‘Pole dancing saved my life’

DEPRESSED, overweight and in debt, Kerry Derham was at rock bottom when she attempted suicide at just 24. A year later, she turned her life around.

Pole Dancing Saved My Life

DEPRESSED, overweight and in debt, Kerry Derham was at rock bottom when she attempted suicide at just 24 years old.

One year later, Derham had dropped 32 kilograms and was sporting a new-found confidence — all thanks to pole dancing.

Derham is from Worthing in the UK, and says her troubles began at 21, when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had a portion of her cervix removed. Not long after, she ended an unhappy, volatile relationship with a boyfriend, and turned to food for comfort. Her weight ballooned from 63.5 kilograms to over 90 kilograms.

Derham, now 31, then lost her home, after lending money to supposed friends who left her with crippling debt.

“People who I had supported financially just disappeared and left me penniless. I couldn’t see a way out,” she says. “I had always paid all of my bills and mortgages on time, so to have bailiffs knocking on my door was horrible.”

With nowhere left to turn, Derham’s desperation drove her to slit her wrists — but the wounds weren’t deep, and she sought help from a doctor the next day.

“I didn’t want to rely on drugs or pills to make me happy,” says Derham of her doctor’s prescription for antidepressants. “I knew it was something I had to do for myself.”

Inspired by a TV ad that promoted the health and fitness benefits of pole dancing, Derham decided to give it a try.

“As soon as I tried it, I knew I was on to something,” she confesses. “I was totally addicted.

“It was challenging and it was fun, and it was my escape from everything else that was going on in my life, and I needed that.”

Soon the kilos were melting off Derham’s 165 centimetre frame, and she dropped from a size 20 to a size 8 in less than a year.

“Rather than feel fat and jiggly, I felt at ease, and I didn’t feel like my body was disgusting for once,” she says.

In 2012, Derham opened her own fitness business, SimplyFit UK, teaching up to 20 pole-fitness classes a week.

“Pole dancing saved my life,” she says. “It makes you feel empowered and sexy and gives you such a sense of being. It makes me feel alive.”

Now, with her newly toned bod, Derham has entered the bikini round of a bodybuilding competition that will be held in June. She is also spending more time on her own fitness in hopes of becoming a sponsored athlete.

Despite overcoming her mental and physical hurdles, Derham laments that she’s remained single for the past three years — and she worries her growing muscles are to blame.

“Guys find me very intimidating because I own my own business, because I lift really heavy in the gym, and because I go hard all the time,” says Derham, who trains up to six days a week.

“I’m a girlie girl at heart, but when I’m lifting huge weights, I can see the men in the gym get a bit scared. No one wants a girlfriend who can lift more than them, but I’m happy either way.”

Still, it’s not enough to make Derham give up the hobby that saved her life.

“Pole dancing turned my life around,” she says, “and I wouldn’t change that for anything.”