Matthew Gross (Part 3)

Discover the secrets to a balanced and healthy lifestyle with Lifestyle Strength, where Ariel, an experienced massage therapist, and Lucas, a seasoned fitness coach, share transformative stories and actionable insights. Lucas opens up about his own fitness journey, detailing how shifting his focus from a sports-centric youth to emphasizing nutrition and hydration led to sustainable weight loss. By replacing processed foods with healthier alternatives and swapping soda for water, Lucas achieved remarkable fitness success. Listen in as Ariel and Lucas offer practical tips on how to prioritize dietary changes before exercise, ensuring long-lasting results without the frustration of plateaus.

In this engaging episode, Lucas also shares his newfound passion for Pickleball, highlighting the joy and numerous victories he's found in the sport. Together with Ariel, they explore how proper water intake can curb cravings and sustain energy, providing listeners with the tools to kickstart their wellness journey. From relatable anecdotes to expert advice, Ariel and Lucas promise to inspire and equip you with the steps needed to embrace a more nutritious and active lifestyle. Tune in to gain insights that could redefine your approach to health and fitness, making well-being your top priority amidst daily challenges.

Support Ariel by booking a massage:
https://www.competitorsedgemassage.com/

Support Lucas by booking training:
https://www.hydefitnessconsulting.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Lifestyle Strength, your guide to mastering health and well-being in the real world.

Speaker 2: 0:04

I'm Ariel, a massage therapist with over a decade of experience in holistic health, and I'm here with Lucas, a seasoned fitness coach, who's transformed the lives of hundreds in Northwest Arkansas.

Speaker 1: 0:14

We're here to share real stories and expert insights about embracing a healthy lifestyle while balancing the everyday hustle.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Join us as we explore practical ways to achieve wellness and thrive amidst life's challenges.

Speaker 1: 0:25

Let's dive in. Your story so far is inspired from Forrest Gump, or between the running and the ping pong.

Speaker 3: 0:37

Yeah, pretty much it's a lot. Yeah, it is A lot of running.

Speaker 1: 0:44

You didn't serve in Vietnam, did you? No, that's a little before your time.

Speaker 3: 0:51

They tried to get me in there, but my asthma kept me out. Oh yeah, no, it's. My life is sports. I never really worked out. All my exercise growing up, you know, all the way up through high school was a sports. That's all I did no lifting weights, no cardio, no, nothing, just sports. And that's pretty much how I did my weight loss. You know, I did my cardio, but that's the point where I was like, all right, well, let's try some cardio. Correct, try sports.

Speaker 1: 1:33

I think you went about it in a way that a lot of people don't nowadays. You started with the harder thing first, by just being held accountable with your food. I think that's something that so many people they overweight. The importance of exercise, which, like not, I do exercise. That's what I teach people all day, so it's important. But I think a lot of people put so much emphasis on that and then they don't focus on their nutrition like they should and then they get frustrated when their results plateau quickly because, like even for you, you know, granted, you didn't have a lot of weight to lose, but it didn't you didn't plateau till a year and a half in.

Speaker 3: 2:13

yeah, yeah, I mean I lost, gradually lost a lot of weight in a year and a half and I know from experience, you, you can do cardio or exercise and everything, but if you eat bad it doesn't matter at all. So that's why I did food first. Yeah, I learned how to eat, learned what to eat. Replace, you know, the chips, um, vegetables or whatever. I mean anything. Anything's better than just snack the processed food. Yeah, you know, it's chips, candy, all that stuff. Right, I mean, I, I, I was, I was a soda fanatic, a lot of diet soda.

Speaker 3: 3:08

And doing this diet. You know they teach you water. Drink lots of water, Drink. It was I can't remember it now, but it was. You drink so much water a day based on your weight. I don't know the ratio Off the top of my head. I can't remember it now, but it was. You drink so much water a day based on your weight. I don't know the ratio, Off the top of my head. I can't remember what the ratio was, but I would do that and that would help. It was every day I was like oh, I'm not hungry, Right, Curbing those cravings. Yeah, I mean, you learn that a lot of the cravings isn't that you're hungry, it's that you're thirsty, Right, and if you keep your body hydrated, you're not as hungry it is. And that has helped a lot, yeah, Throughout that first year and a half.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Yeah, I carry my half-gallon jug with me everywhere. Yeah, so having that water, that was when I lost weight when I was young. That's what it was was replacing the soda with the water. And that one change I saw results. So that's really powerful. That's, I think, the thing I'd have my clients do first. Yeah, it's fix their water intake. So you found Pickleball, or discovered Pickleball a couple years ago? Yeah, and I take it. You picked it up pretty quickly. Yeah, just found a heavy interest in it, because how many tournaments have you won now? No, I can't.

Speaker 3: 4:36

Too many to count. I mean, I have a bucket full of medals First, second, third I mean I don't know, I know this last one we won Me and my partner won 3-5. We won gold. So we're actually signing up for another one in the beginning of the year january 17th I think and we're going to go to 4-0. So we're going to move up just the ranking system.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Let's take a bowl, right, right, okay, okay, I'm still new to all the things.

Speaker 3: 5:16

Yeah, you start out at 2-5. Okay, a beginner, he's young, you need to do it. And then just the more you learn, the better you get. You just move up.

