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Megan Gall, tell me about your vision.

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My vision is to inspire and

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spark people to make a change in their

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lifestyles towards greater health.

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Not in a way that

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means that they're going to be

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following someone's cookie cutter program.

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Taking roles that don't truly

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spark anything in that person.

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Taking someone else's goals and making them their own.

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I want people to find their particular way

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to make healthy living a reality for them.

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The reason I want to see this is because in my personal journey,

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I've yo-yo dieted and I've found my way

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to achieve and stay at a healthy lifestyle.

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Achieve and stay at a healthy weight since 2018-2019.

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That process taught me so much about what I was capable of and what I could actually

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accomplish with small changes. Not with a huge change all at once, but with small measured changes

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that did not feel overwhelming. That didn't feel like I was going back on who I was as a person.

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So that's what I want to bring to the world. I want to make sure people can

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be fostered to find that for themselves. To achieve those small steps that feel right to them

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that aren't restrictive. To reach either a healthier weight or just a healthier routine for themselves

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that allows them to be the best person they can be in all of the roles that they want to

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occupy in their lives. I love that. I love that from your story. This comes from your own story

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as well of having to overcome certain health challenges. You mentioned that you've lost 100

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pounds in your weight loss journey. What's the story behind that if you don't mind?

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All along, from late childhood to early adulthood, I really ended up using food

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almost accidentally as my main coping strategy. First, it was totally under the radar for me. I

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wasn't seeing that I was doing that. It was in using takeout as the main relaxation of the day

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after work. Stressful day at work, I didn't want to think anymore. I didn't feel like I had time

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earlier in the week or energy earlier in the week to do any kind of proactive thinking about my meals.

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So takeout accidentally became the thing that I would look forward to each night as the

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fulfillment of the day because I wasn't getting it from work. That rooted back in, as a child,

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I didn't have too much in the way of experience with restaurants. That was a very rare thing for

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us. It was a bit on a pedestal. When I was more on my own, when I became a younger adult,

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it was easy to fall into that now I have the freedom to eat this way that I've always dreamed

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of eating. I have the freedom to enjoy this restaurant food every day if I want to. I truly

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did. It was really related to exhausting myself by overthinking everything at work, just overthinking

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everything related to pleasing colleagues, pleasing bosses, making sure clients and customers had

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the best experience that I could possibly give them. All of those things were given a ballooned

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importance in my brain and how they perceived me was given a huge importance in my brain.

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That left no energy for me to do anything that was proactive and taking care of me as a body,

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as a person. I didn't relieve stress proactively. I just let it fester and skyrocket. I didn't

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think proactively about what I would eat each day. That meant I was eating

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anything along the commute or anything that popped up during work or when I came back,

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I was exhausted enough to fall into that well-worn groove of just having a nice big restaurant meal

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to bring some fun into the day that felt extremely stressful. Where I started to change was when I

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started noticing this not just happening in the evening, but it started to happen in the middle

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of the day during a split shift. I was seeing myself use that two hours to go to a fast food

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place and just sit there for the whole time and just order enough food to get me around through

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that two hours. That was the piece that really told me somewhere deep down, like, I was going to

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tell myself, I don't see other people doing this normally in their day. There's a piece here that

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I can do better. I don't have to be in this guilty cycle of eating this way and then questioning why

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I'm eating this way. That caused me to reach out for help. Really, it was cognitive behavioral

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therapists who helped give me so many thought-questioning skills to start making small

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changes along the way. That's why I find small changes so refreshing from the whole start in

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January diet culture blips that were always put through because it worked so well for me,

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not expecting myself to change who I was overnight, just creating small changes over time

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in ways that felt authentic to me. I love that. I love your story. I love your authenticity,

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how you're going about using what to me feels like virtuous principles for healing and health

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and living your best life. You emulate it. I can't wait to have you on the show. This is going to be

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such a fun ride. I can relate to a lot of this myself and I know how many people in my life

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that I see with anxiety and stress and fighting how to become healthy and completely outside of

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the realm of principles and where they go to find that fad or that path towards it.

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I have my own view on what healthy means and what it looks like and how I go about it.

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I will share one funny story. I was listening to Jim Gaffigan. You know who that is?

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Oh yeah. He's great. He inspired my last health kick. He actually inspired it because he says,

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he says, I haven't been hungry in like 20 years. I'm like dying of laughter at that. But then all

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of a sudden it's like, it wasn't guilt. It was a penetrating thought of, oh, wait, maybe that's not

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a healthy thing. And I realized it's like, when my body is hungry, that's my metabolism,

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like taking effect. Like it's not a bad thing to be hungry. It's a bad thing to starve,

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but it's not a bad thing to have a desire for food. But if I constantly indulge

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in that desire every single time, I might possibly feel like it or think I have it

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or just have the habit of filling my body. Maybe I can rethink this. And I did. And I ended up going

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from 190 down to 160, no, 170 pounds. Yeah, it was fantastic. I'm not there now. I'm back up to 190

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or so. But I'm also not unhealthy at 190. And now I'm doing five mile walks again. I mean,

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really five to seven mile walks almost on a nightly basis. It's not the best. The best habit.

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Like that was, that took me a while to build in, honestly, daily walks. It was a hard switch

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because I had a lot, maybe some people can relate to this, but I had a lot of resistance against

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feeling like an exercise person. Like I was like, I'm not an exercise person. Yeah. I like doing

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sports. I don't do this alone, lifting a piece of metal. Like that doesn't get me excited.

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Yeah. Team sports have that camaraderie, but exercise always felt, well, to me, I always

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associated it with the girly girl who's, you know, I think they call her the clean girl now, like

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clean eating, like healthy. And me being like a staunch feminist was always like, I don't have

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to do that to be worthy. I still feel I don't have to do that to be worthy. I just genuinely like it

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now. Yeah. And that's so cool. I look forward to having the conversation in its fullest about

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vision and where you're going with it, how you're helping people. It's amazing with the path that

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you're on. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is

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going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people

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to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an

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excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.