Mind Over MUSCLE
It took a pizza for Mathew Lewis-Carter to realise that his goal to become leaner had become an unhealthy obsession. In the throes of his introduction to the competitive bodybuilding world, he was “dieting hard”, “purging pretty much anything” he ate, and “dying” to become that bit musclier. But when his brother arrived home one evening with a margherita in hand, Lewis-Carter admits he “lost it” – screaming at his brother, because he was being so restrictive with the foods he was eating.
Still, he pushed on. He took part in the competition, received good scores and was considered to be in the best physical shape of his life. “It felt good,” he says. Until he came off stage and realised the physical and psychological torment he was in. “I’d gone from hiding food and making myself sick to being physically unable to stop eating. I remember thinking, what do I do now?”
Lewis-Carter, like hundreds of thousands of men, was