Speaker 1: 5:28

I think someone was saying to me that a professional is like right around, it's like 6, like 5, 5.5, 5.6. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:35

Something like that. Yeah, I know a few that are about five, five, six, oh, some that are like six one, and they're playing we can play yeah, see them play, play with them like oh, there's no chance.

Speaker 1: 5:53

Yeah not with that attitude. Well, you didn't think there was any chance to lose the weight until you got hungry and wanted it. Yeah, not right now, I can no, but someday do you feel like you're limited from the previous injury at all when you're playing, or have you pretty much got it fully dealt with and you can play your your heart out, if, so to speak, um, yeah yeah mean a lot of it is.

Speaker 3: 6:19

I'm still not where I should be physically. I mean, I still have some weight to lose. I mean I'm at about 230 right now. What do you want to get to? Probably like 210. What do you want to get to? Uh, probably like 210, I mean, but it's kind of kind of been plateau for a little bit.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Yeah, but it is what it is. It's holiday, yeah, does the number matter not?

Speaker 3: 6:51

really it's right now. It's more of how I feel, and I feel good and physically I mean, I'm sore all the time.

Speaker 1: 7:03

I do way too much now you gotta get leaning into the recovery side of things. Yeah, I gotta learn what that is we should have had a day aerial could have come on. That's her space.

Speaker 3: 7:17

I gotta figure out how to do that. I just do a lot. Now that I've learned what I've learned to play tennis and all these other sports, I do a lot.

Speaker 1: 7:28

So you play tennis, you pickleball obviously still break your route. What other sports do you play? Paddle I have no idea what's. What's. Is that like racquetball kind of?

Speaker 3: 7:42

Um, actually it is, it's all. It's kind of like a mix of racquetball and tennis, okay yeah, and the place I work out at is, um, they have a professional paddle team, oh okay, and they just started it last year. This is the second year and they just brought it to America. I mean it's huge in the other states, countries, it's big in Spain, europe and South America. I mean it's big, okay, and they're bringing it here, but it's it's. It's a lot of fun, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:29

I have to play it sometime. I've never played racquetball either, so oh god, you might have. If you beat me as bad as you, probably beat me worse than you beat me in pickleball the other day.

Speaker 3: 8:41

Yeah, I mean, if you haven't played racquetball it might feel a little tough to learn. The ball coming off the walls yeah, I mean it's about the size of a pickleball court but there's walls, okay, and you just play the ball off the wall. You have to hit the ball over it hits the ground and then off the wall. The wall, and you have to hit the ball over, hits the ground and off the wall. So you kind of learn angles, you know where the ball is going, where it's gonna be, and then just fine, I mean playing racquetball and kind of picked it up easy, alright, well, the ball's gonna hit this corner, that corner, it's gonna be right here. So I've been playing that for probably a year and a half. Why do you?

Speaker 1: 9:25

think you like sports so much Outside of just having a competitive personality, because obviously you like to compete. But it's obviously played a role in your life from the time you were young to not having it pit of despair, rock bottom, like you said, To then kind of challenging yourself and then finding those sports again on the other side more grown up.

Speaker 3: 9:50

I think I picked it up more of this now is just, it's, it's a soul, the social part, um, I think at first I picked it out just because you know it's your childhood, I believe, and I did this one, my dad right, you know, and it's like, oh, it's bringing back the memories and just how much fun you had growing up.

Speaker 3: 10:18

You know it's like, oh, let's go to courts yeah, and a little bit of nostalgia there, yeah, yeah you know Heather, she played with me when we played pickleball one time at Osage, when it first opened, and we're just like, oh, this is, this is fun. Yeah, let's, let's do it. You know we had the cheap Walmart. You know paddles, yeah, and it was. I think it was like a June or July and playing outside was not a good idea, so hot here in Arkansas, yeah. And then we tried to. So we tried to find a place inside and that's. You know, when we found Matrix and went there and we got demolished, what they call pickled, pickled, yeah, 11-0.

Speaker 1: 11:18

I think we maybe scored two points the first time we got there, but it was fun either way. Oh yeah, yeah, that's when we're two points the whole the first time we got there, but, but it was fun either way. Oh yeah, yes, that's when we're like all right, this is where we need to be right, right. But that's the thing I think you know, even if you don't win just having that fun doing it and being active and for all the right reasons, not necessarily like just to. I'm gonna do this because I want to look a certain way or because I want this. It's more of like I'm just gonna do this because you want to, because it's fun, yeah, and you find the fun in it yeah, yeah, we found a lot of fun on that.

Speaker 3: 11:55

You know it helped. It helps. You know, relationship. I mean a lot of people say, oh, you can't play pickleball together. You know you fight a lot. I mean the first two years, you know, we were just having fun. It was just all right, let's go play pickleball. So we played, and just now it's just habit. Yeah, it's weird how when you're first working out, you first do that first mile and you're just like, oh, I feel like four Right. It's like, oh, why do I do this? Yeah, and now it's oh, if I miss it, I'm like kind of drag it, kind of drag a little. It's like you miss it. It's like kind of drag it, you know, kind of drag a little, and it's like you miss it and it's like why didn't I play Right?

Speaker 1: 12:53

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We want to invite you back next week as we continue the conversation and be sure to follow us on social media to get all of our content and clips and anything you might've missed. Again, thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.