Cheryl believes that a better life is worth fighting for. She’s the founder of Box Lunch Lifestyle: a common sense practice for a more satisfying life built on better food and better ways to invest your time during your workday lunch break.

For many years, her career as a test development research director for Pearson was the perfect intersection of Cheryl’s curiosity and her drive to distill, organize, and simplify complex ideas into something actionable. But after nearly twenty years, her love of learning outgrew this role, and too many days felt like a slog rather than making the world a better place. She left in 2018 to do more things that made her feel alive, and to launch Box Lunch Lifestyle with the goal of helping people believe that richer, more satisfying lives aren’t as distant as they seem.

In part to be a good boxer, Cheryl’s done her homework on food and nutrition, and shows no favoritism for any one institution or school of thought. An admirer of Michael Pollan, she agrees that “real food should eventually rot.” When people ask food-related questions, she has answers, but also steers them back to their own common sense, and the important “why we eat” that matters just as much as “what we eat.”

Cheryl is currently finishing her book about Box Lunch Lifestyle (Spring 2021). She talks to audiences of all sizes, and offers workshops to help anyone see how they can win back the lunch—and the life—they deserve.

Cheryl’s secret guilty pleasure is grocery stores—from small family-owned ones, to national chains, to co-ops, to what’s sold in a typical gas station. She’s fascinated by what’s available to people, and what it says about a community and our culture’s overall approach to food.

When she’s not boxing, reading, or pushing a cart, Cheryl and her husband enjoy documentary films and Indian food. They live in a small town that Cheryl describes as a cross between Lake Wobegon and Twin Peaks.