Kerri WaldronTwenty years ago, fruit and vegetables simply weren’t on my radar, and nor was healthy eating.
Aged 32, single and in love with my job – a sales role I fuelled with Starbucks coffee, junk food and takeaways – I never once stopped to think about the way it could impact my body. I’d climbed the corporate ladder over the past 12 years, from telesales girl to being head of sales and marketing. I was competitive and thrived off the buzz of the chase. But now I was at the top of my game, I was under huge pressure to hit ambitious targets and keep demanding clients happy.
My clients were based all over the country, which meant long drives in my car. I was either out on the road, sometimes for seven to eight hours a day, or socialising, so of course my diet always took a back seat. When I dragged myself out of bed at 7am, normally after a late night in the office, breakfast wasn’t even a consideration, but coffee kept me going until lunchtime.
I relied heavily on service stations for my lunch, which of course only meant one thing: junk food. I can’t count how many McDonald’s meal deals or carb-heavy sandwiches I ate. If I wasn’t eating a takeaway, such as pizza or a curry, at home in the evening I’d be at a client’s dinner, but late nights with lots of booze meant I was in a constant cycle of exhaustion. When I did make it into the office I’d often look around at my tired colleagues and wonder what the strain of stressful jobs were putting on their health too.
If I wasn’t working on weekends I would be keeping up appearances, socialising with a smile and acting as though I wasn’t near to burnout. My mum could see the cracks appearing, though. She’d comment on how moody or tetchy I was when I was around her.
I’d go on holiday a lot to de-stress and make up for the intense weeks and months of work. But I never had a good balance – after one holiday I flew into the airport at 4am on a Monday morning and went straight to the office. I also half-heartedly joined a gym, but every month when the gym membership went out of my account, I’d feel guilty that I’d barely made it inside.
Slowly though, my lifestyle really took its toll on my physical and mental health. I could feel my clothes start to become tighter and my dress size started to go up. At 5ft 9, my healthy weight is just over nine stone, but back then I was always carrying at least a stone of extra weight. I was always exhausted too and started to get brain fog. At one point I was looking after 250 accounts, and I was in a constant state of anxiety that I would miss a meeting or get something wrong.
Source: bing.com
