Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Preece.
Katie, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
When people meet me today, they often see the ending before they know the beginning.
They see someone passionate about health, healing, and helping others transform their lives. What they don’t see is the 17-year-old girl who weighed 370 pounds.
At that age, I believed my weight defined me. Every room I walked into, every mirror I looked in, every picture that was taken reinforced the story I told myself—that I wasn’t enough.
So I made a decision that changed the course of my life.
I committed to changing my health, one choice at a time. There wasn’t a magic solution. It was years of learning, failing, getting back up, and refusing to quit. Eventually, I lost nearly 200 pounds.
I thought that once I reached my goal weight, I would finally love myself.
But I was wrong.
Like many people who experience massive weight loss, I still saw imperfections. I convinced myself that changing my appearance one more time would finally make me feel complete, so I chose to get breast implants.
Instead, that decision became one of the hardest chapters of my life.
The implants made me incredibly sick, and eventually I made the difficult decision to have them removed. It took nearly ten years of searching for answers before I came to believe they were the root cause of many of the autoimmune-like symptoms I had been living with. That experience forced me to confront something I had been avoiding for years: healing isn’t just physical.
I had spent years changing my body.
Now I had to learn how to love it.
As I searched for answers, I realized I wasn’t simply finding a career—I was answering a calling.
Growing up, I watched my mother help people through energy healing. Long before I understood what she was doing, I could see the comfort, hope, and peace people found in her presence. I also grew up hearing stories about my great-grandmother, who was known as a healer in her community. Whether you call it intuition, compassion, or something that simply runs through generations, I’ve always felt that healing is part of my family’s story.
Maybe it’s in my blood.
That realization led me to become a Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Sports Nutrition Coach. Massage therapy became more than a profession—it became a way to combine science, human connection, and the desire to help people heal. Every person who walks through my door has a story, and I’ve learned that true healing begins when someone feels seen, heard, and understood.
In 2015, another unexpected chapter of my journey began when I stepped onto the jiu-jitsu mats. What started as a way to challenge myself quickly became one of the greatest teachers in my life. Jiu-jitsu taught me resilience, humility, discipline, and the confidence that comes from doing hard things. It reinforced everything I had learned through my own health journey: growth happens when you’re willing to be uncomfortable.
That passion eventually inspired me to create Ganja Grappler, a cannabis-friendly, submission-only grappling event. Competitors travel from across the country to participate, but the event has always been about more than competition. It was created to challenge the outdated stereotype that cannabis users are lazy or unmotivated. Instead, Ganja Grappler celebrates discipline, athleticism, community, and the idea that wellness looks different for different people.
My own journey made me obsessed with understanding the human body. I immersed myself in nutrition, movement, hormones, recovery, and the remarkable ability of the body to adapt when given the right environment. Those lessons eventually became the foundation of what I teach today through the Four Foundations of Health: Movement, Mindset, Nutrition, and Light.
People often ask why I’m so passionate about helping others.
The answer is simple.
I’ve lived through the frustration of feeling trapped in my own body. I’ve experienced the heartbreak of believing that changing my appearance would finally make me happy. I’ve searched for answers when no one could explain why I was sick. And I’ve learned that the most meaningful transformation doesn’t happen when the number on the scale changes—it happens when you begin to see your body as something to care for instead of something to fight against.
Today, I don’t see my past as something to overcome. I see it as the path that prepared me for the work I’m meant to do.
Every challenge—from weighing 370 pounds at 17 years old, to rebuilding my health after breast implants, to finding purpose through massage therapy, to stepping onto the jiu-jitsu mats—has shaped the woman I am today.
I believe we’re all here for a reason.
Mine is to help people reconnect with their bodies, uncover the root causes of their struggles, and discover that healing is possible.
Looking back, I don’t think my story is really about weight loss.
It’s about answering a calling that may have begun generations before me—and having the courage to follow it.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
One of the biggest obstacles in my life came after what I thought was one of my greatest accomplishments.
After losing nearly 200 pounds, I believed that changing one last thing about my appearance would finally make me feel complete, so I chose to get breast implants. At the time, I had no idea that decision would lead me into one of the most difficult decades of my life.
Over the years, I began experiencing a growing list of health problems. I struggled with symptoms that seemed unrelated on the surface—fatigue, inflammation, and autoimmune-type symptoms that affected nearly every aspect of my life. I saw healthcare providers, searched for answers, and tried to piece together what was happening to my body. Every new symptom seemed to create more questions than answers.
