Steve Bennett, 60, is the founder of the wellness app, Clubwell. He lives in Warwickshire with his wife, Sarah, and their five children. Here, he tells Victoria Young how he turned his obesity around at 50.
Last week, I celebrated my 60th birthday by learning to kite surf. Today, I started the day with a game of tennis, then went to the gym. And pretty much every day, I find myself counting my blessings that nothing in my body hurts.
It’s all a far cry from my life 10 years ago, when I was extremely overweight with a very unhealthy diet and lifestyle, and various other health issues. As the CEO of several companies, I went to frequent business dinners, which included a lot of carb-heavy foods with sticky sauces. I drank too much beer and was working so hard that I just did not have time to look after my health. I knew I was slowly putting on weight but I honestly thought that was an inevitable part of the ageing process. Even when I hit 15 stone and was told by a nurse that I was clinically obese, it didn’t occur to me to do anything about it. I thought I was doing OK because I went running and went to my medical check-up every year.
Part of the problem was that I thought I was living a healthy life. Growing up, I was very sporty and in my late teens was the British champion in dinghy sailing. After that, I got into running and went jogging every morning. I wasn’t lazy; even though I was obese, I ran three marathons. I’d get up at 5am for a run, then go home and drink lots of orange juice, which is nothing but sugar, but I thought it was healthy. I’d have a jacket potato and baked beans for lunch, not realising that the starch would immediately turn into glucose. I’d eat low-fat food like yoghurt, thinking that fat was the enemy, then have a Chinese takeaway for dinner, thinking that rice was the healthy option. I didn’t understand why I was putting all the weight on.
