effects like the noise of a metal
pot being placed on a wooden shelf.
According to Witch Beam composer
and sound designer Jeff van Dyck,
there are roughly 14,000 sound files
in the game, probably more than you
would usually find in an indie title like
this. ‘I went a bit nuts there,’ van Dyck
says. Based on early user feedback for
Lawn Mowing Simulator, developers
upped the soothing vibes and lowered
the taxing gameplay, according to
David Harper, the managing director
at Skyhook Games. Players were
enjoying ‘just being able to take the
time and do a good job, and then look
back on what they were doing with
a sense of pride,’ Harper explains.
Whatever the reason, these games
seem to be working. Mowing lawns is
chilled as hell. While landscaping may
not come naturally to me, virtually
zooming around trees, shrubs and
even a garden gnome temporarily
pacified my daily unease. Maybe it
was just the novelty of playing a new
game, but I logged off feeling the
elusive midday pick-me-up that an
afternoon coffee never fully delivers.
Who cares if my landscaping business
is a flop? I spent 17 minutes and 30
seconds freed from the stress of living.
MEN’S HEALTH 59

Steve Huffman
Running the front page of the internet is no easy feat. Just
ask Reddit’s co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman. This is
how he downvotes stress and stays productive
7.30am
Rise & Shine
Huffman isn’t a fan of
alarms. Living in sunny
San Francisco, he prefers
to wake with the sun, or by
the sound of his 10-month-
old daughter: ‘My natural
alarm clock.’ He skips
breakfast, heading straight
to his morning workout at
Equinox fuelled by coffee.
He likes the simplicity of
intermittent fasting as a tool
for weight maintenance.
10am
Accept
Discomfort
Every Thursday, Huffman
walks or cycles to the Reddit
office for a virtual all-hands
meeting with his 1,600
employees. He receives their
JOBE LAWRENSON; MAX OPPENHEIM. ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATION: BEN MOUNSEY-WOOD
WORDS: TAYLYN WASHINGTON-HARMON. PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN MATTHEWS; ROWAN FEE;
questions in advance and
spends the night before
prepping. It can be stressful,
but it’s a stress he gratefully
accepts. ‘As a leader, I have
a duty to give the most
honest answer I can, even
if it’s not the one people
want to hear,’ he says.
How I Keep It Together
ILLUSTRATION: JASON RAISH
HUFFMAN SWEARS BY AN
AFTERNOON POWER NAP
12pm
Break The Fast
Huffman eats leftovers for
lunch. Cottage cheese and
yoghurt are go-tos for
protein: ‘For lunch, I like
to keep it clean or I risk
wrecking my afternoon by
getting sluggish.’ Afternoons
are taken up with meetings
about company finances
or protecting the data of
430 million Reddit users.
‘Each day, I get through the
majority of the top-priority
things,’ he says. ‘Most of
my internal conversations
happen over text.’
3pm
Use Your Intuition
Huffman listens to his body:
‘I tell people all the time, if
you’re tired, sleep. If you’re
hungry, eat,’ he says. ‘The
answer is there if you listen
for it.’ When working from
home, he’ll sometimes stop
for a 10-to-15-minute nap
on the sofa if his brain feels
overloaded – a strategy
with scientific backing.  in the evening
Head
Strong
6.15pm
Rely On The Pros
Huffman admits that he’s
not a cook. ‘My girlfriend
and I went through a phase
where we learned to cook
and it went poorly,’ he
laughs. Fortunately, he
has no aversion to takeaway.
Kung pao chicken or tofu
and vegetables from a local
Chinese spot are favourites.
‘I try to pay attention to how
I feel after I eat a meal, so I eat
a lot healthier now,’ he says. 
10pm
Power
Down
Fully unplugging
feels unrealistic
to Huffman, so he
allows himself
one piece of tech
before bed: his
Kindle. ‘Reading is probably
my most consistent daily
habit,’ he says. Huffman often
has three to five books on the
go at a time and keeps a list
of recommendations. His
current read? A Brief History
Of Time by Stephen Hawking.
MEN’S HEALTH 61
 The Nutrition
Issue
50 Best & Worst Foods For Men (p64) The Best
Burger On The Planet (p70) What Do Calories Look
Like? (p76) The UK’s Healthiest Restaurants (p82)

p64

THE SECRET SUPERFOODS

YOU’RE ALREADY EATING

GOOD FOR YOUR PALATE

AND THE PLANET p70
SATIATING
p76 BY NUMBERS

GET YOUR ORDER IN FOR

BIG, HEALTHY FLAVOURS

p82

MEN’S HEALTH 63
 SECRET
SUPERFOOD?
Swiss cheese was the
surprising food most
closely linked with
better cognitive
health in a recent
scientific study.
 HEALTH
FALLACY?
Raw food isn’t always
superior. The nutrient
beta-carotene is best
absorbed when veg is
cooked, along with
3g to 5g of fats.

Foods For Men

If your appetite for nutritional knowledge is as greedy as that for
uncompromising eats, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve consulted the
experts and trawled through the journals to compile this list of the
foodstuffs that deserve to be vindicated and vilified in 2022. ‘Add to basket’
WORDS BY TROY DA COSTA – PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL HEDGE – STYLING BY NICO GHIRLANDO

01/ Black Garlic
Kirsten Brooks Once niche, now everywhere
Registered nutritionist at
– as ketchup, in supplement
eatyourselftohealth.com,
with a focus on developing form or as sweet ‘snacking’
mental wellbeing cloves – black garlic’s
antioxidant activity rockets
during fermentation, reports
a Korean study*. Compounds
like alkaloids and flavonoids
have huge benefits, including
Kazuwa Mandikate reducing the inflammation
Nutrition therapist and that can impair memory and
lifestyle coach at brain function. Dark magic.
kazuwa-nutritional-
therapy.com
04/ Celeriac Puree
It’s a great source of vitamin
K, ‘which is associated
with strong bones’,
says Brooks, thereby
reducing your risk
of a training-related
mishap. Moderating
your carb or calorie intake?
Sub it in for your usual rice
or spuds, suggests Brooks.
05/ Swiss Cheese
It seems 2020 wasn’t all bad
news: a study from Iowa State
University correlated cheese
intake with protection against
cognitive decline – ‘a pleasant
surprise’, the scientists said.
The Swiss variety is rich in
protein and useful probiotics.
08/ Fresh Figs
‘They’re a powerhouse of
minerals,’ says Linford,
‘which may help to control
blood pressure, as well as
being rich in fibre for healthy
bowel function.’ That ticks
off two notable health issues
for men over 40. As a snack,
they’re so-so. But combine
them with rocket, feta and
balsamic and… bellissimo.
09/ Yuzu
This tangerine-sized east
Asian fruit has been cropping
up all over UK menus,
and is predicted to
land on supermarket
shelves soon in the
form of mustards,
dressings and pickles.
‘The flavonoids
hesperidin and naringin,
found in its skin and flesh,
may reduce excess blood
clotting, which is linked with
a higher risk of heart disease
and stroke,’ says Brooks.

Libby Linford
Nutritionist and functional
medicine practitioner at
surreycentrefornutrition.com
Adnan Chowdhury
Lecturer at the University of
East London, S&C coach and
personal trainer
02/ Onsen Tamago
Scorching your eggs can
reduce their nutrient content.
These Japanese ‘hot spring
eggs’ are cooked low and slow,
resulting in a custardy texture
– and preserving their amino
acids, vitamin D and
carotenoids. Boil a litre of
water, turn off the heat, add
200ml cold water, 2 eggs
and cover for 12 minutes.
03/ Crickets
As well as a solution to our
over-reliance on animal
protein, crickets have legs
as a legit superfood.
They’re a source of
muscle-supporting
nutrients such as
magnesium, calcium,
zinc, copper and iron, and
contain the prebiotic chitin,
which promotes a healthy gut.
06/ Kiwi Fruit
Oranges may be the vit C OG,
but they’re not the superior
source. A single kiwi
hits 140% of your
RDA for the vit
– on which most
men fall short.
‘Consuming two before
bed may even improve sleep
quality,’ says Brooks. Sweet
dreams are made of these.
07/ Tinned Tomatoes
Been saving up for a sunny
summer getaway? ‘Lycopene
and other carotenoids found
in tomatoes may reduce
the harmful effects
of UV rays,’ explains
Brooks. ‘Opt for
plum tomatoes, as
they contain more
phytonutrients.’ Cooked
beats raw for bioavailability:
we rate tinned San Marzano
varieties for flavour.
10/ Saffron
There’s a reason we all feel
better after a good biriyani.
Studies have shown that
the Persian spice contains
compounds associated
with better mental
health. ‘It may improve
mood by increasing
the action of the
neurotransmitter
serotonin, and by
reducing the impact
of chronic stress on
the brain,’ suggests Brooks.
11/ Sour Aubergine
‘Fermented veg – also referred
to as fizzy veg – are superfoods
for gut health,’ says Linford.
But if you’re hungry for more
options than sauerkraut
and kimchi, try this eastern
European alternative. What’s
more, ‘aubergine is rich in
fibre, as well as antioxidants
that help limit oxidative
stress’, Linford adds.

66 MEN’S HEALTH

12/ Plantain
Add this African and Latin
staple to your post-gym carb
repertoire. Chowdhury points
to plantain’s impressive
vitamin C content,
while also flagging
a German study
in which muscle
soreness and
recovery rates
fell when footballers
fuelled up on the fruit.
Grill on a barbecue or peel
and roast in the oven.
13/ King Oyster
Mushroom
‘Not just “king” for their size,
but also for their nutritional
benefits,’ says Linford. ‘These
dynamos of fungi contain
beta-glucans, known for
their immune-modulating
properties, helping to protect
from disease. They might
benefit heart health, too.’
14/ Purple Potatoes
Admittedly, their USP is that
they look cool in photos, but
these amethyst-like tubers
have nutritional merits, too:
‘Anthocyanins cause the
purple pigment in foods,’
says Mandikate. ‘These
antioxidants have
been shown
to support
neurological
health.’
15/ Oxtail
Give your next stew a meaty
upgrade. ‘Oxtail is a source
of calcium, essential to
keep bones strong,
while its selenium
is an antioxidant,’
says Chowdhury.
It’s popular with
athletes due to its
ability to support
muscle elasticity, he says.
16/ Green Papaya
This Thai-salad staple is too
good to save for your monthly
takeaway. ‘Its antioxidants
may reduce the risk of heart
disease and diabetes,’ says
Brooks, ‘while its lycopene
is associated with improved
skin health. It also contains
papain: a protein-digesting
enzyme.’ Which makes it
the ideal accompaniment
for your stir-fried beef.
17/ Anchovy Paste
‘A rich source of the
omega-3 fatty acids,
anchovies are
associated with
heart and brain
health, and contain
helpful minerals, too,’ says
Linford. Not keen on sticking
them in salads? Buy as a paste
and add a squeeze to sauces
for a salty, umami kick.
18/ Broad Beans
A top source of copper and
manganese, which support
fat loss and blood-sugar
management. Eat yours in
the form of ful medames
– a traditional Egyptian
breakfast dish with cumin,
herbs, lemon and chilli.
‘It’s a great source of
plant-based protein
and fibre,’ says Linford.
19/ Leeks
When it comes to the
allium family, onion and
garlic hog all the glory. They
shouldn’t: leeks contain the
same heart-healthy, anti-
inflammatory compounds,
says Mandikate. ‘Plus,
they’re a great addition to
soups.’ Leeks also contain a
substance called kaempferol,
which has been linked to a
reduced cancer risk.
The Nutrition Issue – Heroes & Villains
20/ Tinned Artichokes
An underappreciated
nutritional powerhouse,
artichokes ‘contain folate,
vitamins K and C and are
a great source of fibre’, says
Mandikate. Their cynarin
content also helps to break
down fats. Don’t bother
prepping them yourself: buy
tinned, chop, dress and add
to any meat or pasta dish. 23/ Ostrich
Steak
‘It’s comparable to beef
in many ways,’ Chowdhury
says, dishing up B12, iron
and zinc. ‘Ostrich might
help to boost blood oxygen
delivery and muscle mass
in athletes,’ he suggests.
It’s lean, too – and available
via British farms.
21/ Chocolate
In need of a pick-me-up?
24/ Whole Milk
‘Since the 1980s, the concern
A study of younger men
regarding whole milk has
from Aristotle University
been its fat content, but
of Thessaloniki in Greece
in a 2012 meta-analysis*,
linked flavonoids of the kind
scientists failed to
found in cocoa to a 32%
find any convincing
reduced chance of erectile
observational research
dysfunction. Pair your
linking dairy fat to
square with a shot of espresso
heart disease or obesity,’
– which has similar powers
says Chowdhury. It’s also
– to amplify the effects.
a cheap post-workout drink.
‘Research shows its 3:1 ratio
of carbohydrate to protein
is effective for recovery.’
25/ Low-ABV Beer
Yes, they’re everywhere right
now, but your 0.5% brew has
benefits beyond keeping
22/ Grilled Mackerel  
you fit for the Friday
Opt for handline-caught
work catch-up. A
mackerel if you want your
Spanish study* found
oily fish to be planet-friendly
a bottle a night reduced
and sustainable. It also
anxiety and improved
happens to be incredible
sleep in stressed workers.
grilled whole on the barbecue
It’s thought that hops raise
with oil, salt and lemon.
levels of the ‘calming’ brain
Mackerel is one of the best
chemical GABA.
sources of vital EPA and DHA
fats, plus vit D for testosterone
production. True man food.
MEN’S HEALTH 67
 25
Overrated
Eats
Ditch the sanctimonious superfads
and eat the stuff you really want
instead. These health imposters
simply aren’t worth the hype
01/ Low-Fat Yoghurt
Where creamy dairy and
sugars are removed, they
must be replaced. Many
times, that sub-in is sucralose,
which a recent University of
Southern California study
linked to an increase in
appetite – worth noting if
supposedly diet-friendly
snacks leave you reaching
for something less than
salubrious minutes later.
02/ Agave Syrup
‘Although it has a lower
glycaemic index [a measure
of how quickly a food affects
blood glucose] than table
sugar, it still contains a lot
of fructose,’ says Brooks. Too
much can overwhelm the
liver. ‘In the long-term, this
raises the risk of fatty liver
disease.’ In other words, don’t
give yourself carte blanche
with this golden syrup.
68 MEN’S HEALTH
03/ Vitamin Gummies
There’s nothing wrong with
employing a little nutritional
back-up – but you can get
too much of a good thing.
With gummies now available
to boost everything from
immunity to focus to sleep,
make sure you know what
you’re chewing. ‘They can
also contain a lot of sugar
and artificial colourings,’
says Brooks. Once you’ve
popped, make sure you stop.
04/ Paleo Brownies
Though it’s popular on
Instagram, Chowdhury
likens the paleo baking
trend to ‘a three-wheeled
car in a drag race’: it doesn’t
matter how good the engine
is. With zero gluten and
dairy, but plenty of coconut
sugar, they’re nothing but
expensive cakes. Your stone-
age ancestors did without
the recipe, anyway.
05/ Soy Jerky
The latest in imitation
processed meats that most
vegans never asked for. As
Brooks puts it: ‘It may be quite
high in protein, but many
varieties can be high
in sugar, too, which
can cause blood-
sugar imbalances
and lead to cravings.’
Fill up on stir-fried,
seasoned tofu instead.
06/ Corn Cakes
The now commonly spotted
chocolate-coated biscuit
alternative appears, at first
glance, to be the healthy
option. But gram-for-gram,
they contain the same
number of calories as a
chocolate digestive (and
don’t taste as good dunked
in a cuppa). Plus, they’re not
very satiating, says Brooks.
07/ Salad
Dressing
The downfall of many
a well-intentioned
light lunch: ‘Lots of
supermarket varieties are full
of sugars, saturated fats, salt,
additives and preservatives,’
says Linford. In which case,
you may as well have a side
of chips with your greens (by
all means, do). ‘All you really
need is olive oil, lemon juice
and balsamic or apple cider
vinegar,’ she says.
08/ Shirataki Noodles
AKA ‘miracle noodles’ (is
that a red flag I see?), these
are fat-free, gluten-free and
all but calorie-free. ‘Some
things really are too good to
be believed,’ says Linford.
‘Made from a fibre called
glucomannan, they can
cause bloating, flatulence
and diarrhoea.’ What was
wrong with ramen anyway?
09/ Root Juice
Ginger, turmeric,
beetroot and co might
be concentrated sources
of health-promoting,
inflammation-fighting
nutrients – but be
mindful of other
ingredients if you’re
swerving sugar. Most
roots, juiced on
their own, don’t
taste great, so are
bulked out with
sweet fruits.
10/ Coconut
The superfood du jour is
celebrated for its metabolism-
boosting benefits. It’s
true that replacing
less-healthy fats
with coco can support
weight management – but
its effects are fairly minimal.
With 150 calories in 100ml
of milk and 300 in an 80g
snack pack, you might be
better off shying away.
11/ Pasteurised
Kombucha
Not all ’booch is made equal.
At its best, it’s a fermented
tea, ‘teeming with good
bacteria’, says Linford. But
some brands pasteurise their
drinks, killing off probiotics,
or add unnecessary extra
sugar after fermentation. For
best results, go raw with less
than 5g of sugar per 100ml.

