The Least Likely Interview

Earlier this week, I had what is almost certainly my most surreal interview ever.

In the last few years, I’ve been interviewed by the media talking about everything from space stations to comedy to local history to what causes wind (Answer: “magic.”)

During that time if you’d asked me to come up with a topic I was least likely to ever be asked to talk about, “health and fitness” would a good contender for the top of that list.

And, yet, there’s a picture of me and my friend Robert La Branche talking to WHNT’s Greg Screws about weight loss. Between the two of us (to be fair, mostly Robert), we’ve lost about 150 pounds in the last year and a half, so I guess it makes sense, but it’s still weird.

Greg does a weekly series on Mondays where he talks to local people about their successes and struggles with health and fitness, and Robert and I will be featured on Monday, around 4:45 p.m. (It will also be available online afterwards.)

For me, anecdotal evidence is the most motivating; I can read a thousand articles about weight-loss tips and get nothing out of them, or I can have one conversation with someone that’s done something that really works and really take it to heart. Robert’s weight loss both inspired and challenged me — when I saw his success, it really drove home that it was something that I both could and should do. So Robert and I were both glad to share our stories for that reason — we’re not experts, but we’re real people doing real things that real people can do, and hopefully that will resonate with someone.

We talked way longer than can go on the air, so I’m not sure which parts of my story will make the cut — whether you’ll get to hear my sage advise about losing weight via Taco Bell and intermittent exercise. But if it’s the story of thing that interests you, check it out.