I did it! I was finally able to conquer my GINORMOUS fear of public speaking last week. As many of you know, I had the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk about my personal experience with food addiction. The only catch–I had less than one month to prepare, and I had never even given a public speech. Part of me still thinks that I was crazy to say yes, but the topic is so personal to me, and it is an issue that is so under-discussed. I felt like I had a responsibility to share my experience with others, and to offer insights that I never had when I was going through my struggles.
Food addiction is a very real thing, and I struggled with it for all of my adolescence and part of my adult life. It was something that gave me great shame. I felt powerless and out of control, until one day I decided that I would refuse to play the victim. Once I discovered the cause of food addiction I regained control of my life, and it has now inspired me to help others in any way that I can!
Let me say that if I had to do large public speeches like this every week I might only be skin and bones because I was so nervous that the idea of eating was enough to make me sick. Luckily, with the support of my husband and the other professional speakers, the energy at the event was almost calming. It seemed like every time I would get nervous another speaker would come up to talk to me about my topic, wanting to learn more about sugar and food addiction. This inspired me to remember that my speech may be my personal story, but more importantly other people need this information too.
Now—a true-life story. I had thought that I was going to walk out on stage all calm and ready to go, but we had so many technical issues. As I got ready to walk out, I realized that my LIVE mic had fallen off! So as they were announcing me and the crowd was cheering me on, the assistant reattached the mic while making the loudest screeching noise ever…but you know what? It broke the ice. After that, there was nowhere to go, but up! The next 10 minutes were like a blur to me, but when I was done I was greeted with the biggest hugs and high-fives all around. And I finally felt like I could breathe again! To know my story is now out there for the world makes me happy. The more knowledge that we have about food and sugar addiction, the more power we have to fight it! 
Check out my video here.
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