12/ Butter Coffee
‘I get it. It’s a quick, low-carb
breakfast alternative that
gives you an energy boost,’
says Linford. ‘But omitting
breakfast means missing an
opportunity to stock up on
nutrients.’ Plus, scrambled
eggs beat butter for essential
vitamins – and satisfaction.
13/ Oat Granola
Ever felt bloated after a big
bowl of cereal? ‘Shop-bought
granola can be hard to
digest for some,’ Mandikate
says – not to mention the
sugar content. ‘Traditionally,
grains such as oats were
soaked or fermented
before cooking to increase
nutrient bioavailability
and digestibility. Try
overnight oats with nuts,
grains and fruit, instead.’
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID SYKES; STUDIO 33; GETTY IMAGES. *SOURCES: KYUNG
HEE UNIVERSITY; HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH; UNIVERSITY OF EXTREMADURA
14/ Tinned Soup
According to Chowdhury,
‘up to 26% of the vitamins,
minerals and essential
amino acids in chicken
are lost during tinning’.
Water-soluble nutrients
– notably vitamins B and
C – are first to be drained,
while many soups are high
in salt to compensate for
a lack in flavour. Stock it as
a back-up – just don’t lean
on it for your micro targets.
15/ Natural Protein Bars
‘Natural’ is a relative term;
many plant-based bars are
packed with syrups, coconut
sugar and concentrated
fruit juice. Check the ratio
of protein to sugar, suggests
Chowdhury. If there are
considerably more grams
of the latter, what you’re
eating is an energy bar
– useful in its own right, but
not much of a protein top-up.
16/ Guarana
With more caffeine than
coffee, this seed is often used
in energy drinks as a ‘natural’
energy source. But sup
sensibly: there’s limited
evidence of its efficacy
as a weight-loss aid
or athletic-enhancer
compared with
dependable joe.
Too much can
cause anxiety,
insomnia and
palpitations.
17/ Protein Bread
A slice of good old wholemeal
contains a helpful 4g to 5g of
protein; splicing your grains
with protein powder, however,
adds more to the price than
it does to its nutritional
cred. If you’re going to spend
extra, Mandikate favours
sourdough: the fermentation
process improves absorption
of calcium, zinc, iron and
magnesium, he says.
The Nutrition Issue – Heroes & Villains
18/ Flaxseed Oil
This is often pushed as a
plant-based source of omega-3.
It’s a rich source of alpha-
linolenic acid (ALA) – but this
is considerably less useful to
your heart and brain than the
DHA and EPA found in fish.
Get your fix from an algae-
based supp instead and
you’ll do swimmingly.
19/ Farmed Salmon
Not only is intensive fish
farming bad news for marine
life, farmed salmon is more
likely to contain harmful
chemicals such as PCBs
and dioxins, says Mandikate.
Go organic or Aquaculture
Stewardship Council-certified
for your eggs royale.
20/ CBD Edibles
From gummy bears to truffles
to lattes, CBD-infused foods
are in high demand. But the
not-so-dope bit? Almost all
studies demonstrating their
anxiety- or stress-relieving
potential look at doses of
300mg or more. Nothing
close to the tiny dash in
your green-hued snacks.
21/ Raw
Carrots
A bag of batons might suffice
as a portable snack, but
crunching on raw carrots
is an inferior way to score
nutrients. Cooking helps
to break down the veg’s
thick cell walls, making
it far easier to absorb
beta-carotene: a nutrient
linked to better vision, skin
health and immunity.
22/ ‘Breakfast’ Muffins
See also: breakfast bars,
biscuits and bakes. ‘You’re
setting yourself up for
a morning sugar crash,
fatigue and cravings for
more sweets,’ says Linford.
Instead, try filling a muffin
tray with beaten egg, finely
chopped veg, Gruyère and
pepper for an alternative,
equally portable, breakfast.
23/ Jackfruit
This tropical fruit grown in
South America, Africa and
Asia has become a regular
on the meat-substitute aisle.
When cooked with barbecue
seasoning, it mimics the
taste and texture
of pulled pork
– but at just
1.5g of protein
per 90 calories, it’s
all carbs and no muscle.
24/ White Chocolate
Multiple studies have
found that chocolate
contains handy
flavanols, which
benefit your
heart, brain
and skin. However,
that doesn’t extend to the
pale stuff. ‘White chocolate
doesn’t actually contain any
cacao solids,’ says Mandikate
– the bit that does you good.
25/ Moringa
Purported to do
everything from help
manage diabetes
to treat asthma
symptoms,
powdered moringa
leaf now sells for £8 per
100g. Like most leafy greens,
it is a source of vitamins and
minerals, but that’s about it.
MEN’S HEALTH 69
highly processed vegan imitations, the idea of a truly
UK start-up claims to have produced an organic alternative
and with supersized flavour, too. So how does it stack up?
WORDS BY TOBY WISEMAN
The Nutrition Issue – Hungry For Change

If
you’re a vegan, or a flexitarian, or
perhaps, like me, just prefer to give the
bacon rolls a swerve every now and then,
my local Tesco has a place for you. It’s
located, somewhat counter-intuitively,
a little way past the many fruits and
vegetables on offer in most shops these
days. Evidently, the abundant cavolo
nero, Jerusalem artichokes, choi sum
and Romanesco broccoli are not the
right sort of meat-free fare.
Instead, the chilled cabinets marked
‘Plant-Based and Vegetarian’ are
directly opposite the processed meats
and picnic snacks – pork pies, cocktail
sausages and anthropomorphised
five-packs of Peperami. As it transpires,
this is entirely apt. Very little in the
Plant-Based and Vegetarian cabinets
is fresh, nor what one might refer to as
‘everyday edible plant matter’. Certainly,
there’s no shortage of choice – you can
pick up a couple of Quorn’s Mozzarella
& Pesto Escalopes; or maybe some
of Wicked Kitchen’s Italian Inspired
Amazeballs (really); or, of course, a tray
of Beyond Meat’s Plant-Based Burgers.
But there’s nothing here that actually
resembles a plant, nor something you
might hope to find in a vegetarian
cookbook. In fact, most of it looks
about as salutary as a Big Mac. It’s a
sight that’s stranger to behold the more
you think about it. And it’s one of the
bewildering paradoxes at the heart
of the meat versus plant-based debate.
There’s a lot to chew on – and not much
of it is very palatable.
Raising The Fakes
How did we get here? There can be
no doubt that the effects on our
environment from global consumption
habits and agricultural practice are…
bad. As a teenager, I would play The
NEIL RANKIN SET OUT TO CREATE
A BURGER WITH FLAVOUR THAT
DOESN’T COST THE EARTH
Smiths’ Meat Is Murder and nod darkly micro level in global terms. But it was when
at Morrissey’s admonitions before they caught the attention of businessmen
tucking into Mum’s cottage pie. Things with rather larger ambitions that we began
have changed – or at least, we have to see the market shift in unprecedented ways.
caught up. Morrissey was concerned A 2019 New Yorker profile of Pat Brown, the
with the animals; now now 67-year-old biochemist,
the focus has become
the planet. Agriculture
Most of the CEO and founder of
Impossible Foods, describes
is responsible for more plant-based the entrepreneurial game
water consumption
than any other human
meats look changer in swashbuckling
terms. ‘The use of animals
endeavour, and of this about as in food production is by
around one-third goes
on livestock. Meanwhile, salutary as far the most destructive
technology on earth’
one-third of all arable
land is cultivated to feed
a Big Mac was Brown’s portentous
opening gambit. ‘We see
said livestock, which in turn is our mission as the last chance to save the
accountable for 14.5% of greenhouse planet from environmental catastrophe.’
gas emissions, according to the UN’s He’s certainly having a crack. The Impossible
Food and Agricultural Organization. Burger is, according to the California-based
Beef production is thought to represent company’s own literature, a composite of soya
just under half of this figure. and potato proteins, sunflower and coconut
Statistics such as these, along with oils, plus methylcellulose and food starch as
influential documentaries, such as binders – a combo it also describes, contestably,
2014’s Cowspiracy: The Sustainability as ‘packed with nutrients’. Progress has been
Secret, have been instrumental in swift. His first patty launched in restaurants
shifting consumer opinion and in 2016 and presently counts thousands among
behaviour, albeit on a relatively

72 MEN’S HEALTH

them, including Burger King, now
home of the Impossible Whopper.
Brown’s impact and persistency have
been undeniably impressive. Such
rapid expansion has led to Impossible
Foods receiving a multibillion-dollar
valuation, though the brand’s mission
statement remains true to its founder’s
word: ‘Eat meat. Save the planet.’
There are other players in the game,
of course. LA’s Beyond Meat is on a par
with – if not bigger than – Impossible
Foods, both in terms of its reach and the
speed at which it has gained traction.
Founded in 2009 by the businessman
and environmentalist Ethan Brown,
the brand’s global market value was
estimated to be $9bn by late 2021.
You can find its meat substitutes in
McDonald’s, Byron Burger and, as said
before, Tesco. Like Impossible, Beyond
Meat’s products are the brainchildren
of scientists in white coats (the Beyond
Burger contains 18 ingredients), though
its backers are rather more high-profile
figures – Snoop Dogg is an investor, as
is Leonardo DiCaprio. The consensus
among market analysts is that the
popularity of these brands is greatest
among millennials and Gen-Zers
because they see them as a way of
getting their toothsome fast-food fix in
greener, healthier packages. And yet for
many, in that one sentence alone, there
are at least three bones of contention.
Accounting For Taste
Across the Atlantic, two units on a
small industrial estate in a nondescript
part of north-west London represent
the headquarters of Symplicity Foods,
a fledgling albeit pioneering plant-
RANKIN USES FERMENTED
VEG (BELOW) TO CREATE HIS
PLANT-BASED BURGERS
based food business. Sat at a spartan table on
a mezzanine above the factory floor, Symplicity’s
co-founder, Neil Rankin, is considering my
question about the motive behind his transition
from acclaimed chef and barbecue aficionado to
producer of groundbreaking meat substitutes.
What did he initially set out to achieve?
‘Well,’ he says, his native Edinburgh accent
firmly intact. ‘I just wanted it to taste fucking good.’
Like Impossible’s Pat Brown, Rankin has a
background in science – he studied physics at
Salford University – though this is where any
similarity ends. Rankin turned his head to cooking
relatively late but quickly made his name as a man
who knew his way around a hunk of meat and a
naked flame. Having held senior roles at Barbecoa
and Pitt Cue, he went on to launch the Smokehouse
restaurant brand and Temper, with its focus on
‘whole-animal barbecue’. However, in 2019, he
announced that he would be taking a step back
from the Temper operation and spending some
time developing a sustainable plant-based project.
‘It pisses me off that vegan has gone down the
processed route,’ he said at the time. ‘I want to
be able to grow my own burger in my backyard.’
The rapid conversion from butcher to salad
spinner wasn’t as unexpected as it might
sound. ‘Temper was originally my route
to sustainability – taking whole animals,
breaking them down ourselves, using
every last bit,’ he says. ‘But I got a little
disenchanted with the solution being
meat-based. At the same time, I could
see the trajectory the whole plant-based
thing was heading in, and I thought,
‘What’s going on?’ I think it was when I
first tried something at Honest Burgers
that used a Beyond Meat patty. I was
faced with people who I really respect,
who have always used great, simple,
British ingredients, resorting to what I
can only describe as being a piece of shit.
‘I thought, well, there must be a way
to do this better. You know, I make nice
food with vegetables at home. There are
chefs making amazing vegetable and
vegetarian dishes. If you go to L’Enclume
or Noma, then you can get incredible
food that’s often pretty much vegan-
based. Meanwhile, I’d been playing
around with fermenting stuff since my
days at Pitt Cue. We used to have this
fermented mushroom dish on the menu
that was as popular as any meat dish.
So my thinking was that if there’s going
to be an alternative, you’ve got to have
a wider choice [than] just either a plate
of roasted veg or a highly processed
protein burger. For me, there needed
to be an element of deliciousness, using
ingredients you love, from producers
you love, travelling the shortest
possible distance from farm to table.
So I started to experiment myself.’
Starting Small…
Rankin began, not in a lab, but in his
modest home kitchen. He examined
every vegetable and plant-based
ingredient he’d ever worked with, along
with spices and flavour combinations
that he knew worked well. He found
a particular kind of relationship
between certain tomatoes, beetroots,
mushrooms and onions. He dived deep
into the fermentation process, playing
with various misos and tamaris, going
on to produce about 400 different
ferments until he settled on a deep
umami flavour base that he liked. This
living, cultured approach, Rankin
reasoned, was preferable because it
increased the health benefits, promoting
the growth of probiotic bacteria in the
gut. It also had the ironic advantage of
making vegetables taste less like, well,
vegetables – in the same way that wine
MEN’S HEALTH 73
tastes different to grapes, with more
complex, layered flavours. When it
came to bringing it all together, he
settled on gluten from wheat flour as
a base because he knew from age-old
bakery techniques that wheat binds.
Eventually he came up with a product
that he thought tasted great. What’s
more, he had created it in his backyard,
or thereabouts. The next step, of course,
was to see what other people thought.
Rankin opened a small joint on east
London’s Brick Lane called Simplicity
Burger to try to promote it – or, at least,
‘to test it out to make sure it wasn’t just
bullshit’, he says. ‘It’s fine me doing it
in my own kitchen, then getting excited
at 3am and phoning up a neighbour
asking them to taste it. But that’s not
the real world.’ The step change was
significant. Rankin’s team had to
produce up to 400 burgers a day; come
up with salads, sauces, cheese and sides
to go with them; and have their food
tasted by the press and the public, as
well as interested parties. Gratifyingly,
the response was positive. Shake Shack
was keen. Dishoom came in. Homeslice
immediately spotted the potential. ‘All
these people turned up, tried it and
were blown away,’ he says. ‘At that
point, it was the only zero-chemical
vegan burger being sold in that way.’
By this time, Rankin was learning
more and more about the wider process,
which not only allowed his skills as a
chef to prosper, but also increased his
dissatisfaction with the approach taken
by the likes of Impossible and Beyond
Meat. ‘One of the problems I have with
these companies is that the amount of
waste is huge,’ he says. ‘We have less
waste than them, but it’s there. So what
we started to do was construct things
from that waste material. For instance,
we were making a cheese out of tomato
water. But then we’d have leftover pulp,
so we started making a ketchup out of
that. There was still too much pulp, so
then we mixed it with the mince to
make a vegan ’nduja. And so on. Some
of the burgers were really brittle
because we don’t use chemicals, so
with that waste we started making
a Thai larb salad. We tried to use
everything. In truth, it was similar
to the approach I had taken with
whole-animal butchery and Temper.
I just realised that we could be more
efficient in terms of waste and cost.’
SYMPLICITY NOW SUPPLIES
TOP RESTAURANTS AND
MICHELIN-STAR CHEFS ALIKE
…And Thinking Big THE TEAM AT SYMPLICITY BELIEVE
Simplicity Burger made its point, but
IN A ZERO-WASTE APPROACH
the small scale meant that it wasn’t ever TOWARDS PLANT-BASED FOOD
going to be a transformative business.
For that to happen, it needed Mark
Wogan, founder of Homeslice Pizza, to
come on board. ‘We had been pushing
more towards a plant-based menu for
some time,’ says Wogan, ‘because pizza
is such an obvious vehicle for it. But we
found that all we were really doing was
cooking vegetables well. What we could
never find was a cheese replacement
that didn’t taste like cat sick blended
with sawdust, frankly. Meanwhile, I’d
been an admirer of what Neil had been
doing. So we got talking, and we kept sandwich (that’s Tastes. Like. Steak.), or perhaps the
coming back to each other, and then imaginatively named McPlant from McDonald’s.
ironically [an] opportunity came at the But this would rather miss the point. When Burger
beginning of lockdown. Neil needed King first launched the Impossible Whopper in
somewhere to make this stuff and I had all its US restaurants, the company’s then chief
a load of restaurants sitting empty. So marketing officer, Fernando Machado, said,
that’s where the business partnership ‘Burger King skews male and older, but Impossible
– Symplicity Foods – developed from. brings in young people and women, and puts us
Our joint starting position was simply: in a different spectrum of quality, freshness and
how do you do this properly? Because health.’ This in turn begs the question: compared
there’s lots of stuff out there, and you with what? Impossible’s key selling point is the
see rows of it in the supermarket, and I way in which the burger remains pink in the
don’t want to eat any of it. But I do want middle throughout cooking and imitates the
to eat less meat, and I want to make juicy, bloody texture of meat. This is achieved
actually eating meat a proper occasion. through the use of a patented genetically
So what do you eat in between?’ engineered yeast called heme – it may well be
Depending on who you ask, the ingenious, though it’s more of a stretch to call it
answer to that might be Subway’s T.L.S.

74 MEN’S HEALTH

fresh. As for health, well, that again is
up for debate. Impossible and Beyond
burgers have similar amounts of
protein and calories as regular beef
patties, yet contain around five times
as much sodium. Besides, when
you’re serving them up with cheese,
mayonnaise, chips and a bucket of pop,
any attempt to play the health card is
inevitably going to come up short.
For the record, a Symplicity patty
trumps one from Beyond when judged
by virtually any nutritional metric
you’d care to throw at it – 70 fewer
calories, 5g more protein, almost 5g
less saturated fat and 4g more fibre.
But it’s curious that, in trying to create
such a point of difference between his
products and those of the big US labs,
Rankin should choose to kick off with
something as ubiquitous as a burger.
‘Look, I just wanted to create
something that people could cook with,’
he says. ‘And the burger is so culturally
significant. There’s an argument that
PHOTOGRAPHY: JACK LEWIS WILLIAMS
the best way to adopt a plant-based diet
is just to start eating daals and vegetable
curries. Which is fucking delicious, by
the way, and I do it myself. But with
something like a burger, there’s this
huge cultural significance that many
just aren’t prepared to discount in
order to go vegetarian. So I knew this
The Nutrition Issue – Hungry For Change
was something I had to recreate in people’s minds
in order for them to feel comfortable with it.
‘Plus, the vast majority of the beef that you get
in burgers tastes like shit on its own. Believe me,
I’ve done the research. Go into any of the big
burger chains in this country and take a bite out of
the patty itself – just the meat. It’s grim. Fucking
grim. So, for me, beating the taste of that wasn’t
hard. Vegetables might have their limitations, but
they also have their advantages. They suck up
flavour, they suck up spices, they’re easier to cook,
and they’re inherently healthy. So I don’t have this
retroactive thing of trying to make it healthy – it’s
already healthy. And even though I’m a carnivore,
if I’m looking at a dish, and it tastes as good as
another dish, and it’s healthier, and nothing died
to make it, then I’m a lot happier as a person.’
The Cost Of Going Green
When Pat Brown started out in the plant-food
business, he didn’t mention much about improving
animal welfare or the health of
citizens. He merely wanted to ‘Vegetables
safeguard planet Earth. The
success of his succinct message, might have
neatly marketed, has been in
large part because the gist of
limitations,
it is broadly supported by the but they suck
scientific community. ‘Avoiding
meat and dairy, for the large up flavour
majority of people, including
Americans, is the single biggest
and spices’
way to reduce your environmental impact,’
said Oxford University researcher Joseph Poore,
co-author of a report on the global consequences
of food production. Very few would contend with
this. However, it also masks a more complex,
nuanced reality. Plainly, our environmental
problems don’t begin and end with the quantity
of land and water utilised by beef production.
For instance, sustaining biodiversity is arguably
more important. Yet mass-producing the likes of
soya and pea protein, as used in Impossible and
Beyond burgers, means perpetuating the use of
monoculture crops, an approach to farming that’s
widely understood to be hugely detrimental.
‘It all comes down to good agriculture and bad
agriculture,’ says Rankin. ‘But you’ve got these
guys coming up with ridiculous comments like,
‘our product uses 90% less water than beef’ or
whatever. I mean, how the fuck did you come up
with that? How do you compare a cow in a field in
England, say, with a cow in a field in Australia,
which is irrigated extensively, because it’s a
fucking desert? It’s not the same thing.
‘And how about the 16 factories that made your
burger, and the coconut oil and rice flour and pea
protein that you’ve flown in from all over the world?
These comparisons represent the next level of
bullshit that we’ve got to get through. The fact is
science-based food production has destroyed the
nutritional value of almost everything
we eat. It has destroyed the soil quality
of almost every crop we grow. And it’s all
in the name of so-called nutrition and
yield, which is unfortunately what’s
driving market forces at the moment.’
Despite his frustration, it’s clear
there’s a hunger for the Symplicity
approach. Rankin and Wogan are
adamant that the right route is to rely
on small growers, people they can trust,
operations they can visit and sample.
Shortly after we met, Symplicity
announced that it had gone ‘clean
label’. This is the food-industry term for
products that are made wholly without
artificial ingredients. Rankin had
finally managed to secure British-made
miso. This makes Symplicity the only
brand in the market that is totally free
of chemicals. It’s a game changer in
terms of health, ethics
and sustainability.
For now, they’re
focusing on supplying
restaurants because
that means they
don’t have to worry
about compromising
themselves with all
the excess packaging
that comes into play
when you go into retail. According
to Wogan, of all potential customers
who try Symplicity products, 98% of
them take it. They now supply Gordon
Ramsay’s Street Burger, Soho House,
Dishoom, Bleecker Burger. And in every
case, the buyer has come to the seller.
But Rankin has ambitions beyond
satisfying middle-class lunchers. He’s
thinking about schools and offices,
about what you have for lunch al desko
or what you feed your kids for tea on
a Monday evening. Because that’s where
the real habit-changing potential lies.
‘Chain restaurants, too!’ he says. ‘People
discount them. I’ve always discounted
them. But in fact, they’re the most
progressive restaurants in the country.
They’re the ones thinking about
calories right now, because they’re
forced to. They’re looking at the labels
to see what’s in this stuff. They’re the
ones not allowing Beyond Meat in.
Maybe PR-wise we’d be better off doing
some sexy marketing campaign. But
in terms of growth, or education, this
is a huge, untapped opportunity. And
it’s clear it’s better for everyone.’
MEN’S HEALTH 75
 You don’t need to count calories to live
a healthy lifestyle. But if you’re struggling to
see results, a little knowledge goes a long way.
Our guide can help you derive satisfaction from
your daily quota, whatever you’re hungry for
WORDS BY SCARLETT WRENCH - PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUN LEE - FOOD STYLING BY LUCY-RUTH HATHAWAY
76 MEN’S HEALTH
oo often, calories are spoken of negatively,
as something to cut and dodge. But
calories – that is, the units of energy we
derive from proteins, carbohydrates and fats –
are life-givers. They’re the fuel on which all of
your body’s basic functions run.
So, what’s the issue? Well, your body only
requires a certain amount of energy per day. ‘If
we consume more than we expend, the additional
calories are stored as fat: our energy reserves for
future use,’ explains MH fitness editor Andrew
Tracey. Even fairly trim men carry around tens of
thousands of calories’ worth of energy, to be broken
down and burned up in times of deprivation.
Things get sticky when you exceed your capacity
to store subcutaneous fat (under the skin). The
overspill can accumulate in unhealthy places,
such as between your organs. In which case,
a reduction in energy intake allows your body
to tap these reserves. Calories in, calories out.
That might sound simple, but as Tracey puts
it, ‘If the science of weight loss is a raindrop, the
psychology is an ocean.’ We don’t eat ‘calories’,
after all: we eat food. Certain nutrients – notably
proteins and fibres – are more satiating than
others and take longer to digest, while a diet high
in fast-acting carbs can lead to peaks and troughs
in energy, regardless of calorie intake. Of course,
personal preference counts for a lot: the relative
appeal of a juicy rib-eye versus a buttery pastry also
determines the ‘value’ of the calories you take in.
If you’re new to the game, a good first step is
understanding roughly how many calories are in
the foods you eat (or think about eating) every day.
Here’s our visual guide to help you on your way.
How Many Calories Do I Need?
By Lee Amico, founder of Monday
Muscle nutrition service
Work out your basal metabolic rate
(BMR – calories burned at rest) using
this rough formula: weight in kg x 24.
Then multiply by 1.3 if you’re lightly
active (desk job and the odd workout);
1.5 if moderately active (on your feet
often and in the gym four days a week);
and 1.7 if very active (physical job and
regular exercise). That’s your best guess.
MEN’S HEALTH 77
The Nutrition Issue – A Numbers Game

250
A mere tenth of the recommended calorie intake for the average UK man, this is the
energy equivalent of your mid-morning snack or post-gym smoothie, but not a meal in itself –
though many a diet-dinner manufacturer might try to persuade you otherwise. You’ll find that
a surprising number of seemingly energy-dense indulgences fall into this band. Even the
health-conscious eater can afford to expend 250 calories on low-nutrient (read: tasty) foods.

