Author page: Wayne Leal

Sixteen hours of fasting. Four weeks of experimentation. And an unexpected argument about who gets to tell us how to live. I wasn’t looking for advice. I was curious. For four weeks, five days a week, I ate nothing after 8pm, swam the following morning and had my first meal at noon. I wasn’t trying to lose…

A phone rang inside a locker, and I laughed to myself. Four lockers away, in my gym changing room, there was a guy getting ready for work. Nothing that made me look twice. Then he pulled on a black top with CHELSEA written across the back. I've been a Chelsea fan man and boy, so I said,…

Darren Barker set himself an extraordinary endurance challenge in memory of Ricky Hatton. When the English Channel refused to cooperate, he changed the plan and kept moving. There is something reassuringly simple about most endurance challenges. Run the distance. Climb the mountain. Cross the finishing line. Darren Barker's The Longest Round was never going to be quite…

It begins with identity. Behind my house is a nursery and primary school. Every morning, I hear children laughing and playing. From the floor above, I can see children from the age of two to eleven. The youngest don't think about exercise. They simply move. They run. They climb. They laugh. They fall over. They cry.…

There was a time when "Black to the Back" was an instruction. Today, the words have disappeared, and much has changed. Yet looking at the covers of our magazines, I began to wonder whether the instruction had simply become less visible. A friend once joked that with everything I'd done—from designing the livery for an airline…

This morning I caught myself doing something millions of people do every day. I was scrolling. Not because I was looking for anything in particular. No breaking news. No purpose. Just one headline after another. The same way people scroll Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. I was a scrolling junkie—and apps are built like slot machines,…

People often ask me how I stay healthy. They assume I must have incredible discipline—that I follow a strict diet, count every calorie, or spend each day resisting temptation. The truth is much simpler. I don't spend my life making healthy decisions. Years ago, I made them so often that they eventually stopped feeling like decisions…

Bryan Johnson has spent millions trying to understand his body. His latest diagnosis reminds us why. News that the world's most recognisable longevity advocate has autoimmune gastritis surprised many people. Here was a man who had built an entire public identity around measuring, analysing and optimising every aspect of his biology. If anyone could stay one…

Every four years, the World Cup gives us the same ritual. A mistimed tackle. A sharp whistle. A flash of red held high above the referee's head. The player walks because everyone in the stadium knows what just happened. He crossed a line the game itself depends upon. The card does not create the violation.…