Ed Sheeran is showing off his six-pack on the cover of Men’s Health magazine.
“Something I never thought id do, but here we are,” Ed writes on Instagram. “10 years ago I was a beer guzzling, kebab munching smoker. Having kids really made me knock all those bad habits on the head (excuse the pun).”
In the article, Ed says he worried about doing the cover because he thought it might make him less “relatable.” However, his health journey likely mirrors that of many of his fans. He details his a-ha moment: When his older daughter, Lyra Sheeran, was two weeks old, he drank a bottle of wine with his friend and went to bed — only to be woken up by Lyra 20 minutes later. “I was like, ‘F***, I probably shouldn’t drink if I’m going to feel this dreadful,’” Ed recalls thinking.
He adds that he wanted to be “a responsible dad,” noting, “I didn’t want to pick my kid up and have my back f***** and stuff like that.” Plus, he says, “I wanted to feel superhuman on stage.”
So he stopped drinking and smoking and started exercising: running, lifting weights, swimming and doing reformer Pilates. He hired a personal trainer and started eating healthy, too. Now, he says, he’s in “the best shape of my life.”
And while he notes that he still eats and drinks what he likes, Ed says it’s all about “moderation.”
“I think, underneath it all, I am a pizza-eating, beer-guzzling smoker,” he says. “But that’s just not my reality as a parent in my thirties.”
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