What happens when you stop worrying so much about how other people see you and start taking ownership of your own story?

In this conversation, I’m joined by David, a motivational speaker, podcaster, disability advocate, adaptive athlete, and someone who has spent years learning how to talk openly about life with cerebral palsy.

David shares how graduating from UCF became one of the turning points that pushed him toward motivational speaking after growing up with predictions about what he supposedly would never be able to do. We talk about how long it can take to actually find your message, why he eventually decided to address disability directly, and what happened when he stopped trying to control whether everybody accepted him.

We also get into podcasting and why David shifted from primarily telling his own story to creating a platform for other people to tell theirs. That has taken him into conversations with athletes, authors, people with disabilities, and even professional wrestlers, with a focus on understanding the person behind what everyone sees on the surface.

A big part of our conversation centers around disability advocacy and education. David shares why he is comfortable answering respectful questions about cerebral palsy, how a simple conversation can change someone’s perception of disability, and why there is a meaningful difference between genuine curiosity and treating someone differently because of their disability.

We also talk about staying active, David’s background as a three sport adaptive athlete and three time state champion cyclist, and what he would tell someone who knows they have a story worth sharing but is still hesitant to put themselves out there.

Ultimately, this is a conversation about appreciating yourself, deciding that your story has value, letting the right people find you, and understanding that you do not need everyone to approve of who you are.

Connect with David on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/davidironman_11/

Subscribe to his YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@davidscpfitness

Rachel has lost 100 pounds more than once.

She has also regained it, gone through cancer treatment, dealt with steroids, stress, major life changes, and reached a point where the strategies that had worked for her in the past were no longer giving her the same results.

In this conversation, Rachel shares what led her to start exploring GLP 1 medications, what happened when insurance would not cover the prescription her doctor wrote, and why her first experience with a compounded option left her feeling extremely sick and unable to eat.

We also talk about what changed when she found an approach that felt more manageable, why she views GLP 1 medication as another tool in the toolbox, and how she responds to people who call medication assisted weight loss “cheating” or “the easy way out.”

Rachel is very open about emotional eating, food addiction, weight regain, social media judgment, and the reality that knowing what worked before does not always mean it will work the same way now.

One of the biggest themes in this conversation is adaptability.

Life changes. Bodies change. Circumstances change. The plan may need to change too.

Rachel is not promising that this is the final answer forever. She is sharing what is helping her right now, what she has learned along the way, and why she continues to focus on movement, nutrition, and using the tools available to her while figuring things out one step at a time.

Follow Rachel on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/rachels_journey3.0/

GLP-1 medications have changed the weight loss conversation, but what happens when we move beyond simply asking how much weight someone can lose?

In this conversation, I sit down with my longtime friend Rob of Busy Bariatrics to talk about GLP-1s, food noise, bariatric surgery, sustainable weight management, resistance training, body composition, and the mental and emotional side of changing your life.

Rob shares his own experience with bariatric surgery and eventually starting a GLP-1 medication after discussing it with his doctor, researching it for about a year, and considering more than just the number on the scale. We talk about his experience navigating weight regain during an incredibly difficult period of injury, grief, and major changes in his everyday life, and why knowing what to do does not make us immune to what happens when life changes.

We also get into one of the biggest questions surrounding GLP-1s.

What happens to the habits, routines, and relationship with food while the medication is working?

There can be tremendous value in having relief from thoughts and feelings around food, especially when those experiences have consumed mental energy for years. I also think there is room to simply experience that relief without immediately turning it into another project that needs to be optimized.

At the same time, long-term health still involves building a lifestyle around the tool you are using.

Rob and I discuss resistance training, preserving lean tissue during weight loss, using blood work and other health markers to look beyond scale weight, and why sustainable change does not require being all in every minute of every day.

Then we dig into food noise.

The term can be extremely useful because it gives people language for experiences they may have struggled to describe before. But that does not mean every thought about food is automatically food noise, or that every thought and feeling around food needs to disappear.

Sometimes hunger is hunger.

Sometimes someone may simply not be eating enough.

Sometimes thoughts around food are connected to emotions, habits, culture, family, social experiences, or memories.

And sometimes there may genuinely be persistent food noise that deserves further exploration.

Food is nuanced because our relationship with food is connected to our relationship with ourselves.

This conversation is not about telling you whether you should or should not use a GLP-1. It is about giving you more to consider as you figure out what sustainable health, weight management, and your relationship with food look like for you.

Continue With Rob and Busy Bariatrics

Listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/56aD8jQHxIys99itoSyyIQ

Listen on Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/pl/podcast/bariatrics-and-glp-1s-for-busy-people-with-rob-dimedio/id1765407351

Watch on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwZvWAbVrj0ANxI9uufcfwsGGbSexdkAU

Follow Rob on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/myweightishistory/

Follow Daryl on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/daryltperry