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Lifestyle Strength
We discuss ideas, principles, and tactics that help people improve their position in life. With a background in fitness, Lucas strives to empower others by sharing amazing stories of challenge, transformation, and growth.
Lifestyle Strength
Small Changes, Big Transformations Part 1
Ever wondered how small changes can lead to big transformations? Join us on Lifestyle Strength as we take you behind the scenes of our podcast journey, reflecting on the courage it took to move from an idea to a thriving show. We share our personal stories, the experiments with recording, the invaluable lessons from guest interviews, and the delicate balance between meticulous planning and organic growth. Discover the mindset shifts that helped us embrace challenges, and how our experiences in health and fitness mirror the podcast creation process.
In another part of our conversation, we delve into the significance of incremental progress in achieving long-term wellness. Hear our personal anecdotes about how giving up small indulgences like fast food or soda led to significant health improvements and built momentum. We also discuss the importance of recognizing our physical and mental limits and how accepting recovery periods plays a crucial role in forming sustainable habits. Tune in for practical tips and inspiring stories that can help you thrive amidst life's challenges.
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https://www.hydefitnessconsulting.com
Welcome to Lifestyle Strength, your guide to mastering health and well-being in the real world.
Speaker 2:I'm Ariel, a massage therapist with over a decade of experience in holistic health. I'm here with Lucas, a seasoned fitness coach, who's transformed the lives of hundreds in Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 1:We're here to share real stories and expert insights about embracing a healthy lifestyle while balancing the everyday hustle.
Speaker 2:Join us as we explore practical ways to achieve wellness and thrive amidst life's challenges look at that one.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm gonna be looking at that, I hope they're just starting it from this point and they can see how we yeah, and they just start. Yeah, no, like, I hope, like, I hope they, just they keep it going like we're live right now this is just.
Speaker 2:This is what it is right.
Speaker 1:This is the behind the scenes stuff, guys and that makes me think, like, as we've been doing this podcast for what? 10 months now? Yeah, something like that. Even though've been doing this podcast for what 10 months now? Yeah, something like that, even though we haven't been posting for 10 months we've been posting since the beginning of 2024, but we've been recording and working on this for at least 10 months now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, incremental steps absolutely along the way from the birth of the idea to actually taking a step forward and like getting our feet wet with just like trying to record some stuff and then realizing that, hey, we needed to kind of shift gears entirely, and then figuring out a model that worked for us and then realizing, hey, we can bring guests into this. There have been all these incremental steps into our evolution through this itself, which, I don't know if you would agree, it's been a challenge for me in my business and career. It takes a little bit of courage to kind of put yourself out there. Well, not only that, as a, you know, it takes a little bit of courage to kind of put yourself out there well, not like that.
Speaker 2:I think, you, it's easy for us and anybody especially people like-minded like us, who have big ideas we're like, okay, how we're gonna do this, and then it's like application, you know, and like it's not something that we're necessarily altogether familiar with.
Speaker 2:We haven't had a podcast that we owned in the past or anything like that. And so I think what's beautiful is maybe we didn't think too much into it, that we stressed ourselves out and we allowed some organic things to take place, even just with the interviews. You know, that was something that just kind of fell in our lap like, oh, use, you know, um, that was something that just kind of fell in our lap like, oh, this makes sense to bring um certain kind of people on, or people that, uh, we wanted it to be, you know, applicable to somebody, and we want to be able to allow other people to see somebody else's story, and they're like, hey, it's possible to have a health, wellness, fitness, lifestyle, and here's what it would look like. But we were, we didn't exactly always have that timetable in place, um, and so I think, like there's got to be maybe that sweet balance, but I'm kind of I would say, on my end, I'm kind of proud of myself for not micromanaging something that I I would tend to be that person to micromanage.
Speaker 1:You were micromanaged exactly well, I think it comes like you said. It comes naturally when you say people like us, just people that have been living that health and wellness and fitness based lifestyle, you know we've been faced over and over and over again with challenges, right, and it's not that other people don't face challenges as well. I think part of it is that mindset when you go into something like as simple as a workout where you say, hey, I have this goal today and I have this challenge in front of me, which, generally speaking, is the hardest thing that most people do every single day, right, not always thing that most people do every single day, right, not always. But say, your average American, if you're exercising regularly, that might be the hardest thing you do on the daily right, definitely physically, and we do that over and over and over again. It kind of hardwires in you to seek out those challenges because you physically, you mentally, you emotionally feel the progress of that challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you need more stimuli. At that point it's like, oh okay, this is great, let's keep going with that. I think maybe what I meant by people like us, I meant sometimes and I may be used to you guys, so I would just say unmedicated here that my brain goes a little wild and I have a big imagination and I'm like, oh yeah, we could do this and we could do this, so we could do this, and at the end of the day, there still has to be application to get to those places and those ideas that you want to put in place and so, like part of that evolution is have them, solution is have them, and if you aren't somebody that maybe has that mindset, how can you cultivate that and get to a place where you can even move towards something you know?