01 02

DISHES
UP 45G OF
PROTEIN
03 04 05

USEFUL
SOURCE OF
VITAMINS

06

01 4 x Mini Babybel Originals, 20g each 02 Roast Chicken Breast Slices, 180g 03 Bol Creamy Thai Green Curry, 345g
04 Grenade Carb Killa Protein Bar, 60g 05 Sugar Ring Doughnut, 50g 06 Sprite, Fanta, Coca-Cola, 330ml each

78 MEN’S HEALTH
 500
If your eating strategy is little-and-often, this is roughly the energy input you’d
want from each meal: a fifth of the average man’s daily calories. It’s also what you’d
expect to burn with a tough 45 minutes in the gym or a speedy 5K – so if you’re
pushing hard in training, make sure you’re refuelling properly. Here’s a taster of what
500 calories looks like (some options a little more advisable than others).

02
01

QUICK
CARBS FOR
ENERGY

04

03

32G OF
HEALTHY
FATS

05

01 Extra-Large Blueberry Muffin, 130g 02 Red Leicester Ploughman’s Sandwich, 200g 03 Pret A Manger Smoked Salmon
Protein Box, 250g 04 Dark Chocolate Bar 70% Cocoa, 100g 05 Tesco Mango Passion Fruit Smoothie, 750ml
 750
This is a good benchmark for one of your three daily meals. Here, it’s worth minding
your macros and micros: while low-nutrient snacks won’t make much of a dent in
a balanced diet, when it comes to these bigger sources of energy, aim to include a
smart amount of protein (30g), fibre (10g), plus foods that provide vitamins and
minerals. Well, most of the time… a little dietary deviation is good for the soul, after all.

02

01

BALANCED
PROTEIN
03 AND CARBS
05

04

06

SMALL
BITES CAN
ADD UP...

01 2 x Mini Cheesecake Desserts, 90g each 02 McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese 03 Chicken Tikka Masala
with Pilau Rice, 400g + 2 x Plain Mini Naan, 47g each 04 Pot of Hummus, 200g + Popchips Barbeque Sharing Crisps, 85g
05 5 x Cans of Craft Beer, 330ml each 06 Mediterranean Platter, 345g
80 MEN’S HEALTH
 The Nutrition Issue – A Numbers Game

1,000
A very active man can easily burn more than 3,000 calories a day –  so
a higher-calorie refuel can actually be prudent on days when you’re hitting it hard.
Rest day? The odd blowout is normal. Remember: it takes 3,500 calories of
extra energy to store a meagre pound of fat, so a 1,000-calorie indulgence is
but a bump in the road. It’s what you do habitually, not occasionally, that counts.

50% OF
YOUR RDA
OF CARBS
01

02

03

ENOUGH
OMEGA-3
FOR TWO

04

01 Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream, 465ml 02 Prosciutto Mushroom & Mascarpone Pizza, 480g
03 Large Bag of Mixed Nuts, 175g 04 Itsu Sushi & Sashimi Platter

MEN’S HEALTH 81
The UK’s
Healthiest*

PILE YOUR PLATE HIGH

WITH VITAMINS, MINERALS
– AND BIG, BOLD FLAVOURS
Restaurants
In 2022
*well, healthyish
A well-balanced
lifestyle should
never prohibit a
good meal out.
Whether you’re
looking for
something plant-
based or paleo,
high-end or high
street, glance over
our tasting menu of
the best spots for
diners with healthy
intentions, and even
better taste
WORDS BY ED CUMMING - PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMIE LAU

MEN’S HEALTH 83

The Five-
A-Day Hero
El Pastor
It’s not hard to see why
London’s El Pastor has
caught the zeitgeist in a city
that has traditionally been
resistant to Mexican food.
The chefs at the Soho, Coal
Drops Yard and Borough
taquerias make everything
themselves from the tacos
up (which use heritage
Mexican corn), and the
freshness of lime, coriander
and salsa zings from every
plate. Between the vitamin-
rich tomatoes, avocados,
toasted corn, caramelised
pineapple and slow-cooked
pinto beans, you’ll be edging
towards your daily veg
quota before the chipotle-
muscovado-coriander short
rib hits your plate.
Runner-up
Bubala
You start with pickles,
perhaps, and then move on
to some za’atar-laced labneh,
easing through the gears with
oyster mushroom skewers,
crisp falafel, protein-rich
halloumi cut through by
sweet honey, then some slow-
roasted celeriac, drizzled with
tahini. On the side, some
confit latkes, wafer-thin slices
of potato layered like a mille-
fuille and cooked to golden
crispness. Before you know
it, you’ve toured the eastern
Mediterranean and wander
out of Bubala full and happy
– all without a scrap of meat.
84 MEN’S HEALTH
The Catch
Of The Day
Amazonico
Nestled between the
Ferrari dealership and Sexy
Fish on the eastern side of
Berkeley Square, Amazonico
is no cheap and cheerful
night out. It’s a glittering
see-and-be-seen temple
to salubrious times in west
London. But it’s also a great
place to eat fish, with a
Japanese-South American
fusion menu. Think sushi,
ceviche, tiradito and
luxurious grill options:
Alaskan king crab, lobster
and tiger prawns the size
of your fist. Something
sophisticated – and
nutritious – to line your
stomach with while you
sip on ‘Amazonegronis’.
The Guilt-Free Runner-up
Meat Feast Gaucho
Between farming, shipping
Humble and a preference for choice
Chicken cuts, steak is notoriously
Last year, on the site of the
old Barrafina in Soho’s Frith
Street, head chef Angelo
Sato opened London’s most
talked-about new yakitori
restaurant. After an illustrious
career, he’s returned to a
simpler but no less mouth-
watering prospect: Japanese-
style skewers, seasoned and
cooked over charcoal. There’s
pork, offal, mushrooms, beef
and, above all, chicken. All
their chickens come from
Sutton Hoo, where they have
40 acres to roam, resulting in
a healthier, more ethical meat.
Nothing humble about it.
Brain
Food
Runner-up
The Company
Shed
On the Essex coast by
Colchester, The Company
Shed has built a deserved
reputation as one of the best,
and best-value, places for
seafood not just in the south-
east, but the whole of the UK.
What it lacks in outward
sophistication – it really isn’t
much more than a big shed
on the seafront – it makes up
for with seafood plucked
straight from the sea. Oysters
are £9 a dozen (nature’s own
testosterone-booster), while
lobster is £17.50 for a half-
kilo. You won’t find a better
nutritional haul.
carbon intensive. But there’s
still nothing quite like it – for
body-strengthening iron,
zinc, selenium and B vits, as
well as flavour. Argentinian-
inspired Gaucho has been
trying to minimise its impact
by planting trees and
investing in green power.
CEO Martin Williams hopes
to make his beef carbon
neutral this year, and the
whole business by 2030.
Meanwhile, 10% of staff at
the flagship Charlotte Street
branch will be those helped CLAW IN YOUR RDA OF VIT
back to work via charities.  B12 WITH AMAZONICO’S
ALASKAN KING CRAB

The Most
Virtuous Pub
The Spread
Eagle
Pubs are notorious for
derailing all food and
drink-based resolutions. Not
only are they full of booze,
naturally, but their food tends
to the meaty, fried, and the
fried and meaty. So the
Spread Eagle, in Homerton,
is a pioneer: London’s first
100% vegan pub, with plant-
based, nutrient-packed takes
on pub classics. Begin with
mini ‘squashage’ roll and
mushrooms on toast before a
Beyond Meat burger or some
Korean fried chicken-of-the-
woods mushroom, served
with fiery gochujang. There’s
no guarantee you’ll drink less,
but it’s a healthy start.
Runner-up
The
Southampton
Arms
The Southampton Arms
has long been a favourite
with walkers rolling off
Hampstead Heath in search
of victuals. It’s a traditional
pub, in all the best senses:
a cosy, narrow bar; a little
garden for your vit D top-ups;
and a wide selection of beers,
all from local microbreweries.
For hot food, there are pork
buns with apple sauce. And
that’s it – although pies,
pickled eggs and sausage
rolls are available at the bar.
Proof that choice can be
overrated if you do one thing
very well. Possibly not for
vegans, this time.
The Nutrition Issue
30 Healthyish
Restaurants
OUR WINNING
CHEAT-DAY
DESTINATIONS
Chick’n’Sours
With branches in
Hackney and Covent
Garden, Chick’n’Sours
sources its birds from
higher welfare family
farms in Suffolk. Try
The General, with
cheese and red pickles.
Practising moderation?
Forgo fries and fill up on
fibre with a side of green
slaw with ginger, bang
bang cucumber or
pickled watermelon salad
with crunchy peanuts.
Homeslice
In central London,
Homeslice’s giant
20in bad boys remain
unbeatable. Their
margherita, mushroom
and ’nduja pizzas can
be made vegan – and
are no less impressive
for it – while veg-heavy
toppings change with
the seasons. Plus, pizzas
are available by the slice,
too, catering to those
who need to stay awake
afterwards.
Max’s Sandwich
Shop
The Max-daddy is the
original and best of the
new wave of London
sarnie shops, a cult
favourite that has never
shown any signs of
expanding beyond its
tiny premises in Stroud
Green. The Ham Egg ’n’
Chips remains the most
popular choice, but the
This is How We Spring
Roll, with spring rolls
inside the sandwich, 
is equally tasty and
nearly vegan.
MEN’S HEALTH 85
The Nutrition Issue
30 Healthyish
Restaurants

Macro
The Best Hero
Home Meal Kit
Berenjak
Romilly Street’s Berenjak,
based on ‘hole in the wall’
spots in Tehran, was one
of London’s most popular
openings, with hearty
skewers and bold-flavoured
mezzeh. During lockdown,
they offered one of the few
home meal kits that didn’t
feel like it was cutting corners
to maximise lost revenue.
Its kebab kits come with
everything you need to enjoy
the experience at home, from
the clay-baked lavash bread
to pre-marinated chicken
and lamb – peerless post-
gym fuel. Fire up the grill and
go. Plus, you get extra-long
metal skewers to elevate the
tone of future barbecues,
or defend against intruders.

Runner-up
Koya Mail
The joy of good noodles,
steaming out of the urn and
precisely arranged, can be
hard to replicate at home. A
box of perishable ingredients
will often need to be signed
for them in person – not a
problem during lockdown,
but more so now. London
udon masters Koya neatly
solve these issues with Koya
Mail, in which they send fresh
udon and immunity-boosting
dashi broth, made that day, in
packages that fit through the
letter box. Each comes with a
recipe kit, for those wanting
to attempt more complicated
dishes. At £14 each and
containing plenty for two
people, it’s also good value. POST-GYM MUSCLE FUEL
FOR THE GOURMET-MINDED

86 MEN’S HEALTH

THREE SUPERIOR
VEGAN LUNCHES
Rovi by Ottolenghi
No compendium
of vegetable-first
restaurants would be
complete without a
shout-out to the king
of 21st-century veg
innovation, Yotam
Ottolenghi. Rovi is his
most forward-thinking
destination yet, with a
menu built around fire
and fermentation. The
kitchen that launched
a thousand imitative
corn ribs.
Andina
Peruvian cuisine lends
itself naturally to healthy
eating, and Martin
Morales’ Andina is as
good as British Peruvian
gets. The focus is on
fresh, lively ceviches,
but there are also
classic, vegan mains of
aubergine, mushroom
and corn tamale. One of
the few restaurants that
can genuinely claim to
cater to all diets.  Innovative
Nando’s
The world’s pre-eminent
peri-peri chicken chain
has a very respectable
plant-based alternative
in the form of The Great
Imitator, built around a
pea protein that tastes
‘just like’ the real deal.
There’s also a Rainbow
Bowl, as well as a vegan
version of their Perinaise,
which you can take home.
The Paleoish
Hotspot
Maison
Francois
On paper, St James’s in
London did not need another
stylish brasserie, yet Maison
Francois proves that there’s
always room for the classics
done right. The all-day menu
– it opens for breakfast, too
– has something for every
diet, including plenty for
those on protein-heavy,
grain-avoiding eating plans.
Côte de porc in moutarde
sauce? Ox tongue and heart
brochette? It seems a shame
to miss out on the comté
gougères, or the flatbread
covered in snails and bone
marrow, but at Maison
Francois, dodging the carbs
does not mean missing out.
Most
Use Of Plants
Tofu Vegan
Given that so much of
western cooking derives from
a European protein-plus-veg
approach, it can feel simpler
to eat vegetarian, or vegan,
from Asian cuisines. Tofu
Vegan is a plant-based
restaurant on Islington’s
Upper Street, from the
people behind the beloved
Xi’an Impression down the
road, which makes the most
of China’s abundance of
meat-free options. Eat the
tofu deep-fried with Sichuan
pepper, the dry-fried green
beans or spicy wontons filled
with vegetables and drizzled
with potent chilli oil. No meat;
maximum pleasure.
Runner-up
Blacklock
Like all great ideas,
Blacklock’s signature dish,
the ‘All In’ (a huge pile of
charcoal-grilled beef, pork
and lamb chops on a base of
pillowy bread), didn’t seem
revolutionary at the time. It’s
possibly the oldest concept
in cooking and plenty of
Turkish restaurants offer
something basically identical.
Yet by taking this idea and
serving it in stylish rooms
in Soho, Shoreditch and the
City, Blacklock formed an
empire of chops that
continues to grow, with its
latest outpost opening in
February this year. The meat
is sourced from Cornish
specialist Philip Warren, with
an emphasis on using the
whole animal. Perfect after
a beasting in the gym.
Runner-up
Bundobust
Bundobust is that rarest
of things, a vegetarian,
and in fact mostly vegan,
restaurant where you barely
notice until afterwards, so
interesting, punchy and
varied are the dishes. It’s
based on Gujarati street
food, which means okra
fries, bhajis and vada pav
– deep fried potato in a bun
with punchy sauces. Don’t
miss the bhel puri, either, all
crunch and sweet tamarind
chutney. There are outposts
in Liverpool and Leeds, as
well as the original in
Manchester, where there is
also a Bundobust Brewery
for craft beers to go with all
the big flavours. Londoners
gaze on in envy.
The Strongest
Start
Dishoom
For all its curries, daals
and considered aesthetic –
a vision of Mumbai Irani cafes
– Dishoom’s greatest triumph
is its most bastardised
creation. Slabs of applewood-
smoked bacon, with smooth
cream cheese and a sweet,
spiced chilli and tomato jam,
all stuffed into a naan, hot out
of the tandoor, with a sprig of
coriander. Salt, fat, acid, heat
and, er, stodge. It’s no surprise
that the bacon naan, with or
without a fried egg, is one of
the capital’s most famous
breakfasts. A balance of
macronutrients for the post-
cardio refuel. Or hangovers.
Runner-up
Landrace
More of a traditionalist? For
bacon sandwiches, you can’t
beat Bath’s Landrace bakery.
Co-founder Andrew Lowkes
sources his flour from two
house millers, who grow their
own grains then grind them
on traditional stone mills,
while most ingredients are
sourced from local suppliers.
Enjoy your morning rashers
served in a fresh milk bun
with a dollop of rhubarb
ketchup (well, perhaps not
that traditional). Pick up a loaf
of sourdough on the way out,
naturally leavened and made
with wholemeal, heritage
wheats for more flavour,
added nutrition and
optimal digestibility.
MEN’S HEALTH 87
 Nutrient
Most Bomb
Indulgent
Source Of
B Vitamins
Gamba
Roja,
Parrillan
Parrillan, in Coal Drops
Yard, was one of the winners
of the pandemic, with its
wide-open terrace perfect for
social distancing. Its menu, a
mix of starters from its cousin
Barrafina and a selection of
grill-your-own mains, has
something for everyone,
but no item finer than its red
prawns. These indulgent little
crescents of sweet pink flesh,
singing of the sea and
sunnier climes, only need to
be kissed by the heat of the
grill before you wolf them
down, making sure to slurp
the heads out for maximum
flavour and nourishment.

Most Insta-
Friendly Piece
Of Protein
Whole Grilled
Turbot, Brat
The countless words and
photos dedicated to Tomos
Parry’s Basque-style flatfish
don’t change the core fact:
it is delicious. Grilled over
charcoal and dressed in
lemon and oil, it’s a hymn to
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: BENJAMIN MCMAHON

the school of taking a great

ingredient and doing as little
as possible to it. (And at 75%
pure protein, too.) Whether PARRILLAN’S RED PRAWNS
you’re at the original site in SERVE UP A LEAN PROTEIN FIX
Shoreditch or in Climpson’s THAT’S NO LESS INDULGENT
Arch in Hackney, the lesson
is: you may eat cheaper fish,
but you won’t eat better.

