For the most part I love magazines. I write for magazines, I read magazines and I stare at the ones that I’m too tight to buy in the newsagent a lot. What I don’t like about them is when they try to package fitness as a product and sell it to women as something that will make us ‘hotter’, ‘sexier’ and make men swoon at our feet.

There’s lots of good reasons to exercise but these are not three of them. As I’ve said before, running (or exercise in general) will not make you hot – but it will make you awesome.

Exercise will make you live longer, it will give you more energy, it will bring you into contact with lots of new people and it will make you happier. But it will also make you look like this.

If fitness magazines told the truth, their covers would look a lot more like mine. I should be totally honest and reveal to you that I have been Photoshopped in this cover image. For one I’m not actually running in shorts in a blizard – that would be a cut-out. My hair is also a lot frizzier than that when I’m running – minimal skills and patience in cutting out images resulted in me going for the helmet look instead.

I’m quite happy to part with my cash to read a magazine filled with interviews with elite athletes sharing their (sports-related) secrets, coaches sharing their wisdom or reviews of gear and events. How can I run faster? What am I looking for in a triathlon bike? What the frick is Zumba? These are things that I want to know. But if you tell me how I can look like Jessica Ennis or Victoria Pendleton, or ask them about hair and make-up I might just have to scream.

If you liked this post, you might like The Vagenda. Big up to them for inspiring me to dust off the InDesign skills.