Inside the life of male supermodel Tyson Beckford

A LOT of work goes into being the best - just ask Ralph Lauren's main man Tyson Beckford who, at 42, has twenty years worth of insider knowledge to spill.

WE ALL know about the secret world of skinny models - days littered with diet coke, black coffee and cigarettes, centred around Kate Moss's famous philosophy that "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

But for the man who has been around for even longer than Ms Moss herself, skinny is overrated and fitness definitely comes first.

"It is true - models do eat like that," Tyson Beckford, one of the fashion industry's most celebrated models, confirmed to news.com.au. "A lot of them have a diet coke and cigarette diet. I don't know how they do it, I can't do it - I need to have some real food in my stomach. I don't even drink soda, I don't smoke, I avoid it all."

Soft drink and cigarettes are not all Beckford avoids - he doesn't eat red meat, barely touches alcohol, and passes over sweet foods. But having celebrated 20 years in the industry in September, whatever it is he's doing, it's clearly working.

"I eat seafood. I like tuna, I like salmon, I like shellfish. I eat a lot of salads. I'm a big fan of sautéed spinach with garlic, cooked in olive oil - it's good for you, I like the taste, and I get my iron intake," he says of his diet, which he has stuck to throughout his career.

"I do four to six hundred sit ups a day. I do anywhere between two hundred to 1000 push ups each day. I do a lot of running, a lot of cardio, my favourite thing is the skipping rope, and I cycle. I used to always laugh at the guys who would go into shops in bicycle shorts and lycra and I thought, you'll never catch me in that! But now I'm one of them - I like to put on my tights and go riding. Because you find out it's so aerodynamic and you need them , you don't want your sweatshirt flapping about in the breeze!" he says. Sounds exhausting, right? For Beckford, it's just an extension - albeit an extreme one - of how he was raised.

"We all grew up under the Arnold Schwarzenegger program where fitness was key," he says. "I grew up playing outside until the street lights went on and mum called us to go home. We were riding bikes up and down the street, running around playing, not going anywhere near video games. I learnt about being healthy and fit young, and it's stuck with me. It's definitely different for male models now - when I started the men were all built and beefy, now they're all skinny! But that's just how I'm built, and I've got my niche," he says.

Tyson Beckford on the runway. Pictures: Getty

But the influx of thin male models is not the only thing that's changed in the fashion industry since 1993, when Beckford signed on to model exclusively for Ralph Lauren - a contract he still holds today. For a start, the industry is now electronic - "I used to have to carry my little book around to castings, but nowadays the images are emailed over to the agency, or shoots are stored on iPads. It's a whole other world, it's pushed us to another level," he says.

"I still remember my first fashion shoot. It was for the prom issue of Seventeen Magazine. It was fun! It didn't pay a lot, at that time I was given like $150 or something like that. But for me it was the best $150 I'd ever made. We shot it in September but it didn't come out until the May. I waited, and waited, and waited, and waited to see it. When I finally got to, it was crazy. But now, you can see campaign shots almost instantly, in some form or another.

Beckford in his self-styled shoot for Monster Headphones.

"My most recent fashion shoot was shooting ads for these Monster Inspiration headphones. I art directed it which was awesome- my boss told me that he needed images to use worldwide, they wanted a grown men type feel, and he gave me a budget and said, go do it, I trust you. So we shot it in a matter of hours, took close to 1000 photos, did the artwork and editing ourselves, and turned it on to Monster. They were like, 'Hey this is great!' They loved it and that was it. So simple. It's all so different now," he said.

What's also changed in the fashion industry - or is in the process of changing - is the attitude to women who are size 12 and up.

"I think it's great that we're seeing a range of women now - it gives encouragement for women to be themselves, to not have to starve themselves to look a certain way," Beckford, who has been a judge on a number of Search for a Supermodel-style television shows, says.

"Not every woman is going to be a size zero. The average woman is not a size zero. A zero woman, it's rare - the majority of the world (is) normal size. We're not all built the same, and you don't need to go starve yourself to look a certain way. I've worked with plus size models, Lane Bryant is a brand I've done a lot with for many years, their women are great. If you're happy with the way you look and it's healthy for you, don't worry about anything else.

"We spend so much time saying what beauty is, but no one really knows. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - always has been and always should be."

Amen to that, Mr Beckford.

Tyson Beckford in a pic from his Instagram account. Picture: instagram.com/tysoncbeckford

Tyson Beckford is in Australia to promote the new range of Monster headphones, available now.