88 MEN’S HEALTH

THE BEST MEAT
DELIVERY BOXES
The Ethical
Butcher
Founded by an industry
veteran and a former
vegetarian, The Ethical
Butcher says it’s on ‘a
mission to reconnect
people with nature’.
The meat comes from
selected farms that
are committed to
sustainable – often
regenerative – practices
and high welfare
standards. The results
are evident in every bite. 
Primal Meats
Primal Meats offers
animals ‘reared as
nature intended’, which
means 100% grass-fed
beef; lamb; mutton and
hogget; free-range pork;
and organic, free-range
chicken, as well as a
selection of wild game
according to the season.
It also offers monthly
meat boxes to take the
stress out of deciding.  booked into the chic Bar des
Knepp Wild Meat
The Knepp Estate in
West Sussex is a pioneer
of rewilding in southern
England. It also has a
sustainable meat shop,
selling longhorn beef,
red and fallow venison
and Tamworth pork
reared on the land
– resulting in a healthier,
balanced nutritional
profile. Knepp is a model
for 21st-century farms;
its meat may be a vision
of the future, too.
Healthy
Fats
Most Inventive
Use Of
Avocado
Crab And
Avocado
Galette, Bar
Des Prés
If you think you’re over
avocado, you clearly haven’t
Prés on Mayfair’s Albemarle
Street. There, chef Cyril
Lignac serves up indulgent
dishes that aren’t so heavy
they’ll stop you doing any
work after lunch. The crab
and avocado galette has
quickly become a signature,
an inventive twist on avo-
toast: overlaid slices of ripe
fruit sitting on gently curried
crab meat and a thin wafer.
There’s more to it than
healthy fats, too: avo is rich in
vit K and potassium. ‘It’s our
most popular dish,’ says
Lignac. ‘It’s skilful and time-
consuming work to create
the symmetrical waves, but
the final dish is a work of art.’
The High
Street
Overachiever
Wagamama  whether all Prets will one day
Wagamama continues to
defy the proliferation of fast-
casual Japanese-inflected
rivals. This is partly down to
the enduring popularity of its
classics, chiefly the katsu
curry. But Wagamama uses
its noodle, too, tweaking and
moving with the times. Half
of its menu is plant-based,
with the addition of four new
vegan options, including shu’s
shiok, with jackfruit marinated
in ginger and turmeric served
on lemongrass rice, and
a vegan teriyaki ‘chicken’
ramen. For calorie-watchers,
its kokoro bowls all come in
under the 650 mark.
The Nutrition Issue
30 Healthyish
Restaurants
THE GREATEST INCENTIVE
TO EAT YOUR GREENS
Runner-up
Veggie Pret
The jury’s still out as to
go veggie, or if the nine
in London (plus one in
Manchester) will remain
special interest destinations.
But the experiment has been
a success. The veggie stores
play to Pret’s strengths:
consistency, value, speed
and freshness, while gently
nudging diners from meatball
subs and jambon beurre
baguettes towards meat-
free twists on classics. An
antioxidant-stuffed baguette
of avocado, tomato and
mushroom, coupled with an
absurdly good value coffee
subscription, is an ideal back-
to-the-office breakfast.
 WORDS BY AJ JACOBS_
ILLUSTRATION BY EDDIE GUY_

They’re frustrating, often maddening

and offer little reward other than the promise
of a conclusion. Why, then, are so many of
us drawn to puzzles and brain-teasers?
This is one man’s quest to harness  the
brain-sharpening, creativity-boosting
and altogether life-enhancing power
of problem-solving

back aches. I’m sweating. My bladder is
sending out distress signals. I’ve been
going full throttle for three hours, and
still have five hours to go, but I can’t
slow down. Not when the stakes are
so high: I’m representing my country
among a crowd of the best competitors
on earth, sandwiched between teams
from Turkey and Bulgaria.
I am competing in the equivalent of an
Ironman triathlon for assembling little
cardboard pieces. No, seriously. I’m
part of Team USA at the World Jigsaw
Puzzle Championship.
A few months ago, I didn’t know
such a competition existed. But it does,
and these people are serious. Several
hundred have gathered in a small city
in Spain after years of training.
I’ve joined them not because I’m
particularly good at jigsaw puzzles, but
because I’m a true believer. I believe
puzzles – jigsaws, as well as crosswords,
sudokus, Rubik’s Cubes and all the
other genres – aren’t just time-wasting
hobbies. I believe they can make us
better thinkers and better people –
maybe even help save the world. This
tournament is a crucial part of my quest,
despite the risk of a public whomping.
Team USA consists of me, my wife
and two of our teenage sons. We are
at one of dozens of tables inside a hot,
bubble-shaped dome. We’ve practised
for a month, but nothing like the jigsaw
masters, who have trained several
hours a day for years.
A few hours earlier, a man in a
blazer read out the instructions into
a microphone: we had eight hours to
complete four large puzzles. Tres, dos,
uno... puzzle!
We grabbed one of the boxes – the
African safari scene – but were at an
immediate disadvantage. Other teams
had brought letter openers to rip the
plastic wrapping. Team USA
was reduced to using our
fingernails. Dammit.
92 MEN’S HEALTH
We dumped out the pieces and tried
to snap some of them together but they
didn’t fit. ‘I wish I’d brought a hammer,’
my son said. Good idea. But even that
probably wouldn’t have been enough.
Let me back up a bit. Most humans
have a masochistic streak. Some plunge
into icy streams while running Tough
Mudders; others subject themselves
to jump-scare-filled horror movies.
My self-inflicted pain of choice:
puzzles. The more frustrating, the better.
And I’m not picky – I love classics, but
also the more cultish, such as Japanese
puzzle boxes and chess problems.
The pandemic was a boom time
for puzzle nerds like me. With all of us
indoors looking for stress relief, puzzles
underwent a surge in popularity not
seen since the Great Depression. Word
games like Wordle filled our Twitter
feeds. One jigsaw company talked
about being on ‘war footing’, unable
to keep up with the demand.
As a writer who has made a career of
exploring cultural flash points ranging
from religion to family, I couldn’t resist
the opportunity to dive into my true
passion. So began a two-year odyssey
to solve the most baffling puzzles
I could find in every genre. That
included jigsaws, which I wrongly
believed were simple. So naive.
But before I began solving puzzles
themselves, I decided to tackle the
puzzle of puzzles. Why do millions
of us subject ourselves to these
frustrating brain-teasers?
I called psychologist Paul Bloom,
author of The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures
Of Suffering And The Search For
Meaning (£20, Vintage Publishing).
He agreed that, on the surface, puzzles
seem odd. ‘When people are doing them,
they’re not attracting mates, they’re
not eating food, they’re not exercising,
they’re not making money. They’re not
doing something that is pleasurable
in the obvious sense, such as taking a
hot bath or eating chocolate. They’re
working, they’re struggling, yet
they seem to be drawn to that.’
Professor Bloom has several
theories as to why we like to
THE MORE CHALLENGING THE
PUZZLE, THE BIGGER THE HIT
OF DOPAMINE WHEN WE FINISH
torture ourselves. First, we can thank
the Puritan work ethic. We have been
conditioned to associate hard work
with a positive feeling. Hence the
message ‘No pain, no gain.’
But it goes deeper. Professor Bloom
says our brains have evolved to try hard
things. ‘There’s something wired within
us to take pleasure in the exercise of our
This story is abilities. Even rats exert extra effort
adapted from in some cases, as if they are taking
THE PUZZLER: One pleasure from the effort.’
Man’s Quest To Solve Puzzles are a form of intellectual
The Most Baffling practise. And practise is important – it’s
Puzzles Ever, From at the root of our desire for play of any
Crosswords To kind. Just as dogs wrestle with each
Jigsaws To The other to get stronger and prepare for
Meaning Of Life an actual fight, we are programmed
by AJ Jacobs. to work on play puzzles to get better at
© 2022. Published solving life’s puzzles. Because life is full
by Crown, an imprint of high-stakes puzzles, whether it’s a
of Random House, chimp figuring out how to use a stick to
on 26 April. retrieve dinner from the termite mound
COURTESY WORLD JIGSAW PUZZLE FEDERATION
or the scientists figuring out how to
prevent Covid with an mRNA vaccine.
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY AJ JACOBS;
We seek that aha moment, that
almost orgasmic feeling when our
paradigm shifts and the puzzle
becomes clear and the dopamine
flows. The more ingenuity needed,
the more satisfying, perhaps because
life’s hardest conundrums often require
the biggest mental leaps.

Take crossword clues: wait! Those
aren’t letters; they’re Roman numerals.
Wait! That’s not the elephant trunk;
that’s the luggage trunk. Even jigsaw
puzzles – if created cleverly – provide
surprises. That flat side looks like an
edge, but it’s smack in the middle!
(Test your own abilities on p95.)
This constant hunt for intellectual
breakthroughs helps keep our minds
sharp. There’s increasing evidence
that doing puzzles might help delay
cognitive decline. Adults aged 50 and
older who regularly engage with word
and number challenges have been
shown to score years younger than
those who don’t on tests that measure
attention, reasoning and memory.
Even older people who do jigsaw
puzzles have demonstrated better
visual and spatial cognition compared
with those who don’t. It’s probably
not just brain games that help – any
mental challenge might maintain your
sharpness, from puzzles to learning a
language. Scientists tend to back the
‘use it or lose it’ side of the debate.
But to me, the benefits of puzzles go
beyond that. Puzzles can shift our world
view. They can help us adopt the ‘puzzle
mindset’ – a ceaseless curiosity about
everything in the world, from politics
to science to human relationships, and
a desire to find solutions. And we need
solutions more than ever.
JACOBS AND HIS FAMILY FLY
OFF THE STARTING LINE AT
THE JIGSAW WORLD CHAMPS
TEAMS FROM ALL OVER
THE WORLD GATHERED IN
VALLADOLID TO COMPETE
GUTTER CREDIT
When I begin Project Puzzle, I know
I’ll have to tackle jigsaws, even though
I’m more of a word-puzzle fan. Jigsaws
are the prototypical puzzle. When you
say ‘puzzle’, many conjure up the image
of those knobby little pieces.
So I start, as I usually do, with Google.
Historians think the first jigsaw puzzles
were created around 1760 by British
cartographer John Spilsbury, who
cut up a map to teach kids geography.
Probably the most benign case in
history of a Brit carving up a map.
I learn that jigsaw fans include
everyone from Queen Elizabeth II to
Hugh Jackman. Then, deep into my
search, I spot an intriguing link: the
World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship.
Nearly 40 countries are represented,
Yet, oddly, there’s no Team USA.
On a whim, I fill in an application
for the four-person team event. I figure
this will be the first step in a rigorous
process – timed trials, perhaps an
interview – that I will surely fail.
A day later, an email pings:
‘Congratulations. You are confirmed as
Team USA in the World Jigsaw Puzzle
Championship.’
I am equal Puzzles can shift our
parts thrilled and
horrified. It’s not world view. They help us
the Olympics,
but still, there’s
adopt the ‘puzzle
pressure. It’s an mindset’ – a curiosity
international
competition and I
about everything
will be representing and a desire
my fellow 330
million Americans.
to find solutions
I recruit my reluctant wife and two
of our sons as teammates. ‘It’s your
patriotic duty,’ I tell them.
We need coaching, so I call up Karen
Kavett, who has a popular YouTube
channel about jigsaws. She loves them
for their meditative and calming effects
– they get us into the flow state, when
hours pass by like minutes.
Still, Karen knows strategies for speed
solving. She gives me a crash course:
• Yes, you should usually start with the
edges. But not always. It depends
on how colourful the puzzle is. Some
experts start by sorting the colours
instead, assembling those and then
working outwards to the edges.
• If you’re not sure two pieces actually
fit together, hold them up to the
light and make sure no brightness is
seeping through.
Brain Training
• Sometimes you should work
backwards. Visualise what’s missing
and look for that piece.
• When confronted with a dreaded big
sky, or any monochromatic expanse,
switch strategies. Instead of sorting
by colour, sort by shape. Make a pile
of pieces with two outies and two
innies. Make another for one outie
and three innies. And so on.
Next, I interview a German man
who calls himself the Puzzle King.
Peter Schubert recently spent months
trying to become the first person to
assemble the largest jigsaw in the world:
a monster with 54,000 pieces. It features
great paintings from history and is
about the size of three ping-pong tables.
He worked for 137 days, sometimes
up to 14 hours a day, until he got to the
end. Or almost. He put together 53,999
pieces, only to find the last piece was
missing. Peter’s is a cautionary tale:
keep track of your pieces at all costs.
My family and I spend our evenings
working on jigsaws. But we only have a
month to prepare. When we get to the
Millennium Dome in Valladolid, it’s
clear we’re in the right place. The floor
is packed with hundreds
of enthusiasts. I see jigsaw
earrings, jigsaw-patterned
clothes and jigsaw tattoos.
We are shown to one of 86
tables (some countries have
multiple teams), each with
a name card and a flag. The
Turkish team consists of four
women wearing hijabs and
skirts with a multicoloured
jigsaw pattern.
‘I can’t believe it, but I’ve got
butterflies,’ my wife, Julie, says. She
starts doing stretches like she’s running
a 5K. One of the Turkish puzzlers has
her head down and hands cupped in
prayer. I say my own secular prayer to
myself: please don’t let us finish last.
We start sorting the edges and
colours. It immediately becomes clear
the monkey will be a problem – it’s the
same colour as the tree.
‘Monkeys used to be my favourite
animal,’ says Julie. ‘Don’t make me hate
you, monkeys!’ I love that Julie, once
sceptical, has fully committed. She’s
trash-talking the puzzle.
We’re making headway on the zebras,
but the elephant is troublesome. I’m
MEN’S HEALTH 93
Brain Training
paying attention to the hues. The
elephant and the rhino are both grey
but slightly different. This is a good
life lesson, I tell my sons. Life is full of
subtleties, different shades. Nothing
is black and white.
No response. I tell myself it’s because
they’re focused. At the two-hour mark,
a mini-crisis. On the carpet between
our table and the Bulgarian table, I spot
a yellow and green piece. ‘Is that your
piece?’ I ask them. ‘Not ours,’ says a
Bulgarian man with a tone that implies
‘Do we look like we’d make a rookie
mistake like that?’ I pick it up. Imagine
the Peter Schubert-like nightmare I just
dodged – a missing piece at the end.
I glance at the Bulgarians’ puzzle.
They’re close to finishing, only missing
the lake and the sky. On the other hand,
we are not close to finishing. In fact,
we’re behind every other team I can see.
At three hours and 25 minutes, we
hear a hubbub. There’s a scrum of
people around a table on the far side of
the dome. ‘What’s happening?’ I ask a
group of Canadians near our table. ‘It’s
the Russians. They’re close to finishing,’
I’m told. ‘Finishing a puzzle?’ I ask.
‘No, finishing.’ As in all four puzzles.
It hasn’t even been four hours.
The commotion builds. A short time
later, a loud cheer. Four women – three
blondes and one brunette – emerge
from the little mob. They’re in their
twenties and wearing T-shirts with
white, blue and red stripes.
They walk to the stage, ready to be
interviewed for the live-stream by the
man in the blazer.
‘Campeones del mundo!’ he says.
They are beaming. ‘That’s insane,’ my
son Jasper says. ‘How’d they do that?’
‘Just keep working,’ I say.
Every five minutes, we hear another
burst of applause. The Brazilians
finish. Then Japan. Then Mexico.
Each cheer is a knee to my ribs.
Finally, at six hours and two minutes,
we finish. Our first puzzle, that is. My
sons don’t even fight about who gets
to put in the last piece, which makes
me proud. Julie whoops and applauds.
Other tables join in, before realising
we’re only a quarter of the way through.
Later, the results are posted
on a TV screen. I jostle my
way to see it and we
are way down at the
bottom. But not the
very bottom. We
beat one of the
Spanish teams.
94 MEN’S HEALTH
TEST YOURSELF
I don’t mind being second to last.
I don’t even mind that we were beaten
by a man from Uganda who later told
me he is colour-blind but loves puzzles. Puzzles can teach
Now that’s inspiring. you how to think
It’s humiliating, yes. But we are here
with the best of the world, taking part,
creatively. Try
not spectating. During the awards the following
ceremony, the Russian team accepts five problems to
its €4,000 (around £3,330) prize
along with a jigsaw-shaped trophy. test out different
I approach the champions to mental tools for
congratulate them and ask for an
interview. Irina – one of the blonde
working on them
women – is the spokesperson.
‘Where in Russia are you from?’ I
ask. ‘Siberia,’ says Irina. Makes sense,
I think. What else is there to do in
PUZZLE 1:
Siberia? I stop myself from saying it out LOGIC PROBLEMS
loud. I’m sure they’ve heard the same This is a classic brain-teaser, origin unknown.
lame observation a thousand times.
‘What’s your secret?’ I ask. ‘I can’t SOLVE THIS RIDDLE:
tell you. It’s a secret,’ she says. Fair There’s a man in a room. He
enough. But Irina eventually relents wants to get out. The walls are
and tells me one key to success: division cement and the floor is dirt.
of labour. One of them specialises in The only openings are a locked
sorting the colours. Another in the door and a skylight. The man
edges. Yet another is master of the
has a shovel and starts to dig.
monochromatic sections – the skies,
He knows that it’s impossible
the oceans – and solves them by shape.
‘Wait a moment, please,’ Irina says.
to tunnel out but continues to
She goes off and returns with a stuffed
dig anyway. Why?
animal. Their mascot, Ivan the bear.
‘We want you to have this,’ she says. PROBLEM-SOLVING TIP: Many problems and
I may hate Vladimir Putin, with his puzzles require us to think from the opposite
corrupt election meddling and his perspective. Turn it upside down. Consider the
anti-gay policies, but this? This reverse of your first thought.
is a lovely moment of humanity. IF YOU LIKE THESE, try lateral-thinking
Jigsaw diplomacy. puzzles or books by the late Scientific
As absurd as a jigsaw-puzzle American columnist Martin Gardner.
tournament might seem, and as
badly as we performed, I enjoyed
breaking out through the skylight.
he will then climb the hill before
this experience for many reasons. SOLUTION: He’s making a hill out of dirt, and
I got to spend time with my kids, who
took a break from Nintendo Switch. I
got to see people demonstrating total
PUZZLE 2:
mastery. Watching people performing
at peak skill is inspiring, even if this WORD PLAYS
This word puzzle dates back to the 19th century.
skill isn’t prized by the International
Olympic Committee. (I later watched
a video of the Russian team solving. WHAT WORD DOES THIS COLLECTION OF
LETTERS REPRESENT?
Their hands flew around the table so
quickly, I had to check to make sure POT OOOOOOOO
the video wasn’t on double speed.)
And, finally, I felt part of a PROBLEM-SOLVING TIP: Talk it out. Even
if you’re wrestling with a puzzle alone, try
community that transcends national
speaking your potential solutions out loud.
borders. Geopolitics is a messy It activates a different part of the brain.
business. Just like many things in life,
IF YOU LIKE THESE, try rebus books or listen
the pieces don’t fit smoothly. But every to Will Shortz’s NPR puzzles online.
little bit of face-to-face interaction
helps. I believe it more than ever: is then followed by ‘eight Os’.
puzzles can help save the world.
SOLUTION: Potatoes. The word ‘Pot’, which
 THE MH PUZZLER QUIZ

PUZZLE 4:
PUZZLE 3:
CRYPTOGRAMS SUDOKUS
This puzzle is from The Art Of Sudoku, by world champion Thomas Snyder (gmpuzzles.com).
By Ben Bass, who creates The New York Times’’ cryptograms.

DECODE THIS CRYPTIC SENTENCE:

1 INSTRUCTIONS: Within the
VNWU CYMFB’I YFTNQ rows and columns are nine
2 3 4 squares (made up of three-
by-three spaces). Each row,
“JA BMW’L WAAB WM 5 6 7 2 column and square (nine
8 1 3 7 spaces each) needs to be
ABPQZLNMW” filled with numbers from one
5 2 4 9 to nine, without repeating
any numbers within the row,
N I Z I AYC - BACA Z L N W K 4 3 8 6 column or square.

