A body to die for?

We'd all like to look like this - but what's the price?

Recently I went on holiday to Madrid, and like any self-respecting gayer, I hit the gym with a vengeance beforehand, and strutted my way to Heathrow Airport with shoulders that looked a little like I had cannonballs stuffed in them and tits that, in my opinion, gave Jordan a run for her money.

OK, so that’s not strictly true, but man did I feel confident. Months of hard labour and comments from friends about my newly-bulging biceps had left me feeling like I could more than hold my own against the muscle boys of Madrid.

On the first day at the Lido I realised what the phrase “body beautiful” really meant.

Everywhere I looked I saw perfection. Beautiful, bronzed, speedo-wearing perfection.

You know that scene in Spider-man where Peter Parker comes home after being bitten by the little radioactive bastard in the lab? He rips off his shirt to reveal a puny, skinny body before he passes out on the floor, then wakes up the next morning with pumped up pecs and a six pack. All of a sudden he’s a new man.

Now imagine that scene in reverse and you get an idea of how I was feeling as I stood at the entrance to the Lido. I spent most of the first day lying on my front, drilling a hole into the concrete from my stonking boner and trying to cover up my sorry excuse for a beach body.

You have to put in a lot of hard work into achieving a body like those guys had, unless you take the easy option and use steroids. But what happens when you take it too far?

I used to know a guy who was addicted to exercise.  We’re not friends any more – I couldn’t put up with him to be honest. He ran every morning, swam every lunchtime and went to the gym for an hour every evening, usually with a spinning class after that. He used to turn down dates and offers of socialising with us so he could train more.

I would have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t spent most of the time he wasn’t training loudly putting other people down when they were slightly overweight or less attractive than him.

As well as the obvious dangers of steroids, I’ve also read reports of guys taking a powerful stimulant called Epehdrine before they work out so they can train harder. I’ve noticed a few people in the gym who seem anxious or jittery and often wonder if they’re on it. I also know for a fact that Ephedrine causes chronic insomnia, so usually they turn to sleeping pills or booze in order to get to sleep.

Now I’m not going to deny that these examples of hard training look amazing, but seriously, if they don’t die of organ failure because of their ridiculously low calorie intake, they’ll probably either get cancer from sunbed abuse, or a heart attack from all the drugs they’re using to help them on their way to the body beautiful.

Is being perfect really worth that?

As the days rolled on by the Lido I got so used to the constant parade of plucked, preened and pumped bodies walking around that they all started to become curiously unsexual. I mean, every single one of them looked the same!

My boyfriend at the time asked me what on earth I saw in him when there were all these Adonises walking around to tempt me.

“I fancy you because you don’t look like one of them” was my reply

Screw the body beautiful. Give me a real human being any day.

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