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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
Matthew Gross (Part 4)
Could reshaping your perspective on competition and teamwork transform both your personal and professional life? Join us as Ariel, a talented massage therapist, and Lucas, a passionate fitness coach, reveal how engaging in sports with partners or teams strengthens bonds and enhances skills. With insights from Lucas’s experiences with his spouse Heather, you'll uncover the power of healthy competition and shared goals to deepen relationships. Ariel and Lucas also share the secrets to maintaining a positive mindset during tough times, emphasizing the true essence of participation and improvement over mere victory.
Shift your focus from the scale to the broader picture of personal growth and transformation. Ariel and Lucas urge you to celebrate incremental progress and resilience, even as you face inevitable plateaus. The discussion pivots to recognizing non-scale victories, like fitting into smaller clothes and feeling physically rejuvenated, as genuine markers of success. Through their stories, they inspire you to cultivate a healthier mindset toward your achievements, staying motivated and gracefully navigating life's challenges with determination. Listen in and embrace a journey beyond numbers, where every small step contributes to a larger narrative of personal fulfillment.
Support Ariel by booking a massage:
https://www.competitorsedgemassage.com/
Support Lucas by booking training:
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, and 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.
Speaker 1:Let's dive in. I'm more sad, and I don't even think that's the playing part. It's just the being outside in the sun and hitting the ball and getting that competitive instinct and that competitive edge. I like that, though, that what you said about building your relationship with Heather, because you know, like you said, a lot of people would think that, like, how are you going to bicker and fight and who wants to do that? But, like you said, a lot of people would think that like how you're going to bicker and fight and who wants to do that? And but like you're a team anyways. Like husband and wife are a team, and what better way to practice being a team than to go play a sport with each other?
Speaker 3:I mean at first, I have to admit heather's more of a competitive, because I'm more competitive drive than I do, really. Yeah, and when she first started playing it was, you know I gotta get better and I, I mean it helped me, I mean I it made me get better.
Speaker 3:I mean I had to mention that, like, alright, I am the better Because I know she wants to win. You know, yeah, and a lot of it's, we want to play together but we want to win Right. So it kind of drove us to play more, get better, practice yeah.
Speaker 1:And so Well, it's so much more important that you have somebody in your corner Right, even if they're playing with you. Yeah, and so well, it's so much more important that you have somebody in your corner right, even if they're playing with you.
Speaker 3:Right, like you know you're supporting her and she's supporting. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:There are times it's a little rough yeah, well, that's, I think, anyone on any team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have rough patches. It doesn't matter if I'm a wife or some random person. It's going to be rough yeah.
Speaker 1:That's how it is Playing Ultimate. That's played on so many different teams throughout my life and sometimes you have games that just get everybody vibes, and not even just your team, the other team, Like everyone's good spirit. It's good, good social interaction with people. You know, fun gameplay, fun competitiveness. And you have those like kind of chippy games where you know you're just so frustrated with you know somebody on your team or somebody on the opposite team is making you mad based on how they're playing or their attitude, and I think it's so easy to let that get in the way of why you showed up and why you're doing it.
Speaker 1:You know I in in my other world, in the gym, you know I talked to people who they face some of that intimidation factor because of other people and so they'll affect that. It'll affect them being able to go do their workout and go do something that's good for them, and you know it's all the same. You know it's not that it's not going to happen. This is just how you react to it and how you move forward with it. You know if you get mad at it and you just never come back, then you're never going to have fun again, right? You're never gonna get better. You're never gonna win.
Speaker 3:You're never you know no, I mean, you gotta. You gotta have the right mindset, like I'm doing this for me. You know I'm doing this for me and heather it's not. Oh, I'm doing this just so I can win all the time. It's like a bonus.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like oh, we won. There's games where you can just play perfect, you know, and just something happens. You know just one little thing. You know it bounces the wrong way. You know you can lose and you can win. It's not much you can do. I mean, you just got to have fun.
Speaker 1:I think it's like the old saying goes it's not about winning, it's about how you play the game. And I think maybe that saying is misunderstood, because you know, know, of course we want to win, yeah, right. But you know, I think people put a lot of emphasis on how you play the game, with the integrity of how you play the game, and not that that's not important, it is. But I think that how you play the game is like it's more of your willingness to go out there and just compete as hard as you could, right, and and to you know, to push yourself and to push your partner If you're there with a partner in your team to do the best that you can, and if that gets you the win, then it gets you the win, and if it doesn't get you the win, then now you have something. You know just getting upset and be like I'm never doing this again. You know, or you know yeah?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean there's there's days where it's like, ah, why am I doing this? But you know that's with anything that's life yeah yeah, that's yeah, but you just, you know, like like a cheat meal, it's like, ah, put that day away, right, put that match away, put that tournament away, just move on.