ZTKPDAWL.
8 3 2 4
7 4 9
PROBLEM-SOLVING TIP: Attack the problem at its weakest point. In
the case of cryptograms like this, single-letter words are usually A or I. 5 3 2 6 8 5 1 9 7 4
If there’s a letter after an apostrophe, it’s often S. 1 8 5 9 4 7 2 3 6
7 9 4 2 6 3 8 5 1
IF YOU LIKE THESE, try recreational codes and ciphers, especially PROBLEM-SOLVING TIP: Every little bit counts. Chip away at it. If you 2 6 8 1 9 5 3 4 7

the ones in Elonka Dunin’s books. Or try to crack the Zodiac killer’s can narrow a space down to two or three possible answers, that’s still 9 4 1 3 7 8 6 2 5
5 7 3 6 2 4 1 8 9
cryptic notes. better than nine, so mark it down. 4 1 2 7 8 6 5 9 3
6 5 9 4 3 2 7 1 8
IF YOU LIKE THESE, try the dozens of other Japanese logic puzzles, 8 3 7 5 1 9 4 6 2
t need no education” is a self-defeating argument. from Tilepaint to Slitherlink, put out by the Nikoli puzzle company. SOLUTION:
SOLUTION: The sentence reads: Pink Floyd’s lyric “We don’

PUZZLE 5:
THE MH
H CROSSWORD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

by Peter Gordon (fireballcrosswords.com)

8 9 10
ACROSS DOWN

1 Pound sound 1 Band aid?

11 12
4 Degrees held by many CEOs 2 Insecure star Issa
8 Seriously injure 3 Andiron
10 Stone of Cruella 4 ‘Stronger, Better, Faster’ sloganeer 13
11 Dahlia, for example 5 Unreliable meas. whose formula has height
13 Pie (ice cream treat) squared in the denominator 14 15 16 17 18
14 British strongman 6 US physicians’ org.
nicknamed ‘the Beast’ 7 Margarita glass liner, in Mexico
19 Pirate’s booty 9 Mind-body reboot 19 20
20 One of the Great Lakes 12 Unstoppable: Harnessing Science
21 Combo fitness routine To Change The World d author Bill 21 22
23 Tall story 14 Country singer Joe
24 Holiday associated 15 ‘Yabba dabba !’
with the Grinch 16 Greek goddess of the moon 23
29 With Or Without You 17 Commit perjury
lyricist 18 Guitarist Paul 24 25 26 27 28
30 Workout syst. that 22 Part of UNLV
alternates vigorous 24 The Amazing Race network
exercise with quick 25 Short flight 29 30
recovery periods 26 Messenger (material in
31 Go across Covid-19 vaccines) 31 32
32 Like a fox 27 Be under the weather
28 Pig’s digs

PROBLEM-SOLVING TIP: Don’t get too attached to the first answer you think of. IF YOU LIKE THESE, you can do the New York Times crossword, of course. But also try
Keep your mind flexible and your beliefs probabilistic. There is no shame in pencils Peter Gordon’s fireballcrosswords.com, where the puzzles are even tougher. Or Matt
– erasers are a beautiful thing. Gaffney’s weekly contest at xwordcontest.com.
7. SAL, 9. MEDITATION, 12. NYE, 14. ELY, 15. DOO, 16. ARTEMIS, 17. LIE, 18. LES, 22. LAS, 24. CBS, 25. HOP, 26. RNA, 27. AIL, 28. STY
23. TALE, 24. CHRISTMAS, 29. BONO, 30. HIIT, 31. SPAN, 32. SLY DOWN: 1. AMP, 2. RAE, 3. FIREDOG, 4. MENSHEALTH, 5. BMI, 6. AMA,
SOLUTION: ACROSS: 1. ARF, 4. MBAS, 8. MAIM, 10. EMMA, 11. PERENNIAL, 13. EDYS, 14. EDDIEHALL, 19. LOOT, 20. ERIE, 21. YOGALATES,

MEN’S HEALTH 95
 p102

05–22

Fit At
Any Age

| 05/22
p100
97

MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |

Most of us would like to add a few years
to our lifespan. But what good is the
p106 extra time unless you can spend it doing
what you love? Follow this guide to
fortify your fitness, boost your body’s
resilience and safeguard your mental
sharpness, whatever decade you’re
in. String our experts’ tips together,
and you stand to gain five more quality
GUTTER CREDIT

years on the calendar. How you spend p101

them is up to you…

The 6
Pillars Of
A Longer,
Fitter Life
How well you age isn’t
just about luck or good
genes. Living longer
– and staying strong, Words By
agile and sharp while Marty Munson
you’re at it – is about
strategy. Here’s yours
ou already know
Y that taking better
care of your body
can improve your
quality of life. But often what
stands between knowing what to
do and actually doing it is doubt.
Seeing exactly how much each
longevity step ‘counts’ makes it
clear that, in a world where it’s
hard to find an extra five minutes,
a few small changes could buy
you an extra five years.  the particles you inhale – along
‘People have more control
over ageing than they think,’
says Keith Roach, associate
attending physician at NewYork-
Presbyterian and Weill Cornell
Medical Center. Along with
Michael Roizen, chief wellness
officer at Cleveland Clinic, he
has pioneered a way to collate
research and quantify how much
each healthy thing you do can
increase your longevity. Here are
the benefits a typical 45-year-
old man can expect to see.
05/22
Step
01
Quit Smoking
Only smoke with certain friends?
Never touch the stuff sober?
Many people still underestimate
the harm an occasional habit
can do. Smoking insults nearly
every organ you possess, so
when you relieve your body of
with nicotine and the 7,000 other
chemicals in cigarettes – the
life-lengthening benefits kick in
fast. In fact, your risk of a heart
attack drops within 24 hours.
If you’ve smoked a pack a day
for 10 years, you’re 5.6 years older
than your chronological age, but
quitting could net three years of
that time back within 12 months.
After 10 years smoke-free, you
could end up 1.3 years younger
than your chronological age. The
cumulative benefit of stubbing
out can total 6.9 years – not to
mention less time sheltering from
the rain round the back of the office.
BENEFIT:
UP TO 3.6
YEARS
Step
BENEFIT:
UP TO 6.9
02
Tear Into Good
YEARS Foods, Tear Open
Fewer Packets
For many reasons – no judgement –
the average western diet is full of red
meat and processed foods. Many of
us now get more than half of our day’s
calories from ultra-processed foods,
which include everything from pies
and cakes to fizzy drinks and sliced
ham. Processing might increase the
shelf life of foods – but it generally
does the opposite for people.
But improving your diet needn’t
be drastic. Adding just one serving
a week of both nuts and oily fish, plus
one serving a day of both fruits and
vegetables, can turn back your body
age by 2.5 years, via a healthier heart.
That doesn’t mean foregoing the
stuff you love, either. If you eat a lot
of red meat, committing to an upper
limit of 500g to 600g per week could
make you up to 1.1 years younger.

Step
03
Move, Lift And
Definitely Stretch
The benefits of exercise are tougher
to quantify – it does so many things for
so much of your body. If you start off
sedentary, even a moderate amount
of exercise buys you 1.4 years; when
you add in its effects on blood
pressure, diabetes risk, stress and
so on, you get more than double that.  Drink any more and your risk edges up.
For men who work at a desk, travel by
car and average fewer than 4,000 steps,
a daily 20-minute walk can add a year
to your life. Ten minutes of weightlifting
per week, plus half an hour of stretches,
can get you an additional 0.4 years, too.
Stretching? Yep. Basic stretches,
especially for the legs, can anti-age
arteries by making them less stiff. Try
doing five minutes of stretching six
days per week. Include posterior-chain
stretches such as toe touches and
child’s pose, then add upward-facing
dogs and calf stretches. Hold
each stretch for up
to 15 seconds, then
release and repeat.
BENEFIT:
PHOTOGRAPHY: ROWAN FEE; STUDIO 33; GETTY
UP TO 2.8
YEARS
IMAGES. ARTWORK: PETER CROWTHER
TRAINING
BENEFIT:
Step UP TO 4.2
YEARS
04
Take The
Pressure Off
‘If your blood pressure is even a little
high, getting it down is the biggest
thing you can do to turn back your
body’s age,’ says Dr Roach. Too much
pressure against your blood-vessel
walls – think fire-hose volume through
a garden hose – is hard on your arteries
and drives up your risk of heart attacks,
kidney failure and strokes. Going from
borderline high (140/90) to average
(135/85) can make your body 3.3 years
younger. Take it from average to
optimal (110/70) and you’ll gain an
additional 0.9 years.  are in your contacts, nor how busy
If you’re riding on the high side, look
at your salt intake. Not everyone’s
blood pressure is salt sensitive. But
if you cut back and if it turns out you
are salt sensitive, you could see a drop
in as little as a week.
Check your food labels (unexpected
offenders include bread, cereal and
cooked meats) and when cooking at
home, try adding punchy flavour to
your dishes via spices, herbs, garlic
and lemon juice instead.
NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE
Have Your Drink –
But Really Enjoy It
Drink to your health, by all means.
Just know your limits, says Dr Roach.
Current low-risk limits are equal to
six pints of lager or medium glasses of
wine a week, over three or more days.
| 05/22
Libations in these measures may
bring cardiovascular benefits that lower
your body’s age slightly (by about 0.1
years); a lot of that may be related to
the opportunity booze offers to socialise.
99
MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |
The less-good bit? For men, binge
drinking just one to three times per
month – five or more drinks in a sitting
– can add 3.5 years to your age. But
what use are extra years if you can’t
remember much of them anyway?
Step
06
BENEFIT:
UP TO 1.7
YEARS
Call Your Parents (Or
A Friend) This Week
Going from a low social network to an
ideal one where you enjoy frequent and
meaningful social contact can earn you
1.7 more years because of the stress-
reducing benefits to your heart.
But it’s not about how many names
your iCal is. Yancy Wright, founder of
Alternavida Leadership, a corporate-
training company, advises, ‘Make a list
of people you already know whom you
really trust. When you’re with them and
they ask how you are, say, “Do you really
want to know?” If they say yes, then
elaborate, even if you’ve had a bad day.’
Not a big talker? Do more activities
with other people – go for a hike, a bike
ride or try bouldering. ‘Being faced with
challenges, especially in nature, opens
us up,’ Wright says. So, go wild.

01
PRACTISE
FASTING
Fasting is believed to
clear out cellular debris and
renew your body’s ability
to manage insulin and fulfil
other functions. This can
reduce your risk of age-
related diseases, according
Dr Valter Longo at the
University of Southern
California. His work has
involved fasts of three days or
more, using a fast-mimicking
diet. Fasts of just 12 hours
may also extend lifespan, he
says, but likely don’t bring all
the benefits longer fasts do.
02
FIND YOUR
PURPOSE
You’ve heard it before, but
a study in JAMA Network
Open confirmed that feeling
a sense of purpose affects
longevity. Your purpose
doesn’t have to be grand,
like solving world hunger;
it simply needs to bring
you fulfilment. Community,
personal achievement, good
relationships, spirituality,
kindness – there is no
specific definition for any
one person, explains lead
study author Professor
Celeste Leigh Pearce.
CRUSH THESE TIPS
TO SQUEEZE OUT AS
MUCH TIME AS YOU CAN
03
FIGHT THE
FLAME
Inflammation ages you.
Scientists at Stanford
University School of
Medicine have even found
a way to predict your
‘inflammatory age’. (Which
has potential to provoke
some inflammatory
reactions, we’d wager.) Until
this test is readily available,
you can check inflammation
levels with an hs-CRP test
and aim to lower it with a
Mediterranean-style diet
and regular exercise.
04
UNDERSTAND
YOUR RISK
In the UK, rates of heart
disease, type-2 diabetes
and certain cancers vary
between men and women of
different ethnic backgrounds.
‘It’s important to ask your
doctor, “How does my
self-identified race affect
my longevity?”’ says Dr
Daniele Ölveczky of the
Center for Diversity, Equity
and Inclusion at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center.
Asking helps your doctor
take your life experience
into greater consideration.
 The Youth-
TRAINING NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE

05
ACTIVELY Preserving
MANAGE
STRESS 
Research indicates heavy
Protein Smoothie
Whey powder in water works fine if you’re just
stress can shorten the life
looking to stack on mass. But this breakfast-in-
expectancy of a 30-year-old
a-glass will pump up more than just your muscles CAULIFLOWER
man by 2.8 years. Beyond IS A HELPFUL
stress reducers such as (AND DAIRY-
deep breathing, exercise FREE) SOURCE
his recipe
and time spent outdoors,
Lucas Krump, co-founder of
Evryman, suggests dropping
T was crafted
by registered
dietitian Dezi Abeyta,
OF CALCIUM

the mask – the work mask,

the dad mask – that is author of The Lose Your
Gut Guide. ‘Beyond

holding something back.
‘Be the full version of
yourself and shit gets
way easier,’ he says.
06
TAKE SLEEP
| 05/22
muscle building, shakes
are also a great way to
get in nutrients that men
are commonly deficient
in: vitamin D, probiotics, 101
calcium and fibre.’ This

MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |

SERIOUSLY
Sleep needs might be
individual, but there are
broad patterns worth paying
attention to. An analysis of
1,654 adults published in the
Journal Of The American
Heart Association linked
sleeping less than six hours
a night with a worryingly
higher mortality risk for
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE VOORHES; CHRISTOPHER TESTANI. FOOD STYLING: JAMIE KIMM. PROP STYLING: PAIGE HICKS
simple – but unexpectedly
delicious – smoothie is
an easy way to squeeze
them in and restore you
to your prime. The 66g
of muscle-preserving
protein? Consider that ICELANDIC
a bonus. Bottoms up. YOGHURT IS HIGH
IN PROBIOTICS, 150G OF
LINKED TO BLUEBERRIES
BETTER GUT CONTAINS ABOUT
THE CREAMY HEALTH 4G OF FIBRE, AND
BLUEBERRY DELUXE IS CHOCK FULL OF

those with hypertension BRAIN-BOOSTING

or diabetes – both of which WHAT YOU’LL NEED: ANTIOXIDANTS
are increasingly common • 150G FROZEN
in middle-aged men. BLUEBERRIES
• 150G FROZEN
07 CAULIFLOWER
• 1 (150G) CONTAINER OF
PAY CLOSE VANILLA OR BLUEBERRY
ATTENTION ICELANDIC YOGHURT

TO CHANGES • 30G VANILLA

PROTEIN POWDER
Colorectal-cancer rates • 1 TBSP CHIA SEEDS
are rising among people 1 TBSP OF CHIA
• JUICE OF A LEMON
under 50. Guidelines say SEEDS CONTAINS
• 240ML SEMI- ABOUT 5G OF
you should start screening SKIMMED MILK
at age 45 or earlier if you FIBRE 240ML OF MILK
PER SHAKE: 651 CALS, HAS 25% OF
have a family history. At 66G PROTEIN, 65G CARBS YOUR DAILY
any age, see a doctor if (10G FIBRE), 15G FAT RECOMMENDED
you have changes in DOSE OF
bowel habits, blood in your IMMUNITY-AIDING
stool, abdominal pain or VITAMIN D
unexplained weight loss.
 05/22
Eat For LUNCH

Longevity
(Without Giving Up
The Stuff That Makes
Life Worthwhile)
You know certain foods lower
cholesterol, fight disease and help
your heart. But making them fun Words By
and appealing? That’s a challenge. Paul Kita
Follow this guide to fill your diet
with flavour for the long haul

The Fully Loaded
Oatmeal Bowl WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• 45G ROLLED OATS
Oats are a good source of fibre and great for extending • 1 SCOOP VANILLA
the life of a healthy heart, but they have minimal protein, PROTEIN POWDER
which helps you maintain muscle as you age. So reinforce • 2 TBSP WHIPPING CREAM
oatmeal with protein powder and pile on fruit to further • 1 TSP VANILLA EXTRACT
ratchet up the disease-fighting antioxidants. • ½ MANGO, SLICED
• ½ STAR FRUIT, SLICED
• 80G PINEAPPLE, CUBED
• 2 TBSP POMEGRANATE SEEDS
• 2 TBSP UNSWEETENED
Better-Than-
Chicken Salad
The antioxidants in greens defend
against life-shortening diseases –
but who really likes grilled chicken
on iceberg? Replace the bird with
a grillable cheese and trade the feeble
leaves of ’berg for a mound of fresh
greens. You’re on to a winner.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• 225G HALLOUMI, • 1 AVOCADO, PITTED
CUT INTO ¼ SLABS AND SLICED

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOPHER TESTANI. FOOD STYLING: JAMIE KIMM. PROP STYLING: PAIGE HICKS
COCONUT FLAKES • LEAVES FROM 1 • 1 HEAD
• MINT LEAVES, TORN HEAD RADICCHIO, WATERCRESS,
CORED AND CHOPPED
HOW TO MAKE IT QUARTERED (ABOUT 70G)
01/ In a bowl, mix the oats with • LEAVES FROM • 170G RASPBERRIES
250ml water and a pinch 2 HEADS • 1 TBSP POPPY
of salt. Microwave for 2 BELGIAN ENDIVE SEEDS
and a half mins.
02/ Stir in the protein powder, HOW TO MAKE IT
cream and vanilla extract, 01/ Grill the halloumi on a hot, well-oiled
then top with the remaining grill or a pan on a medium-high heat,
ingredients. Feeds 1 about 3 mins per side.
02/ On a large plate, add the radicchio,
PER SERVING: 646 CALS, endive, avocado and watercress. Top
34G PROTEIN, 72G CARBS with the halloumi, raspberries and
(10G FIBRE), 24G FAT poppy seeds. Feeds 2

BREAKFAST PER SERVING: 568 CALS, 25G PROTEIN,

26G CARBS (14G FIBRE), 58G FAT

Wild Salmon Burgers
Salmon is hit and miss because it’s so easy to overcook. Avoid all that sadness by treating it
as you would minced beef. Make patties, sear them and top with all the trimmings. Not a bad way
to eat your omega-3s, and having a high intake of the nutrients may increase your life expectancy
by almost five years, according to a 2021 study in The American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• 450G SKINLESS SALMON,
FINELY CHOPPED
• 65G PANKO BREADCRUMBS
• 1 EGG
• 2 SPRING ONIONS, MINCED
• 1 TSP SOYA SAUCE
• 1 TSP FISH SAUCE
• ½ TBSP RAPESEED OIL,
PLUS 1 TBSP
• 60G WHOLE GREEK YOGHURT
• ½ LEMON, JUICED
• 2 TBSP DILL PICKLES, MINCED
• 1 TBSP CHOPPED DILL
• CUCUMBER, THINLY SLICED,
AND ALFALFA SPROUTS, FOR
GARNISH
• 4 LARGE SESAME-SEED
BURGER BUNS
HOW TO MAKE IT
01/ In a large bowl, add the
salmon, panko, egg, spring
onions, soya sauce, fish
sauce and ½ tbsp of oil. Mix
the ingredients with your
hands and shape 4 patties,
about 2.5cm thick. Place
them in the fridge for at
least 10 mins to firm up.
02/ In a small bowl, mix the
yoghurt, lemon juice, pickles,
dill and a big pinch of salt.
Refrigerate.
03/ In a large non-stick
pan, heat 1 tbsp of oil over
a medium-high heat. Add
TRAINING
the patties and cook until
browned, about 3 to 4 mins
per side. (Note: the inside
of the patties may be
medium-rare. That’s okay.)
04/ To assemble, place a
patty on the bottom half of
a bun. Top with a spoonful
of the yoghurt mixture, a few
cucumber slices and some
sprouts. Close the bun.
Repeat with the remaining
ingredients. Feeds 4
PER SERVING: 468 CALS,
32G PROTEIN, 31G CARBS
(2G FIBRE), 23G FAT
DINNER
NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE
UPGRADE
YOUR CHIPS
AVOCADO FRIES
Cut 2 not-quite-ripe avocados
into 1cm-thick wedges. Working
with a few wedges at a time,
coat them in 130g of seasoned
flour, 2 whisked eggs and
130g of panko breadcrumbs.
Bake at 180°C for 20 mins,
flipping halfway, on a well-
sprayed baking tray (ideally
fitted with a rack) until
they’re golden brown.
GREEN BEAN FRIES
| 05/22
Trim 225g of green beans.
Working with a few beans at
a time, coat them in 130g of
seasoned flour, 2 whisked eggs
and 130g of panko. As before,
bake them at 180°C for 20 103
mins, turning them over on
MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |
a well-sprayed baking tray
(use the rack again), until
they’re golden brown.
SWEET POTATO FRIES
Cut 1 medium sweet potato
into long ½cm-thick strips.
Bake at 200°C for 15 to 20
mins, depending on whether
you like a softer or crispier
fry, on a well-sprayed baking
tray, flipping halfway through.