Speaker 1:I think that might be a first step yeah, I think totally, because we we idolize like professional athletes who do these really magnificent things. I mean right now, like now, like the Olympics are going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in our minds we're like, you know, we put that literally on a pedestal. When somebody wins a medal, yeah, it's like, oh my gosh, look at what they accomplished. It's amazing, especially if they like break records or it's the first medal for their country. Yes, big deal. It's all these these magnificent accomplishments, but you don't really see the incremental steps that it took to get there. And so if you've never done anything like that or you've never pushed yourself to really take on a new challenge, something makes you really uncomfortable that you don't know if you can do right. Something makes you really uncomfortable that you, you don't know if you can do. Then it's really unnerving to think that you could do anything worthwhile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you look at it like, oh, I could never do that or I could never even, you know, lose 20 pounds. You know, because I've tried in the past or because I've. You know, you, you create all these excuses. And now there's this whole like mountain and big ball of why you can't right, and then you're seeing the end point of somebody who's achieved the summit right of something passive, and so all you have is your experience of I can't ands and I haven'ts, and you know excuse ball, and then the distance to the summit, and that in and of itself is a dangerous place to be. Yeah, because you can't. You literally can't, create those little incremental steps, or at least it's hard to see them.
Speaker 2:For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean I absolutely agree. I think you know, least it's hard to see them. For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean I absolutely agree, I think, uh, you know, it's funny that we're comparing the podcast, but the podcast is about exactly life. You know of that health, wellness and fitness. And because it's applicable to anything, you know, when you're in a position where you, like I said, might not be that person that has these big, big ideas and big dreams and big goals, because you might view it as too much of a challenge and there's that big gap. And sneak peek guys, when we're talking about Olympic athletes, we will have a special guest. Ooh Lucas doesn't even know this.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't, that currently just finished at the Olympics, and I won't go into her story uh too much, but I want to say that when you hear it you're gonna be like, oh wait, I feel like I'm that person. I'm that person that grew up in a country of 10,000 people and I went to a school that didn't even, you know, host my sport, and yet now I'm at the Olympics and I'm in the finals for the first time for my whole country like big, big things.
Speaker 2:And so this idea that there's this massive gap there really isn't. It's just that evolution of you, you know, can you and are you willing to take some steps to get there, and there doesn't have to be the olympic athlete, right?
Speaker 1:there can be wherever you want, there too exactly like I think.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes we get so caught up in this big idea that it has to be this black and white or one or the other, and we've talked about it in the past just the journey that you have to take, which I think is the topic really today, of that, how we've transitioned and made that change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for anyone that might be landing on this for the first time, it's not like we just appear here one day and we're like, hey, we have this really awesome studio with these chairs and all these cameras and a logo it's.
Speaker 1:It's taken step after step after step to to get to this point, and who knows where we'll be 10 episodes from now, absolutely right. Yeah, we don't necessarily have an idea of that. But in regards to improving yourself, your mountaintop doesn't have to be, like you said, the Olympic stage or having this awesome setup, or having lost the 20 pounds Right, your mountaintop, or the next evolutionary step. They're just, they're one in the same right. It's the same thing, because if you haven't been able to push yourself yet, well then the first push, the first mountaintop, is just that next little piece.
Speaker 1:And so for a person who is sick and tired of being sick and tired and and they're like you know, I think I need to take better care of myself. Maybe the mountaintop is just not eating fast food for the next couple weeks. Yes, huge accomplishment. We don't talk about it. You know you don't see yourself stepping on stage Right Because of that, but that doesn't make it any more or less important, absolutely, to you Because of that. But that doesn't make it any more or less important to you, because that could be the thing that creates momentum for you to hey. Maybe not eating fast food has helped me feel a little bit better, and that gives you motivation. So now you actually want to go move your body a little bit more, right, or you want to prep your food, and I go back to what sparked my fitness journey, which was something as simple as giving up sodas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it. That's the only thing that I decided. You know what? I know these aren't good for me. Yeah, I'm not gonna drink them anymore. Didn't really have an end point in mind, it was just I'm gonna challenge myself to not do this thing that has become what I just feel like is a problem. I didn't like know that. You know the them being loaded with sugar and caffeine and who knows what else. Like I didn't have any understanding of the science as to why sodas were bad, right, I just I just had a gut feeling that, hey, maybe I shouldn't be drinking as many of these.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:And lo and behold, after a few weeks of not drinking any sodas, I felt better. I lost weight and I was like, wow, that's kind of cool, yeah, and I felt like I was standing on a mountain for one simple decision. Right, and it's not always that easy, right? Right, it's going to have that epiphany from just that one simple decision.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, but if you don't make any decisions or you don't create any of those little steps for yourself, then you absolutely will not have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're definitely not.
