Fighting off the Startup 15 (pounds that is)

• Name and business: Cameron Yuill, 45. AdGent Digital, San Francisco, Calif.
• Then: Airport and restaurant meals and no time for exercise
• Now: Carries nutritious snacks, walks to meetings and sticks to healthy eateries

My company, AdGent Digital, specializes in advertising technology for tablets and the iPad. We have 27 employees spread in offices around the world including London, New York, Manila and the Bay Area. I founded the company myself five years ago after doing a number of other start-ups.

A number of things happen when you start a business, including a general lack of sleep because you're working seven days a week. I am on a plane to New York or London weekly. When you're always eating in restaurants, it's easy to eat far too much of the wrong foods, and of course exercise is hard to come by.

You feel exhausted a lot. I'd always been active and into sports, but I ended up putting on 10 or 20 pounds.

I was at the end of my rope last year with the amount of travel I was doing and how ill I'd been feeling. So I decided to make some changes.

I started carrying around nuts and raisins and bringing my own food to eat when I fly. I now walk to my meetings, even if it takes a half hour.

Also whenever I know that I am going to be on a long conference call that does not require me to be in front of a screen, I start walking. Sometimes I pace up and down the corridor and other times I walk outside. This gives me an extra hour of exercise that I would not otherwise get.

I researched the restaurants in the cities I regularly visit so that I know I can get a healthy meal. I go back to those same places all the time. I'm back closer to my fighting weight.

NEXT: Turning point? The day my 'pants didn't fit'