Build A Body For
The Long Run
Use this elite Marine’s fitness tips (plus
the latest longevity science) to power
up your strength and cardio workouts
for benefits that will last for life
01
A as Galvin does to gain the life-
05/22
T he older we get, the busier
we often find ourselves,
especially in our late forties.
That’s when ageing starts to strip our
bodies of the muscle that protects us
in old age and when work demands
and family responsibilities gnaw away
at our time. US Marine Corps Colonel
Joseph Galvin, 49, wrestles with this
very dilemma every day. As a judge
Words By advocate, he’s often working on-base
Ben Court at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina
from around 7am to 6pm, and he’s
married with two energetic sons, so
even his downtime is active. Galvin
created a 14-hour-a-week regimen
that keeps him in great shape: he’s
the captain of the All-Marine Triathlon
Team and has earned a perfect score
on the Marine Corps Physical Fitness
Test (PFT) for 25 years in a row. His
most recent results: 24 pull-ups
without a rest, 167 crunches in two
minutes and a three-mile run in 17
minutes and six seconds. The good
news is that recent research reveals
you don’t have to train as intensely
extending benefits of strength work
and aerobic training. But there’s still
a lot to learn from the colonel.
BE SURE TO TEST
YOURSELF OFTEN
Taking an annual strength and cardio
test like the PFT enables you to track
your fitness. If, like Galvin, you’re
training in a group with people half
your age, even better – you’ll have
more motivation to push yourself.
LET’S GO! The PFT includes options.
(The maximum/minimum scoring
ranges for men are noted.)
01/ Max with good form: pull-ups
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS CORPORAL ERIC A RAMIREZ
(23/3) or press-ups (87/20)
02/ 2 mins of crunches (115/40)
or a plank (3 mins, 45 secs/
1 min, 10 secs)
03/ A 3-mile run (≤18 mins/33 mins)
or a 5k row (≤18 mins/26 mins)
REDLINE IT,
SOMETIMES
Galvin competes in both Olympic-
length triathlons and Half Ironmans
and typically runs, swims or bikes for
about an hour a day, starting at
4.45am. He alternates steady sessions
with high-intensity intervals and does
a longer session on the weekend. The
benefits of cardio for longevity are

03
03
02
well-documented. Research from the
Cooper Institute in Texas established
that a man’s midlife fitness, measured
by his one-mile completion time, is
a strong predictor of long-term heart
health. Aim for a time of under eight
minutes. Other research is adding
unexpected insights. A study in the
Journal Of The American College Of
Cardiology followed more than 55,000
04
adults over a 15-year period and found
that, compared with non-runners,
people who run had a 45% reduced
risk of death from a heart attack or
stroke, as well as a 30% reduced risk
of death from any other cause.
What’s surprising, says Stuart
Phillips, a professor of kinesiology
at McMaster University who
specialises in longevity, is that the
data showed that you actually get
a lot of the health benefits if you run
for only about 50 minutes a week. It’s
smart to use some of that time doing
high-intensity work. In a Mayo Clinic
study, researchers found that
high-intensity aerobic intervals are
particularly good at helping your
body slow ageing. Intervals boost
your mitochondrial function, which
declines with age, and give your
muscle cells vigour. In the study,
TRAINING
people did four rounds of four-minute
maximum intensity on a spin bike,
with three minutes of active recovery.
LET’S GO! Do at least 90 minutes of
cardio per week and vary the intensity
from sessions where you can talk
while you’re exercising to intervals
where you’re out of breath.
FORTIFY YOUR
BODY ARMOUR
Galvin typically does 10 minutes of
core work before his cardio every
day and a 30-minute strength circuit
after. Historically, researchers
believed that cardio was more valuable
than strength training for health span,
but now the two are seen as equally
important and complementary,
NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE
| 05/22
01-04 COLONEL JOSEPH GALVIN HAS
NOTCHED A PERFECT SCORE ON THE 105
MARINE CORPS PHYSICAL FITNESS
MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |
TEST FOR 25 YEARS IN A ROW
explains Professor Phillips. ‘The list
of diseases for which being stronger is
a preventive measure includes
metabolic syndrome, heart disease,
cancer, anxiety and depression,’ he
says. One measure of strength that’s
associated with longer life is the
number of press-ups you can do
without stopping. A JAMA Network
Open study revealed that people
who could do more than 40 were
96% less likely to suffer a
cardiovascular-disease event
over the next 10 years than those
who couldn’t manage 10. ‘Press-ups
test your strength in relation to your
weight and so are a good indicator
of your physical condition,’ explains
the study’s co-author Justin Yang,
assistant professor of medicine at
Boston University.
LET’S GO! Two 30- to 45-minute
strength sessions per week are
enough to extend your health span,
says Professor Phillips. But for the
greatest benefit, aim to do three or
four. Doing regular work that targets
your abs is critical because a strong
core improves your stability. One
of Galvin’s favourite core circuits
is plank, crunches, lying leg lifts,
side crunches and Russian twists;
do 1 min of each for 2 rounds.
 05/22
03/ MOBILITY

The Age-Beating
Fitness Challenge
These four mini fitness challenges are your secret
weapon against time’s assault on your speed,
Words By
strength, balance and mobility. Each one highlights
Ebenezer Samuel
a basic function that you’ll want to maintain – and
can still make major gains in as the years roll on

01/ SPEED 02/ BALANCE

01 02 03
THE 8FT UP- THE SOCK THE SHOE
AND-GO TEST CHALLENGE GET-UP TEST
As you age, you FIX IT: If you took The older you FIX IT: If you Muscle FIX IT: If the shoe
can lose quad, longer, try these get, the more your lurch or tip over, imbalances can falls, try these.
hamstring and two exercises. ability to keep it’s time for work. limit your reach Hip mobility: Sit
glute strength. Leg strength: your balance Muscle stability: and rotation. Test down, with 90-
To test your Work on the can decline. Gain The muscles in by lying on the degree angles at
nimbleness, get a tempo body- stability with this your feet, knees, floor, right hand both knees and
chair and place a weight squat, simple test: stand hips and abs are over your right your hips and abs
cone 8ft away. Sit taking 3 secs to on your right foot likely struggling shoulder in a fist. tight. Shift your
down. Get a friend lower your thighs with a sock close to work together. Have a friend put hips from side to
ILLUSTRATIONS: GUILHERME HENRIQUE. PHOTOGRAPHY:

to time you as you until parallel to by. Without using Try standing a shoe on your side for 45 secs.
stand, walk (don’t the floor. Pause, anything for barefoot on a knuckles. Lean up Do 3 sets daily.
GETTY IMAGES; JEFFREY WESTBROOK (SHOES)

run) to the cone then stand. Do 3 balance or letting pillow with your on your forearm, Shoulder
and around it, sets of 10 reps 4 your left foot right foot and lift then prop up on mobility: Hold a
then return to times weekly. touch the floor, your left up, knee your left hand. Lift kettlebell up in
your chair and sit Foot strength: pick up the sock high in the air. your hips, thread your right hand.
down. Your goal: Your foot muscles and put it on your Close your eyes. your left leg back Put your left hand
finish in less than may need some left foot. Repeat Hold this for 45 so your shin is on your ribs, walk
5.6 seconds, TLC: walk on your on the other side, secs. Do 3 sets on the floor, and 20 steps. Repeat
which most tiptoes for 2 45- trying to be as per side daily. Too stand. Reverse to this on the other
healthy men sec sets. Repeat smooth as easy? Swing your lie down. Repeat side. Do 3 sets
over 60 can do. 4 times weekly. possible. arms as if running. on the other side. 3 times a week.
 TRAINING NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE

Bulk Up Your Brainpower

Mental muscle matters, too. There’s a lot of research on what makes your brain
work – and work better. Science writer Emily Willingham, author of The Tailored
Brain, plots how much of a pay-off you can really get with different efforts

VERY BENEFICIAL

EDUCATION
SOCIAL
INTERACTION

PHYSICAL
ACTIVITY
DUAL N-BACK TEST
NOT HAVING MONEY
04/ STRENGTH WORRIES

| 05/22
CURIOSITY

NEURO FEEDBACK
TO ENHANCE SPECIFIC
MINDFULNESS BRAIN WAVES 107
CAFFEINE

VERY HARD
VERY EASY

MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |

HOME
TRANSCRANIAL DIRECT
CURRENT STIMULATION
DEVICES

L O N E R MICRODOSING
S L A N T PSILOCYBIN (NOTE:
NOT ACTUALLY LEGAL)
P L A N K

BRAIN GAMES

DUAL N-BACK TEST

04
THE DEAD-HANG
SHOWDOWN SUPPLEMENTS
CHESS
After middle FIX IT: Let go
age, your grip early? Try these. NOT VERY BENEFICIAL
HELPS MEMORY
strength steadily Back strength:
erodes each year, Do Superman
Key Takeaways HELPS THINKING ABILITY

and that can hurt holds on your

your ability to belly. Lift your Pique Your Dose Wisely See What Your Get Present
do basic things. thighs and Interest Taking microdoses of Brain Is Doing Mindfulness practices
Curiosity may offer psychedelics such as It’s not a DIY thing in many forms – from
Assess your grip squeeze your psilocybin – the active a moment of focus on
memory benefits, – hence its higher
(and full-body) shoulders as you especially when compound in ‘magic difficulty rating above. your breath to longer
strength with the lift your arms. wondering why a piece mushrooms’ – has been But you can work with exercises – can help
dead hang. Find Pause for 2 secs. of information seems shown, in clinical trials, a neurofeedback or your mind work better.
a pull-up bar, Do 30 reps daily. weird or why you might to benefit those with biofeedback expert, They may increase
grasp it with an Grip strength: be wrong about things. certain mental health who will hook you up to connections between
Searching for and concerns. Less is known electrodes and a visual neural networks and
overhand grip, Wrap a towel about its impact on boost brain waves
finding information readout. Then you
tighten your around a DB for revs your brain’s reward cognition and memory. carry out different related to working
shoulder blades curls. Bend only circuits, satisfying your It’s illegal to possess activities to target memory, possibly by
and abs, and your elbows and curiosity and creating or prescribe in the UK... the brain waves that helping to eliminate
hang for as long keep your palms a memory. for now, at least. enhance memory. rumination and stress.
as possible. Your facing each other.
goal: to hang for Do 3 sets of 10
at least 90 secs. 4 times weekly.

Why It’s
Never Too
Late To
Start Lifting
Strength training isn’t all about
shirt-straining biceps and
show-off PBs – it can dramatically
improve your quality of life in
countless ways. Even if you
start when you’re 70...
s we age, our muscle mass
A declines, but sticking to –
or even starting – a weight-
training regimen can help prevent all
that. Just take Ray Fougnier, who at
age 70 was working out at a community
centre when another lifter told him he
would ‘kick ass’ at powerlifting. Fougnier
laughs. He’s a little uncomfortable with
the swearing – he’s a teacher at heart,
clean-cut and soft-spoken, joining via
Zoom from his home in Michigan. But
on a whim, he signed up for a statewide
event just a couple months away.
Fougnier won his age group. Then
he won nationals and found himself
on ‘a bit of an adventure’ at the world
championships in South Africa. Eight
years later, he’s broken more than a
hundred world records and was named
the Amateur Athletic Union Male Athlete
of the Year in 2018 and 2020. Those
feats would be impressive for a man half
his age, and he’s proud of them – behind
him, his wall is covered with medals.
Fougnier is also representing his
people, wearing an Oneida Indian
Nation (OIN) T-shirt. His nation’s seal is
heavy with meaning: each clan – turtle,
wolf and bear – is displayed in the great
white pine, the tree of peace. As we
talk, he explains that he’s a member
of Wolf Clan, a lineage of ‘pathfinders’
who historically guided others towards
more fulfilling lives, a role that’s been
made considerably more challenging
05/22
01
Words By
Terese Marie
Mailhot
for a community that was forcefully
displaced many generations ago. When
Fougnier was a child, there was little
land left for them. He grew up in a
suburb of Syracuse, New York. Tribal
ownership had gone from 300,000
acres in 1794 to just 32 acres by 1919.
‘There was very little opportunity
on the reservation,’ he says.
Today, the OIN has regained more
than 18,000 acres of its original lands 02
and considers Fougnier to be a modern
role model to its people. ‘We are
PHOTOGRAPHY: JAROD LEW. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY AAU STRENGTH SPORTS. ILLUSTRATION:
inspired by his rugged determination,
ANDREA MANZATI AT SYNERGY ART. TERESE MARIE MAILHOT IS AUTHOR OF HEART BERRIES: A MEMOIR
which embodies the underlying values
of our Nation,’ says Ray Halbritter,
the representative for the OIN and the
CEO of its enterprises, who calls me
separately to talk about his friend.
‘Elders play a very important role in
Native culture. Ray has followed in the
tradition of our ancestors and served
as an example for our younger
generations – not through just words
but through his actions.’
Those actions started long before
Fougnier began competing. He went to
Harvard in the early 1980s, when there
were few Native Americans enrolled
there. He became the inaugural
director of Cornell’s American Indian
and Indigenous Studies Program, where
he was in charge of reshaping how the
school lectured about indigenous history
and advised a group that established
a museum of Indian culture. He later

03
worked as a schoolteacher while
helping the OIN reclaim land through
legal claims and settlements.
Fougnier always prioritised working
out and maintaining a healthy diet,
especially after seeing his parents
struggle with health issues. ‘My mother
was diabetic,’ he says. ‘She had
complications, and her retirement was
not a good one. She was sick most of the
time until she passed. My father was a
cancer victim. He retired at 65 and had
a lot of plans, but he was sick the whole
year and died at 66. I made a vow that
I did not want that to happen to me.’
Fougnier is aware that having a hard
and short life is a far too common theme
among indigenous people. His
community face lower life expectancies
than most due to the long colonial
history of genocide,
Fougnier has subjugation and
the ways in which
broken more indigenous people
than a hundred are discriminated
against, forgotten
world records and underserved
in medicine,
housing, justice and social work.
Competitive powerlifting keeps his
mind on his health. He was a recreational
lifter in his youth but focused on the
squat, deadlift and bench press after
being nudged by that fellow lifter.
Fougnier stays motivated by the idea
of beating his own records year after
year. He trains six days a week, mixing
three days of lifting and stretching
with three days of cardio and
TRAINING NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE
01-03 FOUGNIER’S ADVICE FOR
TRULY GOLDEN YEARS: ‘STAY
ACTIVE,’ HE SAYS. ‘IT DOESN’T
HAVE TO BE WEIGHTLIFTING. BE
CONSISTENT. STAY WITH IT. DON’T
BECOME A COUCH POTATO.’
04 FOUGNIER COMPETES AT
| 05/22
THE AMATEUR ATHLETIC
UNION WORLD POWERLIFTING
CHAMPIONSHIPS IN LAS VEGAS
04 LEVEL UP 109
THE THREE
BIG LIFTS
MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |
Powerlifting revolves around
three key barbell lifts: bench
press, back squat and deadlift.
Use these tips to progress faster
BACK IT UP
stretching. The workouts last up to Bench-pressing is all about
two and a half hours, and he increases creating tension. Instead of lying
resistance leading up to an event. with a flat back, take a moment to
‘screw’ your shoulders into place,
Last April, Fougnier set a career best allowing for an arch between
and world record for his age group by your lower back and the bench.
squatting 135kg, benching 90kg and
deadlifting 195kg. That’s 420kg (926lb)
in total, putting him within striking
distance of the 1,000 Pound Club,
which he’ll have a shot at during an
international competition this month. ‘I
EYES ON THE PRIZE
guess I’m the kind of person that if I say
As you stand from the bottom
of a back squat, try to keep your
something, I’m going to do it,’ he says.
He hopes to keep inspiring his kids
gaze straight ahead to keep your
spine neutral. Looking up can
and grandkids, and some days that feels
easy. ‘I wake up feeling good and I have a
cause you to overextend your
spine and overarch your back.
better outlook on life, so it is motivating.
There are times I’ve walked out of a gym
and I just said, “Ahh, this is great.”’
At the same time, he’s open to more
inspiration. ‘There was a guy at one IT’S ALL IN THE HIPS
The key to a strong and safe
event I went to. He was walking around
deadlift is in your hip hinge.
with a T-shirt that said ‘world’s Make your glutes and hamstrings
strongest old man’. I got to talking do the bulk of the work for your
to him and he was 95 years old, and pull, and make sure you’re
I said, “I want to do that.”’ He respects keeping your hips lower than
the power of the elders. your shoulders on each rep.
TRAINING NUTRITION ADVICE KNOWLEDGE
 05/22
Look Your Best
At Every Age
Struggling to recapture the youthful
complexion of your earlier years is a
fool’s errand. The smarter move is to Words By
work with your skin to realise the Garrett Munce
healthiest-looking version of you, no
matter what decade of life you’re in

| 05/22
en hit the jackpot 
The Best Skin
M when it comes to
ageing. Compared
with women, we Savers For 111
have a thicker epidermis with
Every Decade

MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |

more oil glands, which means
our skin is durable. Then,
when wrinkles do emerge, they
supposedly give us ruggedness
In your
and wisdom. All that said, most
of us have had a ‘damn, I look
old’ moment after a rough
week or poor night’s sleep.
Reframe that thinking.
20s
IF YOU USE ONE
PRODUCT, MAKE IT:
IF YOU SEEK OUT
ONE TREATMENT, TRY:
‘Getting older is a blessing Retinol Radio-
we take for granted,’ says Paul
Jarrod Frank, a cosmetic
This derivative of vitamin
A helps to regulate the
Frequency
dermatologist and the author turnover of cells, which Microneedling
targets almost every skin This dermatologist-provided
of The Pro-Aging Playbook. issue. ‘Not only does it process combines heat with
‘Anti-ageing makes it seem like help to start the process of tiny needles that create
getting older is a bad thing. saving collagen and helping micro-injuries in your
Pro-ageing is about perspective.’ control acne breakouts and skin. Sure, it might sound
keep your skin even, but scary, but it’s beneficial.
That means giving your skin
it also sets you up for Microneedling helps your
what it needs now to avoid preventing wrinkles in the skin regenerate, says Dr
the need for more intensive future,’ says dermatologist Hartman. The treatment
treatments later. Think of this and Men’s Health adviser is especially effective at
approach as an exercise routine Corey Hartman. removing acne scars if
Our pick: La Roche-Posay you’re coming off years of
for your integumentary system Retinol B3 Serum, £38 teenage pimple popping.
(that’s your hair, skin, nails and
glands). Good habits keep you DR FRANK’S PRO-AGEING TIP ‘If you can introduce a habit in
healthy in the long run. Here are your twenties, you have a much better chance of sticking to
the best ways to build them, with it. Choose one thing: a good moisturiser or daily sunscreen.
only the necessary amount of It doesn’t matter what it is; it’s about forming a good habit.’
hassle. Stress, after all, ages you.
 In your
30s 40s 50s
IF YOU USE ONE
PRODUCT, MAKE IT:
Antioxidant
Serum
‘Collagen production takes
a nosedive in your thirties
and the effects of the sun
start to become apparent,’
says Dr Hartman. Applying
an antioxidant-rich serum
or cream in the morning
protects you. A product with
vitamin C, vitamin E and/or
niacinamide helps prevent
| 05/22
sagging, sun damage and
pigment issues.
Our pick: Paula’s Choice
Resist Super Antioxidant
112 Concentrate Serum, £36
MH | FIT AT ANY AGE |
IF YOU SEEK OUT
ONE TREATMENT, TRY:
Botox
‘A touch of a neuromodulator
such as Botox in your
thirties can help prevent
fine lines and wrinkles, like
crow’s feet, from getting
etched in,’ says Dr Hartman.
Small amounts of Botox
won’t completely block
wrinkles, but they will
prevent them from setting
in deep. If you’re ready,
ask your dermatologist
for a consultation.
DR FRANK’S PRO-AGEING TIP
‘Alcohol consumption is the
worst thing for the ageing
process. As much as I love
a martini, if you want to age
better, cut down on booze
in your thirties.’
In your
IF YOU USE ONE
PRODUCT, MAKE IT:
Hyaluronic
Acid
Hormonal changes in this
decade can affect your
skin’s oil production, which
can make it look drier and
less than healthy. ‘Add in
more moisturising products
to fortify your skin with
hydration,’ says Dr Hartman.
‘Hyaluronic acid will add
water content. Then use
a moisturiser to seal it in.’
Our pick: Vichy Minéral 89
Fortifying And Plumping
Daily Booster, £25
IF YOU SEEK OUT
ONE TREATMENT, TRY:
Filler
‘A little filler in the tear
troughs and cheek can
go a long way towards
making you look more
rested and rejuvenated,’
explains dermatologist
Evan Rieder. Even just a
little bit can make you look
like you had a great night’s
sleep. Find a dermatologist
or plastic surgeon with
plenty of experience
working with men.
DR FRANK’S PRO-AGEING TIP
‘People often underestimate
the amount of sleep they
need. Sleep regulates all
the biological functions
of production in the body,
including collagen and
other vital hormones for
healthy ageing.’
In your
IF YOU USE ONE
PRODUCT, MAKE IT:
A Heavy-Duty
Moisturiser
Collagen and oil production
continue to decrease as
you get older and ‘this is
when a lot of sun damage
really starts to settle’,
says Dr Hartman. ‘Use a
moisturiser with ceramides
and peptides to help.’
Our pick: The Inkey List
Peptide Moisturizer, £14.99
IF YOU SEEK OUT
ONE TREATMENT, TRY:
Spot-Fading
Treatments
‘Age 50 and beyond is when
we start looking at correction
of pigment from sun damage,’
says Dr Hartman. Intense
pulsed light and broadband
light treatments provided by
a dermatologist can help to
erase brown and red spots
and broken capillaries.
DR FRANK’S PRO-AGEING TIP
‘Levels of hormones such
as testosterone and
progesterone decrease in
our bodies over time, and
this can affect our skin
through loss of collagen,
thinness of the skin and poor
healing. Exercise is one of
the primary boosters of
these natural hormones.’
The Single
Best Product
To Use At
Any Age
Sunscreen
Sun damage is a factor
in all skin ageing, no matter
your age or skintone. ‘Any
sort of sun exposure can
turn into skin cancer down
the line, but it can also
turn into sunspots and
degenerate collagen,
which is how you get
wrinkly skin,’ says Dr
Rieder. Use a broad-
spectrum, high-SPF (at
least 30) sunscreen every
day as your last skincare
step. And it’s never too
late to start using it.
Our pick: Supergoop!
Unseen Sunscreen, £15
I LOOK TIRED
ALL THE TIME,
EVEN AFTER
A FULL SEVEN
PHOTOGRAPHY: FREDRIK BRODEN. STYLING: LAUREN GALYEAN. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAMY
HOURS’ KIP.
WHY IS THAT?
‘It’s all about the
eyes. Eye skin is
unforgiving because it’s
thin. Eye cream can be
helpful, but it’s a small piece
of the puzzle. There are
four other things you can
do. Platelet-rich plasma
(PRP) can have rejuvenating
effects when injected into
eyelid skin. Microinjections
of Botox can help smooth
out wrinkles. Lasers can
help break down any dark
pigment. And then there’s
blepharoplasty, a surgical
process to remove excess
skin around the eyes.’
Dermatologist Evan Rieder
 THE BIG
WORKOUT
P118
CIRCUITS FOR
BURNING
& BUILDING

