Achiever story: Kirsten Boerrigter

I'm Kirsten Boerrigter and this is my achiever story. I've always been a foodie, love all kinds of food and I don't really have a brake. For me, food is central to conviviality, which is a strange word when you think about it. In my teens I wasn't very comfortable in my own skin. I didn't like school because of the various bullying and at the riding school I was like a fish in water. That was really my place! The contrast could not have been greater between those two worlds. I later covered up the difficult moments at school by simply eating more, because food was fun, everything with food was fun. When my mother woke me up in the morning the first thing I asked was "what are we eating tonight". And I only found hot food, real food. I was gaining a bit of weight, but was really a huge yo-yoer. One minute I was a lot heavier than a few months later and before I knew it, everything was back on.

I was very unhappy with it, didn't feel good, too fat and was incredibly insecure. We tried everything, but I found it difficult to eat less. Food was my lucky moment of the day. This has caused a lot of difficulties, especially mentally but also physically. From the moment I went to my secondary vocational education and worked a lot in stables, I was on the move a lot and things got a little better. Around the age of eighteen my interest in healthier food started and gradually it got better. Still with a lot of ups and downs, but I noticed that things were going in the right direction. I still haven't found my "ideal" fit body and I'm still sometimes unsure about how fit I am, or the lack of it, especially in the crazy, sometimes hard, online world. Because people sometimes quickly call things from behind their phones ;).

I have always been very happy with my drive to make every new day a better day than the day before. My body has changed a lot in recent years, but my smile is also completely back and I am very happy about that.

By cycling more and more I notice that I am not only getting fitter physically, but also mentally. It works like a domino effect on me. By exercising more, I feel better physically and mentally and I can perform my work better as a content creator and social media marketer. Still with ups and downs, but always more ups than downs!