Matt Joseph Diaz

Being asked about my weight-loss “secrets” make me uncomfortable. It feels very different from people wanting to know about my story. It feels like being asked to provide a shortcut.

Dear 16-Year-Old, 500 Pound Matt,

This week, Matt kicks off our Conversation series on coming out with his own story.

Welcome to Monday Motivation with Matt Joseph Diaz! Every Monday (obviously), I'll be serving up some motivation to get you through the week.

We really want people to like us. It’s just human nature. You may say you don’t care if people like you, and on the surface, that may be true. However, there’s a part of you that understands that openly not caring about being liked immediately makes you more likable — self-assurance is an attractive quality to have.

Vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness, and those who see being open and sincere as symbols of fragility have a skewed idea of vulnerability. It takes NO strength to close yourself off from the world — to refuse to be who you are because you’re afraid of the reaction of those around you. Feeling deeply and openly, even in the face of resistance, is what takes true strength.

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This Monday, Matt talks about female comic characters. Batman? How about BatNOTSOMUCHMAN.

I’m uprooting my life to try something new and different in another city in another state. In the time leading up to the actual move, I’ve found that a bunch of weird fucking shit (for lack of a better term) has showed up out of nowhere.

“She just grabbed the bacon off my plate! She didn’t ask, she didn’t even say anything, she just assumed it was OK and took it!”
“It’s just bacon —”
“It’s NOT about the Bacon, Donald. It’s about the principle.”