Mind Gym

As I face a blank screen and wonder what to write for this, my two-millionth ed's letter, a memory pops into my head. Matthew! A boyfriend I have never written about! (You have no idea what a thrill this discovery is. Finding a new boyfriend is tantamount to finding a R100 note between the cushions of the couch. Man Material I haven't used yet? Pure joy!)

So, meet Matthew: the one and only underwear model in my repertoire of exes. If a girl has to have an underwear-model boyfriend, Matthew wasn't a bad one to have. Imagine: a chiselled jaw, an appropriately bulging pair of underpants, a chiselled six-pack, twinkly smile, chiselled armpits, chiselled hair. You get the message? Chiselled… everything.

There was a problem, however. Of course there was. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. That life lesson holds equally for boyfriends as for get-rich schemes, stay-young-forever products, and so on. But I digress. I know you expect me to say that he was the problem: that he spent too much time in the gym, that he was vain and vacant and never drank so as not to blur his definition. But in fact, I was the problem.

I am not a man. A man (no matter how unattractive), when faced with a slinky woman, has to be forcibly restrained. Thanks to evolution – and their mothers – most men believe that any lingerie model could be theirs, were they just to meet.

I, when faced with my own personal underwear toy, proved just how different woman are. In bed with Matthew I cringed at the thought of my flab-tastic thighs and tummy wobbling against the trampoline that was his torso. I woke myself up in the middle of the night as my arm, flung out in sleep, bounced off his six-pack like a rubber ball. I woke up the morning after our first night together with a tummy ache caused by the strain of holding my stomach in. All. Night. Long.

We did not last. I was insecure; he was baffled. Not a match made in the gym. But the truth is, I never gave him a chance. He never gave me any cause to worry about the discrepancy between our physiques. The discomfort was all in my mind. He was a nice person. We could have had more fun. But I was too busy worrying about my body.

There's a Zest in this issue – 31 days to a body you'll be comfortable to hit the beach in. Please read it with perspective. We don't want you to feel you have to be lingerie-perfect, just happy. The battle to feel that way does not take place in your body, in the gym or even in bed. It takes place in your mind.

Author: Vanessa Raphaely