My latest lifelong quest is to outlive my competitive father

South Africa holds the title of Most Unhealthy Country in the World. It was an honour bestowed upon us by the Indigo Wellness Index and we will be the defending champions for another few months. However, if we stop smoking, cut out drinking and start watching what we eat, we could easily lose the title to rubbish countries like Bulgaria or Haiti. I’m not sure we could suffer yet another blow to our national self-esteem. We need to be number one at something, even if it is dying young.

Having said that, it has since come to my attention that my father, a competitive man, is under the impression that he is going to outlive me. He has just turned 82. The other day he put money on it. A thousand bucks that I’ll die before him. What kind of father does this? As a matter of pride, I can’t let him win. I thought about having him killed but I’ve have never been a big fan of pyrrhic victories. It is, therefore, with great reluctance that I abandon my patriotic duty to help keep us at the top of the sick log and do something to prolong my life, at least until the old man falls off his perch.

The first step was to buy a copy of Men’s Health. Wrestling the magazine from its plastic cover left me quite drained and I had to have a little lie-down. The cover shouted, “Design your body”. That’s a good start. Right away I will replace my liver with one that thrives on binge drinking, design teeth that can open beer bottles without complaint and get a heart that pumps happily for two hundred years. I will also install a self-cleaning mechanism on my bottom and move the entire repulsive affair ten metres away from the rest of me.

The man on the cover of this magazine looks like he’s had six juvenile leopard tortoises sewn into his abdomen. I don’t need to look like a smuggler of endangered wildlife. I just need to beat my father.

The cover itself promises twelve easy muscle meals. Presumably they mean mussels. I will also discover how to chisel my core and rock my jeans. I imagine that if I had to walk into a bar and start dropping phrases like these, people of all genders would want to ravage me mercilessly on the spot.

There’s a feature on the upcoming CrossFit Games which has events with names like synchro muscle-ups and the clean and jerk speed ladder. It sounds beyond brutal and I want no part of it. For me, fitness is being able to get to the fridge and back, from a reclining position, in under three minutes. I’m fairly certain one can be healthy without having to carry on like a human forklift.

I am told it’s a mistake to push your body too hard when starting a new workout session, especially if you’re stressed from work. “Adding more stress to your body is going to cause it to shut down.” I find parts of my body shut down if my brain so much as thinks about exercising. I might, for instance, consider walking to the shop. But when it comes time to stand up, my legs refuse to cooperate and simply dangle uselessly from my hips until my mind changes itself and decides to drive instead. Funnily enough, they work just fine if I tell them we’re going to walk to the pub.

Page 32 is devoted to the most effective health drink on the market – tequila. Things have changed since the glory days of multiple shooters followed by a tidy projectile vomit into the pot plant. Men now have theirs mixed with ginger kombucha and garnished with candied apricots. Even more reason to make sure there’s a pot plant nearby.

I discover there’s such a thing as a sleep scientist. Rob says that unlike hypnotics such as Zolpidem, melatonin won’t help much if you have insomnia. I was once married to a woman who would snack on Zolpidem while enjoying an evening of gin and tonics. Sometimes dead authors would give her instructions and I’d have to discreetly collect the knives and hide the car keys. Good times.

Oh, look. There’s a move involving something called a kettlebell that switches on your muscle fibres while firing up your joints, ligaments and tendons. This will apparently give you superhero strength. The last time I was in the vicinity of joints being fired up, it took superhero strength to jump a fence and run away from a sniffer dog.

There’s a section showing us what’s big in denim this year. I’ll tell you what’s not big in denim – my ass. Whenever I wear jeans they end up around my knees by the end of the evening. And not in a good way, either. Every pair I put on slides right off my snake-like hips. It’s been suggested that I get a belt but they make me anxious. Belts are meant to be used for flogging or as something to hang yourself with.

There’s a razor that promises to be the solution to my shaving troubles. But it won’t be. I don’t want a beard but nor do I want to have to keep shaving. The only solution is to pump myself full of oestrogen. Thing is, I don’t really want breasts either. It’s all so confusing.

The health snob’s guide to proper pies opened my eyes to a world beyond my regular mutton curry number from the garage. These pies actually come with recipes. I’ve never known anyone, male or female, who can make a pie from scratch. Everyone is born with a latent gay gene and I’m not sure I want to risk triggering mine by learning how to make puff pastry.

There’s something called intermittent fasting. Nick combined it with regular exercise and after eight months noticed that he was “starting to lean out”. I might not have eight months. Besides, I lean out of my window and shout at other drivers all the time. That’s got to speed up your metabolism.

Finally, an advice columnist tackles the male midlife crisis and suggests men buy a muscle car to boost testosterone, take up yoga for the happy hormones and overhaul their wardrobe. I can’t see myself doing any of those things. Then again, having just got divorced for the second time, mine is more of a mid-wife crisis. Married men live longer than bachelors. If I can pull off a third time lucky, there’s a good chance I’ll be collecting on the bet with my father. Any takers?

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