Speaker 1:You're never going to move anywhere and in fact, you're going to move backwards because time is working against us. You're only going to get older and sicker.
Speaker 2:Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1:That's what we're all doing, right? We're all going to get older, we're all going to feel worse, and that might be morbid, but that's just the reality.
Speaker 2:Right, you know we'll live forever. Yeah, I love that. You just you know. One thing that you said is like you, you didn't have the science behind why you wouldn't drink the soda. You didn't specifically.
Speaker 1:Yes, as I drink a soda, as he drinks a grape soda. It's actually not a soda, though. What is it? Well, it's a new kind of soda, not a sponsor. Olly Pop Cool.
Speaker 2:Not heard of it.
Speaker 1:But four grams of sugar, 45 calories, and they use like plant a plant mix. Wow, it's actually got nine grams of fiber, cool, so our neck carbs are actually pretty low anyways. So, like you know, alternative because I like something bubbly now in the afternoons okay but.
Speaker 2:I like I like that you implemented something. I digress, yes, I mean I think I don't know something key that you said was right. You didn't have any factual understanding as a kid of like why necessarily you shouldn't drink the soda other than you were like. I know it's not great for me, but you didn't know the specifics. But you took that.
Speaker 2:That kind of that intuition of like this is probably not the best thing for me and you ran with that. I think we would do well to get out of our own way sometimes and listen to those intuitions. And that also makes me think, you know, through the evolution of change and when you get that momentum to start moving, if it's the couple of weeks of no fast food. I was just talking to a girlfriend today and she's like well, I, you know, I'm good for a couple of weeks with my workout and then I fall off the bandwagon. And I said, well, what if that couple of weeks was what your physical and mental load could handle? And that week that you fall off? And when you say you fall off and then you don't get back to it in a while, what if that's just the week that you recover and you don't work out and you mentally program yourself to know I work out for three weeks and I take a week off. And then I'm back to it for three weeks and I take a week off, instead of viewing it as I didn't get anywhere and I did it for three weeks but I've fallen off the bandwagon.
Speaker 2:When in how about listening to your body in that regard and mentally listening for physical and mental here of going oh you know what this is at my payload, this is at my capacity of what I can handle, and it's about two to three weeks of working out and then I fall off.
Speaker 2:Really, I just take a week of recovery and then I come back to it and so, changing like that mindset, I think that might be even that next step. So if you find what mountain you're wanting to climb, that first thing and then you think you're getting there right, you're like three weeks in no fast food, I've been working out, I've been doing the thing, and then all of a sudden you feel like you've fallen off and I air quote this because, again, I think that if we understand ourselves, we need to know at what capacity at which we can handle something, before there's this trickle effect of like I'm just not going to do it for a while, or is it? Do we just change our mindset and we go? Oh well, this week I do, and then next week I'm back to it.
Speaker 2:And we start forming those habits from there.
Speaker 1:I think that stems we'll stick with the mountain analogy, because I think that's really good I think it stems from thinking that when we set a goal for ourselves, we might think big.
Speaker 2:And linear.
Speaker 1:We might think big and linear. It's a big other, it's a whole nother topic, right? But we think we might think big and linear and we're confused and thinking that that next step is going to just take us straight to the top, right, and so that can be confusing. We almost are interchanging the long-term goal and the short-term goal with each other, right, because of the way things work in our society. Now, we want things fast and cheap and guaranteed yeah, all the time.
Speaker 1:And unfortunately, fitness does not follow that path. Health doesn't follow that pattern, right? You don't work out once and then wake up tomorrow and you have perfect what work, perfect body composition. You're maxed out on your strength levels, like. It's just not how it works, you're not. So there's very few things, well, there's. She didn't, she didn't wake up and just be that, right, she's worked for years, right, um, and so I think maybe the evolution of you know the difference in somebody who's been doing it for over a decade and the person who's just not starting or is early right is being able to separate those short and long-term goals. But it's, it's more than that. It's separating the incremental step from the summit of you know the direction you're going and trying not to get those things blurred, because you need the, you need the mountaintop, yeah, as a direction. Right, and it might change. You might get halfway up and realize like, man, this doesn't matter to me as much, right, and that's okay. Yeah, it's okay to let that go. We've talked about that before.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's really discouraging when you think that, hey, the mountaintop's right here and I can just take, you know, one, two, three steps and then boom, I'm there, when the reality is it's probably going to be like 20 steps, right? Thank you so much for listening to Lifestyle Strength today. We really appreciate you sticking around until the end of the episode. Be sure to come back next, thank you.
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