November 3, 2025 |
I started drinking kombucha every morning on the understanding that its probiotic and antioxidant qualities may help to combat bloating and manage blood sugar levels, thus eliminating cravings. I cannot remember the exact moment that food and drink became more important for their function than their pleasure for me. Certainly, I’d always been taught the virtue of eating vegetables. And yet, at moments, it is striking to me that I might suddenly make a consumption ritual my routine or religion, convinced that this may be the key ingredient to transforming my body.
I’d bought a range of flavoured kombuchas – raspberry, mango and lime, passion fruit – from my local supermarket, but after a few days I was appalled to discover how much sugar was in them. I poured them down the sink. That is despite, in the previous month, eating cinnamon pastries, doughnuts, apple pies and enough chocolate mousse to fill a bathtub, having turned to eating to navigate stress. When I annihilate large amounts of sugar, I want those moments to be directly associated with shame or a difficult time in my life. But when it comes to disturbing a ritual I had sorted into the healthy aspects of my eating routine then I am aghast, as if the presence of sugar is not simply as guaranteed in most food and drinks as magnesium in tap water is.
I know this is ridiculous – and it is not a permanent state of mind. But sometimes I enter a season of my life where I feel so consumed by how I look that I start rushing for some kind of fad or solution to finally present me with the body I want (that is not to say kombucha is without benefits, as are a host of fermented products like sauerkraut, kimchi and kefir: all are wonderful for your gut health and digestion). The truth is that I go through cycles of eating habits that are correlated with what I emotionally prioritise in that moment. If I am stressed and want to relieve myself from it, I gorge on unhealthy foods. If I am stressed because my body does not look how I want it to, I cut myself off from anything that might be seen as bringing me too much pleasure.
I’ve always have had a difficult relationship both with my body and food. As long as I have been sentient of my existence I have been aware of this obligation to eat three fixed, ordered meals a day and present a body to the world that will be praised, or at least received neutrally. As a child, I was rake-thin and was made very aware of the fact – I had protruding collarbones and people joked that they could play my rib cage like a xylophone. It also meant that my body had strange proportions, as I was short but also had a large head, so I felt as though I looked like some Cartoon Network artist’s interpretation of an alien.
This problem was worsened by the fact that I did not like to eat, though it would be a while until that became so closely linked to the question of my body. I had an aversion to food, partly due to specific fuss around certain textures and tastes (I still can’t stand beans, mayonnaise or most cheeses), and I also felt the act of eating to be an overwhelming experience. When I was in primary school, teachers contacted my parents to say that at lunch I would take ham sandwiches and nibble on them rather than ever choose a hot meal.
Photography by Mikey Abegunde; Jason Okundaye has spent years perfecting his physique
That began to change as I became a teenager, when buying fast food and snacks was one of those routines of adolescence – eating those smelly boxes of ketchup-dunked wings and fries at the back of the bus. But this increasingly sporadic and indulgent regime of eating, which was not at all informed by nutrition or hunger but soon only by habit, left me, at frequent points, totally unhappy with how my body looked. I won’t describe myself then, as I don’t like to make negative comments on my past appearance, particularly as there have been times in recent years where I have looked at myself and felt that I haven’t changed much.
In any case, when I reached adulthood and left education, I knew I wanted to do something to change my body, to become buff and muscular rather than repeat the cycle of skinny and ‘skinny fat’ that had been my frame for 20-odd years. It was also, of course, about sexual currency. If I wanted to attract the type of attention I desired and advertise myself better in the sexual marketplace, whether that was digitally, on Grindr, or physically, in bars and the club, then I would need to improve my chances by going about a transformation.
I can’t remember the exact year I began working out, as time for me is still somewhat blurred by the pandemic, but when I started weightlifting it felt like a revelation. Rather than simply viewing this body as a flesh bag of discomfort that had failed me in any kind of sporting or athletic pursuit, I felt a real connection to the dumbbells and barbells and enjoyed the way I could push, pull and stretch my body, tearing down the muscle fibres so they could be repaired and rebuilt, then starting that process all over again.
After around two years, I felt happy with how I looked. I wasn’t at my ideal body yet, but people had noticed that I’d changed, had a glow-up, so to speak. I had a barrel chest, a tighter waist, much broader shoulders (that had always been a key insecurity) and firm buttocks. I didn’t necessarily have a set archetype for how I wanted to look, but I remember being distinctly inspired by the bodies of African American pornographic actors like Marc Williams, Race Cooper and Bobby Blake. I didn’t think I could necessarily attain their bodies, perhaps not without synthetic enhancements that I am resistant to taking, but if I could be a close enough approximation then I would feel happy, and sexy.
I had also significantly improved my relationship with eating. After a lifetime of flitting between austerity and indulgence, I began to associate food with my regime and came to view it as fuel for the body, as tacky as that expression has become. I learned about the roles of proteins, fats, carbs and macronutrients and began to even find pleasure in eating: I love salmon, chicken, veggies, rice and potatoes, and all of those foods are the cornerstone of building muscle. I am also fortunate enough to be a person who can handle a thick protein shake without chundering.
All this is to say that, while I had viewed starting the gym purely as a means towards achieving an aesthetic transformation, I found a range of benefits for my self-esteem, eating patterns and things like clarity of thought, personal organisation and general happiness.
This all sounds pretty positive, right? So why am I guzzling kombucha and then flipping out about the sugar content? Because I feel a strange mental reset whenever I fall off. That is the issue with a physical transformation: it is not permanent. Where your abs were once chiselled and tight they can become covered by a layer of fat again. Where your chest was perky and protruding it can start to sag. And that can be due to inactivity, overindulgence or a whole range of issues, such as illness, stress or feeling sorry for yourself for whatever reason.
And it is at those moments when, after emerging from a period where I’ve unwrapped more Dairy Milk Oreo bars than I’m willing to publicly admit to on paper, I start to panic and think about how to recover the dream Action Man physique that I had once achieved.
My latest freakout was inspired by a trip to a Caribbean island that was dropped on me with about two minutes’ notice. It’s only a trip for work, and yet I am imagining that I want abs that resemble a remote control when I take a POV picture from a sunlounger at a luxury resort.
I am getting better at accepting it all, though. That the state of your body is not permanent, that it is ever-changing and always in flux. That you might love how you look and hate how you look, and that this might not even have much to do with how you look. I remember two years ago thinking I was the most awful-looking thing in the world on a holiday to Mallorca, despite my friends’ insistence that I looked fantastic. I looked back at those photos recently, where I had complained and been horrified for the entire trip, and thought that I looked beautiful, healthy and glowing.
But I don’t necessarily wish that I had known it then. Only that I had been neutral and cared a little less. That’s all I aspire to now. To drink a sugary kombucha because it is delicious, then go to the gym because I enjoy it, look at myself in the mirror and think: well done for continuing to live in this body. Trying to become a certain image of health and fitness and sex is a bizarre emotional rollercoaster – what a relief it will be when I finally get off.
Taken from 10 Men Issue 62 – BIRTHDAY, EVOLVE, TRANSFORMATION – out on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