JUNK OR
SCIENCE? P126
THE GADGET THAT CLAIMS
TO HACK YOUR METABOLISM

STACKED LUNCH
P124
SUPERSIZED
GYM FUEL

SUPPLEMENT
CHECK P117
PUTTING IRON’S
METTLE TO THE TEST

THE
FINISHER
P129
END YOUR
WORKOUT WITH
A SERIOUS PUMP

MASTERY MATRIX P123

PILGRIM DISCIPLE MONK MASTER
 PT – 05/22 A TEST OF METAL

START

01
THE CLAIM
Supplement makers imply that
iron oxygenates your red blood
cells and that taking more iron
will bring in more oxygen. This
effect, these companies say,
helps prevent anaemia, a blood
disorder that can cause fatigue
and is common in athletes. And
even if you don’t have anaemia,
some iron supplements sell
themselves with a workout
angle: good blood flow means
bigger gym gains.
SUPPLEMENT CHECK
02
WHAT’S TRUE
SHOULD YOU
Consuming iron can prevent
and treat iron-deficiency
anaemia – and doctors may
recommend iron supplements
PUMP IRON?
Many people claim this
to increase your level. Your mineral not only boosts
body may use more iron during energy and immunity, but
vigorous aerobic training,
especially if you train most can help you get swole, too.
days of the week for an Here’s the expert verdict
hour or more, says Diane M
DellaValle, associate professor
and research nutritionist at
King’s College in the US.

04
03
WHAT’S BOGUS
YOUR TAKEAWAY
If you’re a hardcore athlete
or experiencing dizziness or
FINISH

extreme fatigue, have your

Iron supplements won’t
enhance muscles or improve
workouts. Most men get the
recommended 8.7mg of iron
daily, says Professor DellaValle.
(Fortified breakfast cereals
have about 17mg per 50g
CAN SUPPLEMENTS serving.) So the megadoses in
TURN YOU INTO A
REAL-LIFE IRON MAN?
iron supps are kind of useless.
Your body has a natural iron
WORDS: MILAN POLK. PHOTOGRAPHY: SHUTTERSTOCK
doctor run a blood test for
low iron. If you do have iron-
deficiency anaemia, your
doc may prescribe an iron
supplement, but ask how you
can change your diet, too. It’s
not like the food prescription
is bad – beef, oysters, dark
chocolate, chickpeas, potatoes,
and cashews are all good (and

shut-off that prevents overload, tasty) sources of iron.

unless you have a disorder such
as haemochromatosis.

Lots of athletes say they chug

250ml of cold water right after
they wake up to help their Water does it all: boosts exercise
TEXT A… DIETITIAN
metabolism. Is there any But hydration tho? performance, function,
truth to this? Tbh, whether it’s , or energy levels and even helps you
This month, Dezi
the famed , the serving . Drink it in the , but also all
Abeyta, a Men’s Health
temperature has a minimal day long, even if it doesn’t have
nutrition adviser, is
effect on your metabolism. magic metabolism powers.
on the chain

MEN’S HEALTH 117

PT – 05/22

THIS MONTH’S HOT CIRCUIT

BURN AND BUILD WITH 01B

ZERO COMPROMISE
There’s no shame in wanting to shape up for the
warmer months. This three-part plan delivers
serious calorie-scorching results and will build
strength and size exactly where you want it

With summer slowly Our specially

edging its way over devised circuits are
the horizon, we’d designed to build
wager many of you serious muscle, stoke
are flirting with the the flames of your
idea of a strategic metabolic engine into
calorie cut, an effort a white-hot frenzy
to lose a few layers of and make use of
winter fuzz before the any lingering winter
hotter months really appetites (hey,
get going. After all, carbs are nothing
you’ve been putting but energy, after all). 01A
in the gym hours Divvied up across

ABENA OFEI. GROOMING: NAT SCHMITT USING CLARINS SKINCARE. MODEL WEARS: PANTS, MRPORTER.COM; SHOES. REEBOK.CO.UK
PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: CALLUM TRACEY. MODEL: JORDAN DUVIGNEAU AT W MODEL. STYLING:
since January – your three sessions – a
muscle-building day focused on your
foundations are ‘pressing’ muscles,
already in place, and a day for the ‘pulling’
trimming the fat will muscles of your back
simply render those and a day dedicated
hard-earned gains in solely to your legs –
high definition. Right? you’ll work your entire
Well, before your body with
shift into shred-mode, a mixture of heavy
we’d like to put forward
a different approach.
weights, explosive
movements and 01
BARBELL PUSH PRESS DUMBBELL
02
Consider balancing high-rep burnouts,
these twin goals with all rolled together 5 REPS BENCH PRESS
a programme that into stamina-sapping Eat the big frog first with 10 REPS
offers a final swing at circuits. In other a heavyweight shoulder Performing this one with
packing on lean mass, words? These clever builder. Clean a barbell on to dumbbells leads to a bigger
while simultaneously workouts tick all boxes. your shoulders or take it from range of motion and a great
tuning up your Consider this month a rack and brace your core chance of growth. Lie on
cardiovascular engine a welcome bridge (A). Dip at the knees and a bench and press a pair
ahead of the sun- between the winter drive from your legs to help of dumbbells into the air,
drenched sweat press your barbell overhead, locking your elbows (A).
bulk and the summer locking out your arms (B).
sessions you’ll no cut. Or, if you’d Lower the bells slowly until
Lower under control to your they touch your chest (B).
doubt be diving into rather, just a little bit shoulders, and repeat.
come June. of fun. It’s up to you. Pause before explosively
pressing back up.

118 MEN’S HEALTH

 YOUR SUMMER TUNE-UP

WORKOUT #01 A HARD PUSH

This ‘push’ session is
focused on the pressing
03B muscles of the upper body
(chest, shoulders and
triceps), while delivering an
ab-torching blow to your
midriff. It’s a blend of heavy
strength-builders and high-
rep burners. Do the circuit
as many times as possible
in 30 mins, resting at the
end of each round until
you’re ready to restart. Aim
to beat your previous final
rep count each session.

03A

04A

02A

04B

03
RING DIP WITH
KNEE RAISE
15 REPS
A hybrid chest move with
a six-pack hardening twist.
Support yourself above a set
of gymnastics rings with your
02B arms straight. Lower yourself
until you feel a stretch across
your chest (A). Drive back
upwards, lifting your knees
towards your chest at the
top (B). Pause, lower your
knees and repeat.
04
HINDU PRESS-UP
20 REPS
Increase your suppleness
with this press-up variation.
Assume a press-up position
and push your hips upwards
(A), flex at the elbows and
lower your nose to the floor
between your hands before
shifting your weight forwards.
Push the ground away until
your hips are on the floor
and your torso upright (B).
Reverse the move and repeat.

MEN’S HEALTH 119

PT – 05/22
01A
02A
01
BAND RESISTED
PULL-UP
5 REPS
Forego mass and opt for
muscle priming acceleration.
Wrap a resistance band round
your waist and anchor it to
the ground. Grab a pull-up
bar, lift your feet off the floor
and hang freely (A). Pull
yourself up by flexing your
elbows. When your chin
passes the bar, pause (B)
then return to the start.
120 MEN’S HEALTH
01B
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: STUART HENDRY. MODELS (PANEL): CHRISTOPHER WHITLOW AT APM,
MARK PEACOCK. MODEL WEARS: SHORTS, LULULEMON/MRPORTER.COM; SHOES, REEBOK.CO.UK
02
PENDLAY ROW
10 REPS
Next up – row to grow.
Hinge at the hips and grip
02B your barbell (A). Keeping
your back straight and
parallel to the ground
throughout, row the bar
up and into your stomach
(B), pause here for one
count before lowering the
weight back down to the
ground with a controlled
tempo. Repeat.

WORKOUT #02 TURN TO THE BACK
Concentrating on the
‘pulling’ muscles, mainly
found in your back, will
deliver that thick physique
that takes your body from
03A
03B
03
CHEST SUPPORTED
DUMBBELL ROW
15 REPS
More rows, more gains. Set
an adjustable bench to 45
degrees or prop a flat bench
up with a box. Lie face down
with your chest on the pad,
holding a pair of dumbbells,
arms at full reach (A).
Staying tight to the bench,
row the dumbbells up
towards your hips, pause (B)
and lower before repeating.
‘looks pretty’ to ‘looks pretty
strong’. Here, you’ll mix
power-building pulls with
controlled back-builders,
before hitting your body
04A
04
DUMBBELL HANG
POWER CLEAN
20 REPS
An explosive finisher that
brings an incidental biceps
pump. Stand tall holding
dumbbells at your sides,
hinge at the hips to lower
them to the outside of your
knees (A). Stand back up
quickly, with a jump, pulling
the dumbbells on to your
shoulders (B). Lower your
bells slowly and repeat.
with a bicep-pumping lung
burner. Stick 30 mins on
the clock and aim for max
rounds, tallying your score
to keep on progressing.
04B
YOUR SUMMER TUNE-UP
BUILDING BLOCKS
ROW TO GROW
The Pendlay row allows you to
handle big weights. However,
with heavy weights must come
perfect form. Master these
moves to unlock its potency
01 3-POINT DUMBBELL ROW
5 SETS OF 5 REPS ON EACH SIDE
Stand a metre from a wall,
placing one hand on it at
head height. Hinge at the
hips and reach for a dumbbell.
Row the weight to your hips
explosively, before lowering it
under control back to the floor.
02 BENT-OVER DUMBBELL ROW
3 SETS OF 10 REPS
With a dumbbell in each hand,
hinge at the hips and allow your
arms to extend fully, lowering the
dumbbells as far as you can. Row
the dumbbells up to your hips
explosively, pause, then lower to
full extension of the arms again.
03 ROMANIAN DEADLIFT
3 SETS OF 8 REPS
Lift a barbell to hip height, feet
shoulder-width apart. With a
bend in the knees, push your hips
back and lower the bar towards
the floor, close to your body.
When you feel a stretch in your
hamstrings, pause and reverse.
MEN’S HEALTH 121
PT – 05/22
01A
01B
FRONT SQUAT
5 REPS
Start with the basics, but
go in heavy. Stand with your
feet at shoulder width, and
a barbell across the front
of your shoulders, lift your
elbows high to secure the
bar (A). Maintain an upright
torso and push your hips
back, slowly bending your
knees until your thighs
pass parallel to the floor
(B). Stand back up with
intent and repeat.
122 MEN’S HEALTH
WORKOUT #03 STRIKE A LOW BLOW
A big chest, broad
shoulders and wide back
look great, but there’s
no better testament to
time served under the iron
than setting them on top
02A
TRAP BAR DEADLIFT
10 REPS
A version of the barbell
classic that’s far friendlier to
perform at higher reps. Stand
inside your trap bar and
hinge down, gripping the
handles with a flat back and
neutral spine (A). Squeeze
your lats and core then ‘push
the ground away’ with your
feet, driving through the
legs and standing upright
(B). Reverse under control.
No trap bar? Use dumbbells.
of a pair of gargantuan
pins. This circuit is
designed to target your
legs from front to back.
Build strength with the
fundamentals, then
02B
BANDED
KETTLEBELL SWING
15 REPS
Being forced to swing hard
and fast develops athletic
prowess, plus perky glutes.
Loop a resistance band
round a kettlebell and stand
on it. Hinge at your hips and
pull the weight back between
your thighs (A). Drive your
hips forwards to blast it up
against the band (B). Let
momentum pull you back
into the hinge position.
fire up your fast-twitch
muscles for legs that are
as quick as they are swole,
before finishing with a
punishing lunge variation.
Format is unchanged.
03B
03A
ILLUSTRATION: ANDREA MANZATI. MODEL WEARS: PANTS, UK.GYMSHARK.COM; SHOES, REEBOK.CO.UK
WOODCHOP
REVERSE LUNGE
20 REPS
Build a core as hard as oak
with this lumberjack combo.
Hold a dumbbell in both
hands and step backwards,
bending your front knee
until the back knee touches
the floor (A). Drive up and
forwards off of your front
foot, rotating your trunk and
pulling your dumbbell on to
the opposite shoulder (B).
Alternate sides each rep.
 YOUR SUMMER TUNE-UP

MASTERY MATRIX
A FOUR-STEP APPROACH
04B The key to progressive improvement is
to go at your own pace – do what works for you.
Use this matrix to identify your optimal movements

PILGRIM DISCIPLE MONK MASTER

Perform Perform As Perform

goblet goblet prescribed heels-
squats
to box
squats elevated
front squats 01

Perform As Perform Perform

single prescribed double deficit
dumbbell
deadlifts
dumbbell
deadlifts
barbell
deadlifts 02

Perform Perform As Perform

kettlebell kettlebell prescribed with two
deadlifts swings kettlebells
03

Perform Perform Perform As

body-weight dumbbell front rack prescribed
04A reverse
lunges
reverse
lunges
reverse
lunges 04

MEN’S HEALTH 123

PT – 05/22
EGG SALAD
• 2 TSP DIJON • 60G SMOKED
MUSTARD CHEDDAR, GRATED
STACKED LUNCH EXTRA • 1 HARD-BOILED • 50G GHERKINS,
EGG, SLICED SLICED

FIVE TOASTIES
VITAMINS • 2 TBSP CHOPPED
SPRING ONION
• 20G RADICCHIO,
SLICED

THAT DO THE
HEAVY LIFTING
Gym fuel doesn’t have to be dull.
These twists on the cheese sarnie
are stuffed with everything your
body needs after a hard workout

STEAK
KIMCHEEZE
• 115G COOKED
STEAK, SLICED
• 60G GOUDA OR
FONTINA, GRATED
• 50G KIMCHI
• 1 TSP SESAME
SEEDS

SOURCE OF
CREATINE
BONUS
FIBRE

WORDS: MATTHEW KADEY. PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOPHER TESTANI.

FOOD STYLING: JAMIE KIMM. PROP STYLING: PAIGE HICKS

GREEN
GODDESS
• ½ AVOCADO, • 2 TBSP SLICED
SMASHED SUN-DRIED
• 70G COOKED TOMATOES,
CHICKEN, SLICED • 45G BROCCOLI,
• 60G GRUYÈRE OR STEAMED AND
HAVARTI, GRATED SLICED
• 3 BASIL LEAVES

124 MEN’S HEALTH

 BRAWN BREAD
TUNA CAPRESE
• 1 TBSP PESTO • 2 THIN SLICES
• ½ TIN ALBACORE TOMATO
TUNA • 1 TSP BALSAMIC
• 110G MOZZARELLA, GLAZE
QUICK STEPS
GRATED • 10G ROCKET
TO BUILD
A BETTER
SANDWICH
01/ Slather what will be
HEALTHY the outsides of 2 slices of
FATS ½-inch-thick sourdough with
softened salted butter.

02/ On the inside of the bread,

add anything spreadable
(pesto, mustard, avocado,
nut butter).

03/ Add the cheese atop the

spread and then the remaining
ingredients. Close the 2 slices
of the sandwich.

04/ In a griddle pan over a

medium-low heat, add the
sandwich, press down and
cook until golden, about 3 mins.

05/ Flip and repeat. Slice with

a serrated knife to prevent the
filling from squishing out.

