I had the opportunity to share my weight loss story at the Blooming Sunflower Center In the last few years I’ve lost over 330lbs and gone from feeling entirely trapped in my body to being able to bike and rollerblade! It has been a radical shift in my day-to-day experience and has had a profound impact on how I see many things. I am very grateful to the hosts for the opportunity to add public speaking to the many skills I am working to develop during this process.

In this talk I tried to summarize and articulate both the deep and simple lessons learned the hard way. One of my primary goals throughout documenting this process hasn’t merely to show that I could change, but to humanize all stages of the process. From my vantage point now, I can certainly see how much harder that was than I had anticipated. There is no way I could have come this far without the guidance, encouragement, and support I’ve received from so many different places. For that I am immensely grateful, and feel I owe it to others to be as open and transparent as I can be.

What didn’t make this recording is that after the talk I had a very productive Q&A session with the guests. It was equal parts refreshing and instructive to be able to demystify the process while finding opportunities to refine my ability to communicate it. I certainly hope this isn’t my only speaking engagement on this topic, but either way I think it was a good start. I think now more than ever we need to focus on ways to help build each other up, and I’m excited to do my part.