For almost ten years, I lived with uncertainty.
One of the hardest parts wasn’t just feeling sick—it was not knowing why. When you don’t have an answer, you begin to question yourself. You wonder if this is just your new normal. You adapt, push through, and keep going because you don’t know what else to do.
Eventually, after years of searching, I came to believe that my breast implants were the common thread connecting many of the symptoms I had been experiencing. Choosing to have them removed was not an easy decision, but it became one of the most important decisions I’ve ever made for my health.
That experience changed me in ways I never expected.
It taught me patience. It taught me to listen to my body instead of dismissing what it was trying to tell me. Most importantly, it taught me that sometimes the root cause of a health struggle isn’t immediately obvious, and finding answers can require persistence, curiosity, and the willingness to ask difficult questions.
Looking back, those ten years were incredibly challenging, but they also shaped the way I care for others today. When someone comes to me feeling frustrated because they haven’t found answers, I understand that feeling on a personal level. I know what it’s like to feel unheard, to keep searching, and to refuse to give up.
That obstacle didn’t just change my health—it changed my purpose. It deepened my compassion, strengthened my commitment to looking beyond symptoms, and reminded me that healing often begins by asking not just “How do I treat this?” but “What is causing this in the first place?”
Since my near death experience with breast implants, I’ve collaborated with women around the world to change the narrative for future generations. In 2019 we lobbied the FDA to put a black
Box warning on all breast implants. And currently we are making legislative changes state by state, that protect patients by requiring surgeons to give proper Informed consent for the procedure.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
My brand has always been built around one mission: helping people understand that true healing starts by addressing the root cause—not simply managing symptoms.
I wear two hats that complement one another. First, I own a private practice located inside the Wellness Clinic in Royal Oak, Michigan, where I work one-on-one with clients through therapeutic massage, movement, and lifestyle-focused wellness. That hands-on work keeps me connected to the people I serve and reminds me that every person has a unique story and deserves an individualized approach.
I’m also the founder of Team Wellness, a national network that brings together functional and integrative practitioners with a shared mission of helping people optimize their health. Through our telehealth platform, patients have access to both medical doctors and holistic practitioners, creating a collaborative approach that bridges conventional medicine with lifestyle-based care.
What sets my brand apart is that I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all health. My own experiences taught me that healing is rarely about finding a single miracle solution. It’s about understanding the body as an interconnected system and creating the right environment for it to function at its best.
Everything I do is rooted in what I call the Four Foundations of Health: Movement, Mindset, Nutrition, and Light. These principles aren’t just part of my business—they’re the philosophy that transformed my own life and continue to guide the way I help others.
More than anything, I’m proud that my brand has become a place where people feel heard. Whether someone walks into my office in Royal Oak or connects with one of our Team Wellness providers from across the country, my hope is that they leave feeling empowered, educated, and hopeful.
At the end of the day, I don’t want to build the biggest wellness company—I want to build one that changes lives. If people remember one thing about my brand, I hope it’s this: healing isn’t about perfection. It’s about giving your body the support it needs to do what it was designed to do.
Any big plans?
I’m excited about the future because I feel like everything I’ve done so far has been preparing me for what’s next.
One of my biggest goals is to continue expanding Team Wellness into a national telehealth platform that connects people with both medical doctors and holistic practitioners. My vision is to make root-cause, integrative healthcare more accessible, regardless of where someone lives. I want to build a collaborative network where practitioners from different backgrounds work together with one common goal: helping people achieve better health.
Outside of healthcare, I’m also looking forward to growing Ganja Grappler. One event I’m especially excited about is a special edition that would bring together some of the world’s most talented martial artists—including law enforcement officers and cannabis advocates—to compete on the same mats. My hope is that the event would encourage conversation, build mutual respect, and challenge stereotypes from all sides.
More broadly, I hope Ganja Grappler continues to be a platform for thoughtful discussions around cannabis policy, personal freedom, and the role of plant-based therapies. I believe we can have respectful conversations about these topics while celebrating athleticism, discipline, and the idea that people should be empowered to make informed decisions about their own health.
No matter where my career takes me, my mission remains the same: to educate, inspire, and help people reclaim ownership of their health. Whether it’s through Team Wellness, my private practice, or Ganja Grappler, I want to leave people healthier, more informed, and more hopeful than when I met them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.katiepreece.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealkatiepreece
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kate.dgreen.queen
- Other: https://www.teamwellness.org