ENERGY
BOMB

AB&J
• 2 TBSP ALMOND
BUTTER
• 4 TSP RASPBERRY
OR STRAWBERRY
JAM
• 30G BRIE, SLICED
• 15G BABY SPINACH

MEN’S HEALTH 125

PT – 05/22
JUNK OR SCIENCE?
DOES METABOLISM
HACKING WORK?
This inhaler-like device promises to reveal your
body’s inner workings and push you towards
smarter food choices. But is it more than bluster?
Maybe you’ve seen the ads.
They’re for a simple handheld
device that measures and
claims to help you ‘hack’ your
metabolism, so it can be more
‘fit’ and ‘flexible’. This all sounds
very nice – but we’d venture
few people could define what
makes a metabolism ‘flexible’.
Or why that’s something you’d
want to achieve.
First, it’s important to understand
how your metabolism actually works.
Basically, it’s the process that takes the
calories you consume and then burns
those calories to fuel everything you
do, from a brainstorming session to
a workout. Fitbit, Whoop, Apple Watch,
Garmin – all these trackers use
their own algorithms
to estimate calories
burned on a basic level.
LUMEN TELLS
But a new device called YOU HOW ADEPT
Lumen claims to reveal
what kind of calories – YOUR BODY IS AT
those from fat or those
from carbohydrates –
USING ITS FUEL
your metabolism is burning at any
given moment. You simply blow into
a breathalyser-like mouthpiece and,
according to the company, Lumen can
even tell you how adept your body is
at switching between the types of fuel
you’re using (known as metabolic
flexibility). Not adept? You get an
eating plan to help change that, which
might change how healthy you are.
Metabolic flexibility is a real thing.
A healthy metabolism is always burning
a mix of fat and carbs, and the ratio
126 MEN’S HEALTH
changes depending on a number
of factors, including how intensely
you’re working out (low-intensity
exercise primarily uses fat as energy;
high-intensity uses more carbs) and
whether you’re fasting or in ketosis.
And metabolic inflexibility is also
a real thing. Scientific research has
linked this metabolic issue to some
of the major health challenges of our
time, including obesity, diabetes,
heart disease and cancer. One cause
of metabolic inflexibility: a poor diet.
When you’re eating a good mix and
amount of foods, your metabolism
should be able to process them pretty
well. But when you overload your
system with too much or possibly
even the wrong foods (highly calorific
processed foods, mainly), the energy
engines of your cells –
your mitochondria
– start functioning like
a deer in headlights. In
the journal Cell, Duke
University researcher
mostly on fat, so you should eat more
carbs to keep your system from tipping
Deborah Muoio
dubs this inflexibility
too far in one direction. Score a 5?
You’re burning mostly carbs and you
‘mitochondrial indecision’. Nutrients get need some healthy fats to stay flexible.
backlogged and jam your metabolism, Anything between those two numbers
which can lead to high blood sugar, is more of a mix, and you just keep
high triglyceride levels and excess doing you. Michal Mor, a physiologist
body fat around your waist. And all of and one of the founders of Lumen, is
that contributes to the development of thinking far beyond your individual
those troubling conditions and diseases. nutritional fine-tuning and says that
So you can see why Lumen thought the data the device tracks can
it smart to analyse what you’re burning ‘improve the world’s metabolic health’.
when, give you a score and then offer Based on your score, you get a
diet advice to prevent that backlog. specific eating plan. For example, if
Score a 1 and your body is fuelling itself you score a 4, you might get a ‘medium
carb’ daily plan of 193g of fat, 163g of
 MADE TO MEASURE

protein and 180g of carbs. Hitting these
numbers requires that you measure
what you eat, ideally with a food scale.
(Which also means you’re most likely
going to be eating less than usual.)
WORDS: MICHAEL EASTER. PHOTOGRAPHY: FREDRIK BRODEN.
HOW YOUR
BREATH
‘the best way to become more REVEALS YOUR
metabolically flexible is to be lean
and exercise,’ says Layne Norton, a METABOLISM
nutritional scientist and bodybuilding
coach. It doesn’t matter if you become
lean by eating carbs or by skewing
your diet towards fat. Eating healthier
foods or eating less food than you
currently do is what helps, and you
can do that on your own.
Dr Mor and her twin sister Merav
Mor, who founded the company, came
up with the idea for Lumen while
training for an Ironman triathlon, as a
way to track and test their metabolism WHAT IT MEASURES
You actually breathe out
to improve performance. They say it
a different amount of carbon
helps, but there isn’t much research
dioxide when you’re burning
that suggests chasing metabolic
mostly carbs than you do
flexibility can enhance cardiovascular
when you’re burning mostly
performance. But we do know the
fat. All carbs means you’re
opposite is true: people who chase
exhaling as much CO2 as
fitness performance seem to be less
oxygen you’re taking in.
prone to the risk factors for metabolic
Lab machines can estimate
syndrome, which are also signs of
fuel usage by measuring
inflexibility, according to a study
oxygen and CO2, but Lumen
conducted in Japan. Enter the old
measures CO2 alone.
chicken-and-egg problem: is someone
healthy because they’re metabolically
flexible, or are people metabolically
flexible because they’re healthy?
Probably the latter, says Dr Norton.
Follow basic health advice and your
metrics, not just on a Lumen
device, will likely get better.
This is why Joseph Reagle, an
associate professor at Northeastern
University, who wrote Hacking Life:
Systematized Living And Its Discontents,
sees Lumen as simply another device BEHIND THE NUMBERS
in the sea of health gadgets available Changing what you eat
today. ‘It’s just this continual churn,’ he will shift what you exhale,
says. It’s not necessarily a bad thing which can alter the score

All this sounds great and techy and
hackerish and kind of cool: you’re
analysing exactly how your eating
decisions and lifestyle affect your
metabolism in real time. But here’s
ADDITIONAL IMAGES: COURTESY LUMEN
that people have so many ways to
become more engaged with their
health. This tracker likely isn’t hurting
anyone, he says. ‘Just taking the step
[of using a device] can give people
you see. On this test, you’re
aiming for the middle – a mix
of both carbs and fat. By
knowing how your body rolls
and adjusting for that, you

the thing: it’s not really all that useful.
You probably don’t need a £249
Lumen device to improve or maintain
your metabolic flexibility. To the extent
that you are actually able to control
your metabolism (some portion of
metabolic flexibility may be genetic),
a sense of control and optimism.’
So if shiny new tools inspire you
to follow basic nutrition and exercise
advice, Lumen might help you out. But
you can find the right balance in your
diet without a fancy breathalyser, too.
can train your metabolism
to be more flexible over
time and avoid issues such
as obesity and diabetes.

MEN’S HEALTH 127

 PT – 05/22 SHOOT FOR 50

START

THE FINISHER

BALLS OF ANDREW TRACEY

MH fitness
editor and
head of

FIREPOWER
Blending a heavy D-ball lift with
training

body-weight staples, this fast,

functional fitness challenge will
leave you pumped and primed

ONE AND DONE

01 02
THE FORMAT
Aiming for 50 Hit the deck and assume a ROLL UP, ROLL UP
ground-to-over-
shoulders is a
strong plank position with With a press-up and squat
daunting task, but hands stacked beneath your in the bag, stand over your
this workout ups the shoulders. Lower your chest ball, squat and roll it from
ante by throwing in to the ground before driving side to side, working your
a little extra. Start back up explosively. Next, hands underneath. Drive
a running clock and
do one press-up and jump to your feet, place through your feet to deadlift
one body-weight them shoulder- the ball before dropping it
squat at the start width apart and into your lap and squatting
of every minute, drop down into a deep squat. down. From here, wrap your
before racking up as
many reps as you can Stand back up with intent arms around it and stand,
with the D-ball. and get ready to ball. using your momentum to
Each new minute, add roll it up and over your
an additional rep to shoulder. Repeat, keeping
both moves. Can you
make it to 50 lifts an eye on the clock.
before the 60 secs
are swallowed up by
body-weight moves?
PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES. MODEL: FABIO MANUEL AT W MODEL. STYLING: ABENA OFEI. GROOMING: NAT SCHMITT
USING KIEHL’S SKINCARE. CLOTHING: SHORTS, NIKE; CROSSFIT NANO 9 TRAINERS, REEBOK

MEN’S HEALTH 129

 The

ONE IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE. 6 WEEKS TO TRAIN. GO WORDS BY DAVID MORTON

YOU NEED GRIT TO

PULL THROUGH
A HYROX RACE

Getting Hy
On Fitness
Hyrox is the world’s biggest indoor fitness
competition, pitting athletes against each other
in a battle of burpees, sled drags, wall balls and
every move you love to hate – with a dash of
running thrown in, too. MH’s David Morton
signed up for the toughest 90 minutes of his life

130 MEN’S HEALTH

 I
have done some silly things to fly the
Men’s Health flag in the near decade
and a half that I’ve worked for the brand.
I’ve completed an Olympic-distance
triathlon with very little training,
suffered thickly numb extremities in
a 4.5°C Scottish loch and fought (and
lost) a professional MMA fight.
All of which is why, when asked by
another athlete in the start pen, 30
seconds before I began my first Hyrox
race, if I was at all as nervous as he was,
my answer was, ‘What’s the point? We’re
going to do it anyway.’
In retrospect, I perhaps should’ve
been a touch jittery. Conceived in
Germany, developed on mainland
Europe and reaching maturity at
extreme scale in the US, Hyrox is the
biggest indoor fitness event in the
world. The concept is deceptively
simple. The competition starts with
a 1km run, followed by a functional
workout. You repeat this eight times,
with a different workout after each 1km
lap. In order, they are: 1km on the
SkiErg, a 50m sled push, a 50m sled pull,
80m of burpee broad-jumps, a 1km row,
a 200m kettlebell farmer’s carry, 100m
of sandbag lunges, then 100 wall balls.
The distances and order of the
movements are always the same. From
New York to Hanover, Los Angeles to
Maastricht, every race is consistent,
which allows regular competitors to
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRIS SMITH-LANGRIDGE @ROAMCAPTURE
better themselves and the elite athletes
to rank on a global leader board. There
are no Olympic lifts or muscle-ups,
meaning skill acquisition is no barrier
to entry. It is functional fitness in the
very purest sense.
After signing up for January’s
Manchester event, I knew I wasn’t going
to worry the top athletes in the world.
But I did want to arrive prepared and
had Hyrox master trainer Jade Skillen as
GUTTER CREDIT
my guide to the realities of conditioning
specifically for the sport. A former
semi-pro footballer whose career was
prematurely ended by serious illness
while studying biomechanics in the
US, Skillen switched to competing in
Spartan races and was the UK champion
in 2018. After segueing into Hyrox with
similar success as an athlete, she began
sharing her learning through training
before Covid hit. As the brand prepared
its move into the UK, she became the
one and only in-house coach.
Skillen’s programme tasks me with
a lot of running, as well as performing
the various functional components in
a pre-exhausted state. ‘A lot of people
look at the 1km distance and think that,
because they can run a fast 5K or 10K,
they’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘But each
workout element kills their pace and
they end up walking. Oh, and the sled.
People are very shocked about how
the sled feels!’ The sled weights in
my division are 125kg for the push
and 75kg for the pull. During training,
it definitely shocks me.
I meet Skillen the evening before
the event at the Manchester Central
Convention Complex. Formerly
the city’s major train terminus, the
cavernous space is already primed with
all the equipment, Puma hoardings,
spectator zones and a small vendor
village. All that’s missing is the other
2,499 registered competitors. MH Elite
coaches Faisal Abdalla and Gustavo
Vaz Tostes, who are the MCs for the
event, are each busy going through
their soundchecks.
Skillen and I run through a few
movements in the warm-up area, so she
can provide me with some last-minute
cues. We establish my pacing on the ski
and the row, which feel comfortable
enough. I push the sled with more
weight than necessary to make 125kg
feel easy the next day. It all seems great.
I mentally, secretly, set myself the goal
of completing the race in a time of 1:20
while on my way back to my hotel and
then climb into bed. I sleep terribly.
MEN’S HEALTH 131
 from the ‘slow’ lane, which seems to
help. I am aware that having my head
TIME TO ROX down is not the most motivational of
With my heat starting at 1.10pm, I have postures but persist all the same.
plenty of time to watch a lot of very fit The sled pull, mercifully, is more a
people running, repping and generally case of taking the strain with your arms
fitnessing extremely quickly. I resolve and walking it back a few metres before
to start slowly and pick up speed in the regripping than it is a backwards run.
second half. Aiming for negative splits Which makes the next actual run
(the technical name for this race slightly easier. But the burpee broad-
strategy) feels professional and right. jumps loom large in my mind. Of all the
And I want to be moves I practised,
professional about it.
Just seconds after
The wall balls that 80m of burpees
and forward leaps
my words of are known for had my heart
encouragement
to my nervy fellow
breaking people pumping fastest.
It’s even worse
competitor, we shoot when they’re than in practice.
from the starting pen
into the 2.5 laps
close to the end I knock out the first
20m length of the
around the outside of the hall that is the 80m snaking track at a measured pace,
first 1km. I run slowly, holding a 5:15 moving to the middle to pass a slower
pace. Or at least I think I do. When athlete either side. Over the barrier, a
I reach the first station in the middle man returning in the other direction is
of the running track, which is a 1,000m gasping every time his chest hits the floor
PERFORMANCE
jaunt on the SkiErg, I am blowing like and groaning as he stands up. Oddly, the TIPS FROM THE
one of the steam trains that once puffed rhythm of this distracts my mind enough MASTER, JADE
in and out of this same building. to keep moving. But it feels endless.
There’s a timing chip around my By now, my running pace has slowed
ankle and a giant scoreboard halfway right down, though out of necessity
around the course that tells me what rather than a strategic choice. The
stage I’m currently on; what lap of
which run and, when I’m about to
complete the 1km loop, which of the
eight workouts I’m doing next. Fail
to complete the full distance before
each workout and you’re penalised,
with five minutes added to your time
per error. Complete the workouts
in the wrong order and you get the
same penalty. I am concerned now,
already worryingly exhausted, about
getting a penalty. I stare at my feet
and hope for the best.
The sled push, all things
considered, goes well. The lanes
on the carpet here seem notably
stickier; that or I’m more weakened
by the first 15 minutes than expected.
It’s likely a bit of both. But I have no
issue getting it moving and march
halfway down each 12.5m length
before breaking for a few seconds
and then going again. I overtake quite
a few competitors who push for
entire lengths but then rest longer.
It feels as if the plan is working.
Then I start running. Or, rather,
I totter out on to the track on wobbly
legs that refuse to do what they are
told. I plod on, staring intently at the
white line that divides the ‘fast’ lane

132 MEN’S HEALTH


farmer’s walk with two 24kg kettlebells
THE LONG LUNGE: is another welcome break for my
AGONISING STEPS posterior chain, being a test of grip and
TOWARDS THE END core stability, both of which seem to
hold out okay. During the 1km row, I feel
my quads start to twang the first chords
of cramp, but I hold my pace. Just about.
By this point, I’m a sleeping passenger
on the runs, sat atop increasingly distant
legs. The car crash that is the sandbag
lunges jolts me awake. With the 20kg
bag on my shoulders, I and my lanterne
rouge comrades snake back and forth,
each tap of the back knee on the floor a
screaming temptation to kneel for a bit.
But on we go. The final movement
before crossing the finish line, 100 wall
balls, is known for breaking competitors
when they are tantalisingly close to the
end. As I start my eighth and last run,
the beacon of positivity that is MC Faisal
Abdalla loudly announces to the hall
that they are waiting for me and have
a wall-ball target reserved right at the
front. The 2.5 laps go very, very slowly.
HY TIMES
Stood there at the death, my T-shirt
discarded after the burpees, squatting
and throwing the ball to hit the target
rep after rep, Hyrox comes alive for me.
With the two MCs imploring me to go for
The
another set of 10 across the speakers, the
spectators at the barrier a few metres
away seem suddenly sharp and full of
colour and noise. I go for the last 20 reps
unbroken and almost get there. Five
more and I let the ball drop and stagger
across the line triumphant, albeit with
the slump of a happily defeated man.
Once across, I collapse on to my hands
and knees in what is evolutionarily the
pose of deference and submission.
I do not care. Moments later I’m up
and receiving high fives from friends
and strangers. After another little lie
down to eat some sweets and begin a
battle against dehydration, I feel... okay.
I know the DOMS is en route but won’t
arrive for 48 hours, so for the moment
I revel in being done and walk around
barefoot to try to cool down my feet.
My Hyrox finishing time is 1:35. Not
far off my 1:20 goal, yet at the same time
an age away. My Apple Watch reports
that I burned 1,650 calories all in. My
Whoop strain score for the day is a new
record of 20.7 out of a possible – but
supposedly near impossible to hit – 21.
Most amusingly, my Whoop app tells me
that I spent 57 minutes at 90% to 100%
of my max heart rate, which, it informs
me, is 57 more minutes than I ‘normally
spend in this heart rate zone while
exercising’. I finish 339th out of all men
on the day, 94th in my 35 to 39 age group.
Metrics aside, Hyrox is a feel-good
event. Considering there are waves of 20
competitors setting off from 8am until
nearly 8pm, it’s as smooth and seamless
an experience as you could hope for in
a competition of this scale. The judges
and stewards don’t hover over you, but
nor do they allow any shortcuts in terms
of movement standards.
Parts of it were hard for me. Very
hard. But there was always a light at the
end of the tunnel, even on the burpee
broad-jumps and sandbag lunges. You
resolve to do your best in each struggle.
Then you put it behind you and look
ahead to the next challenge as a chance
to do better. Which is a laudable way to
race and, in fact, live your life.
I didn’t realise any of this during the
event. There was no endorphin-wracked
epiphany. I just stared at my white line
and plodded on. For that reason, I will be
in that starting pen again. I will not be
nervous. But I will hold my head up.
Hyrox will be concluding its first
season in the UK at ExCeL London
on 30 April 2022
MEN’S HEALTH 133
MH CLASSIFIED

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MH CLASSIFIED

THE MH DIRECTORY
Look good and feel great with this selection of life-enhancing products

GO OFF ROAD
THE RIGHT WAY
Founded in the UK by ultra-
runner enthusiast Lee,
trail-running.co.uk began
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It was during one of those long
runs, Lee had his lightbulb
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he thought. Putting in the
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need all in one place –
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FOUNDED BY UK SPECIAL FORCES

FOR THOSE IN THE ARENA.
HMG Clothing was founded 4 years ago by a serving
member of UK Special Forces (SBS). Whilst remembering
those before us who fought in the arena of armed conflict,
the company seeks to create apparel reflecting the Stoic
principles of combat.
“To help keep perspective within this modern world, we
post first-hand accounts that vividly describe the horrors
and misery that trench warfare and close combat can
bring, whilst also writing articles about the unparalleled
acts of bravery carried out by those before us that have
afforded us the freedoms that we all enjoy today.”
Richie – Founder of HMG Clothing.
Having joined the Royal Marines at 19 and Special Forces
aged 23, during which time deploying on 5 operational
tours, the company’s founder Richie draws upon much
of his own combat experiences and stoic mindset
(the mindset of enduring hardship without complaint
and accepting death as a natural part of life) that he
adopted during his career, and utilizing them to create
the brand designs; with the brand itself inspired by, and
recognizing those that step forward and take action –
those in the arena.
To find out more and hear the full story behind the brand
head over to their website www.hmgclothing.com and
follow them on social media: Instagram: hmg_clothing
and Facebook: hmgclothing
“It’s not the critic that counts”.

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 MH CLASSIFIED

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To advertise in this feature call Hearst Magazines Direct on 020 3728 6260

BLOOD SUGAR
Even if you’re not among the estimated 13.6 million Brits at risk of
type 2 diabetes, it’s smart to keep your blood sugar stable. Here’s
how endocrinologist Dr Gregory Dodell keeps himself in the clear
01 EAT WHAT
YOU WANT, BUT
DO SO SMARTLY
If I’m in the mood for
pasta, I’ll have it. Nutrition
shouldn’t be about taking
things away. Instead, eating
well is about intuition and
mindfulness. If I had diabetes,
simple carbs, such as pasta,
might cause my blood sugar
to spike. But you don’t
have to cut them out
entirely. I argue that
people with diabetes
can have pasta if
they pair it with
protein (such as
chicken), fibre (from
vegetables) and some
fat (olive oil or cheese),
all of which dampen the rise
in your blood-sugar levels.
THE EXPERT
Dr Gregory Dodell
is the owner
of Central Park
Endocrinology
in New York City.
02 FIND YOUR
TENSION – AND
THEN BUST IT
There’s a list of nearly
40 things that affect blood
sugar, and stress is one of
them. I’ve learned that I hold
stress in my right glute –
I get this clenched-up, tight
feeling. So if I’m stressed and
anxious because I have a lot
going on, I’ll stop and check
in with my body, take a deep
breath and relax. Managing
stress is a large component
of managing blood sugar.
A DOCTOR’S
GUIDE TO…
03 SCRAP
THE SCALE
I don’t get on a scale, and
I don’t encourage my patients
to weigh themselves. Instead,
I focus on behaviours, and
weight is not a behaviour –
it’s a surrogate marker for
changes in behaviour. You
can’t wake up and say, ‘I’m
ARMED WITH FACTS
YOU CAN SATISIFY
YOUR SWEET TOOTH
going to weigh 5lb less.’
But you can wake up and
say, ‘I’m going to try to walk
every day or I’m going to
try to incorporate more
vegetables in my diet.’
Both of these things
can really help.
04 CHECK
YOUR INTERNAL
TRACKER
My body processes food
pretty well. But if you crash
or your blood sugar is high
from a meal or a snack, such
as a granola bar, pay attention
to your body and make a
different behavioural choice
next time. We are so
programmed to listen
to external sources
about what we
should be doing
for our health
and having
trackers for
sleep, heart
rate and
calories.
But we all
have the best tracker ever
invented – our bodies.
05 POSE, SPIN
AND WALK
Being active is important.
When you have diabetes,
moving around may make
your body more sensitive to
insulin so that blood sugar
AS TOLD TO LASHIEKA HUNTER. PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID SYKES
enters your cells better. I do
yoga, take indoor cycling
classes and walk to and from
work – about 25 minutes
each way. I do it because
I enjoy it. I used to run on the
treadmill and 10 minutes in,
I’d be so miserable. I stopped
doing that. I tell patients to
do what feels good, not what
they think they should do.