Transcriber: Amy Qiu Reviewer: Moe Zaw Oo
Hi, my name is Julie Weiss,
and I’m here today to offer a revolutionary way to help solve
the health crisis in the United States and the world.
I'm not just talking about the pandemic,
I'm talking about a crisis of overall well-being.
And I was a part of that crisis and like many, I had hit rock bottom.
My hope is that my my story will inspire those that are struggling to create
a new way to connect to your own body and revolutionize over health.
If not for you, then maybe someone you know.
In 2013, I ran fifty two marathons in 52 weeks.
That's one a week, one thousand three hundred sixty two point four miles total.
And I was not.
I was not. And I am not an elite athlete.
Heck, I wasn't even athletic in high school.
My my transformational journey actually began when I was
a struggling mom in my late thirties.
I have two teenagers and I was severely depressed.
I was overweight and addicted to drugs.
I was just going through the motions of my daily life and feeling really stuck.
I was eating terribly, I was drinking too much,
and it was around this time that my family decided to go on a trip to Hawaii.
And I thought, I’m going to go on this trip and I’m going to try to get healthy.
So on that first day, I thought, I'm going to go for a run. Great idea, right?
20 minutes, I got this. And I go out there and right away. I’m breathing way too.
Having my heart rate is way too high. I am gasping for air.
I’m like dying out there. But something inside of me came alive for
the first time. I felt connected, connected to the ocean,
connected to the Earth, and truly accepted how hard this moment truly felt.
And for the first time, I had this connection with my body. It was amazing.
So when I got home, I continued running,
and the extra weight that I was carrying started melting away.
And I got to the point where running for miles felt pretty easy,
and running actually even helped repair a difficult relationship that
I had with my father for the first time.
He was really proud and supportive of what I was accomplishing.
And so I, as my mileage increased, got up to about seven miles and I thought
I’m going to train for a marathon.
But a marathon is twenty six point two miles, OK?
And I only had seven under my belt, but I got it in my head.
I just have to work up to that. And so I did it and I got through it.
And then I heard that there are special marathon. Special? Special marathons that
you have to qualify for, like the Boston Marathon,
the oldest and most prestigious annual marathon in the world.
I was like. Wow, cool. New challenge. I love it.
And my dad became my number one fan.
And sadly, during my training, my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,
and just 35 days after his diagnosis, he passed away. And I was, I was devastated.
I had another race coming up and I knew he would want me to run it.
So just 10 days after he passed away on my 19th attempt,
I finally qualified for the Boston Marathon and
I knew we had done it together. I knew.
But after everything that I had learned about pancreatic cancer and it being
the third leading cause of cancer related death in the United States,
I wanted to do something to raise money for research
so that no one would have to suffer the way my dad did.
But I also wanted to raise awareness because it was needed
and also because everything my dad did, he did it big.
So I thought, I’m going to run 52 marathons in 52 weeks
I don’t know how I’m going to do it.
I work full time, so I'm going to have to leave my office on a Friday,
sometimes run another marathon in another city, state, even country,
and then get back to work on Monday morning by 9:00.
But if I went dedicating every marathon to someone affected by pancreatic cancer
and on my last marathon at Mile twenty five, my dear friends LoopPay,
Romero de la Cruz, she met me there and she's a pancreatic cancer survivor,
beautiful. And we crossed that finish line together and it was
a beautiful journey. It really was. But here's the problem.
There's a health crisis, and it's not just the crisis of pancreatic cancer
or the pandemic, but it's this feeling of overall discontent.
And unhealthiness is both mental and physical. We need a health revolution.
And I think one of the major contributing factors to this is that people are
not getting enough exercise.
You know, the clearly the Cleveland Clinic actually says that 80 percent of
American adults are not getting the recommended amount of exercise 80 percent
and potentially setting setting them up for years
and years of health problems that could be prevented.
And because of this, we have high rates of cancer,
we have high prescription drug costs.
And, you know, it’s really sad, but I think we can change this.
It's time we start viewing our society as being in need of health.
But the question is how? How do we do that? How do we get our people healthy?
How do we get our society healthy?
Well, my hope is that my story can demonstrate how exercise can really
transform lives, the can. I mean,
I can tell you all the things that you may or may not already know,
like you can exercise for 30 minutes a day . You can pick an inspiring goal.
You can join an organization to help make a difference not just for you but
for others and or invite a friend. And he has all those things work. They do.
But here's the thing they won't work unless we create this loving relationship
with our body, which includes thanking it for all it does for us.
Our bodies are amazing. I think one of
the reasons people don't have this loving relationship with their bodies
because we don't really want to hear what it would have to say.
I mean, ask your body this question.
How does it feel about the way it's being treated? How does it feel?
Your body is like the child in you that wakes up every morning
and wants to try again. We can make a commitment
and redirect any pain into action and we can do this daily,
check in with ourselves every day
and decide each day how you’re going to treat your body.
And then something will happen to you.
You will have no desire to go back to that old and healthy life.
Yes, it will try to pull you back because it was so much more familiar.
But you'll get hooked to this joy of moving to this joy of being healthy.
And then you’ll have that connection to your body.
Like I did that first time when I went on that run in Hawaii.
And I know some of you may be thinking, Yeah, Julie,
I've tried to have this loving relationship with my body
and it doesn't work. Believe me, I get it.
There are days that I struggle to you.
And so when you're struggling like that on those days, just think, OK,
let's just be healthier. And my vehicle to get healthy was running.
Running was my savior, but the vehicle can be anything.
Your first relationship in this revolution needs to be
a loving relationship with your body.
And once you get that and understand it,
it’s a life you can live forever accepting
and loving your limitations what you can and can't do.
Today, I want to share with you a new way to think about exercise.
It's going to transform the way you think about it. OK? Are you ready?
Here it is. OK. You know, just say I’m going for a run.
You say I am going to become a runner. You don’t just say I’m going for a walk.
You say I am going to become a walker. You know, just say I’m going for a swim.
Now you say, I am going to become a swimmer, you know, to say,
I’m going to go do some yoga. You say, I’m going to become a yogi.
You see, it’s a mindset shift. It’s a new way of seeing yourself.
It's going to break down the wall between you and exercise.
It's going to become a part of who you truly are in this world.
You know, I used to walk my dog down to the beach
and see thousands of people running in groups of sizes, shapes, colors,
and it was so beautiful. But I would cry
because it was like there was this wall between us that I couldn't break through.
And then one day my dad said, Why don't you go join a running group, Julie?
And I said, OK. And I did it. I was going to become a runner.
And I mean, I love to run because I love the joy of running.
What do you love to do? Doesn’t mean that there are times that
I don’t feel like running or getting out there and exercising, but then I think
like what is the alternative?
And I get back out there and I keep going.
I'm a grandmother now, and I just ran my 110th marathon last month.
OK. And along the way,
I have raised nearly a million dollars for pancreatic cancer research.
I also just recently supported my friend, Jocelyn Rivas,
in her world record attempt to become the youngest woman to run 100 marathons.
She's 24. She's amazing.
Miracles happen when you don't just do what you love, but you become it.
You stay with it and you stay with it,
and you form this remarkable relationship with your body that says,
maybe we really can do this.
The past resolves the future of up, and the revolution begins. We got this.