Speaker 1:I always try to, for myself, guide myself back to the, the fundamentals. I think it's, with anything you know, play an ultimate and just not making good decisions, you know. So what can I fundamentally do? Just okay, make a good pass, just make a good throw, catch it with both hands. You know, I think in life it's, you know, I'm man. I felt terrible. What have I eaten last week? Well, I slipped here. And I slipped here and slipped here. I'm like, okay, well, what can I fundamentally do? Just go back to just track everything, write it down, hold myself a little accountable. Yeah, and those, those fundamentals, really build you up to not just, you know, getting better, but I think it. It helps you go into the next day, helps you put those things behind you so that the next day you can wake up and speak. Okay, I know what I need to do, yeah, yeah, back to basics. And something as simple as counting your calories and walking can, yeah, help you accomplish something massive like 150 pounds of weight loss yeah, yeah, I mean to be honest.
Speaker 3:I mean when when I joined Matrix I was about 270, 265. And probably that first six months I lost another 30 pounds. I mean that's crazy, just doing the fitness classes there and the pickleball and the tennis and the paddle and just everything.
Speaker 1:It just came off, putting in the work, putting in the reps, yeah. And having fun while you're doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean a lot of people say, oh, you've been here all day long. I'm like, yeah, I'm having fun, yeah, why wouldn't you? Yeah, I mean I'll go, yeah, I'm having fun, yeah, why wouldn't you? Yeah, I mean I'll go, I'll spend hours and hours there just playing. And you look at the clock and you're like, oh, I've been here and it's just all right.
Speaker 1:Well, time to go home. Yeah, I think that's the thing I found of why I like pickleball. I have a I tend to be like an all or nothing kind of person, like I either lean all the way in or I don't do it. I'm very, I'm very, I'm not timid with things. So, um, I think I like pickleball, though for that aspect that I can play and play for hours and it doesn't, it doesn't affect me like physically, like I feel like I can wake up the next morning and I'm not sore. You know, my knees joints might be have like a little like I did something yesterday. You know, if I played really hard for several hours, yeah, and that's with anything, yeah, that's anything. But otherwise, you know, you just keep playing like let's go again, let's go yeah, that's very addictive that way.
Speaker 3:It's like oh, oh, you learn kind of like the sweets, like oh, I like that, let me have some more. Right now. It's oh, let's go play some pickleball I like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you, you replaced the thing that affected you in a negative way with something that affects you in a positive way. Yeah, and use that same kind of pathway. Yeah, so just keep doing more of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I'm tied in the same way. It was just you get addicted to something and you just go in, go for it 100%, and that's pretty much what I did for hours watching TV, with going exercise or go from the pickleball or go play tennis or just whatever. Just go outside.
Speaker 1:You made it happen. You found the time because it's what you wanted to do. I think that's, you know. A saying came to mind as you were sharing your story, and I think it's a a great way to sum it all up. So, as we wrap it up here is um, people tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in a day and underestimate what they accomplish in a year, and I think that's something that, like you hit on the head, is like just seeing exactly what you want and being convicted by that desire to go after and get it and then being willing to do it for a year.
Speaker 1:You know, even if you didn't see, you went through periods of times where you didn't see a result and you just stuck with it and you kept finding that next piece, that next step of like, how can I take this a little further? How can I make it more enjoyable? You know, those are the things that you know. I see the most successful people you know in their fitness journeys, like how they find it is. They just keep moving, regardless of what you know is happening in the mirror or on the scale. Yeah, and eventually, you know, you just wake up one morning like whoa, like I have changed, yeah, yeah, like I have changed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's, there's a cartoon that I had seen, um, where it was this guy walking and he was just exhausted and he was taking one step at a time and someone walked up to him like what are you doing? He goes oh, I'm just, I'm so slow, I just can't do it. And the guy is like well, look behind you. And he looked behind him and it was just as far as you can see, it's just steps. Yeah, that's like look how far you've gone right now.
Speaker 3:And you just do you know, just a little bit a day and you know, and in a month or a week or a year it's you can see. You can see that progress. Yeah, it's not. You can't fix everything in a day and it's not always linear no, you have those moments where you know you you fall down.
Speaker 1:And you have those moments where nothing's happening. Yeah, but if you, you know, like you knew, that that was what you needed to do, just challenge yourself day by day, like eventually you're gonna get there yeah, I mean the biggest.
Speaker 3:The biggest thing that helped me with my plateaus was, yes, I'm doing everything I can, you know diet, the exercise, just everything and I'm still staying at the same weight. But I know that I'm losing size, like if I I mean I when I met my biggest, I was a 3'4 XL and now I can fit into a medium, yeah, and just putting on those pants it's like oh wow, seeing them loose, yeah, yeah, I mean one day I bought size 30, I think it was a 36 jeans, and I think at the highest I was at like a 48. And within two weeks, three weeks, those 36 were loose, yeah, and it's just that. Then it's, it's just that, like you, it's. I'm not losing it on the scale, which a lot of people put the emphasis on that, but it's how you feel like right, right it's, it's having the awareness to see how everything's changing yeah and not just that number yeah yeah, that number isn't everything.
Speaker 1:No, it's not it's not at all. Yeah well, thanks for coming on, matt. I appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for having me on right on. Maybe we'll do it again. Yeah, anytime.
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