https://youtu.be/mu_2WZsSGRY
Fitness expert, champion bodybuilder, and MS advocate, David Lyons, teaches Matt and Tara how to start a fitness program when you have a chronic illness. David talks about mindset, goal setting, and the importance of joining the right program. David shares tips from his Optimal Body Personal Fitness program. You can find David on Facebook where he shares awesome fitness tips and videos.
David and Arnold
This is part one of our interview with David. The transcript is below. You can also watch the video or listen to our podcast.
Matt: Hey everybody. My name's Matt and this is Tara and we're from Situation Positive. We're here today with our good friend David Lyons of Optimal Body Personal Fitness. We're here for a special workout because we joined the program and we wanted to learn more about it. David. Welcome to the show.
David: Hey, thanks for having me guys. I appreciate it. And you know, something I'm going to get you guys in top shape, but I'm going to get you guys feeling better but more important than that, I'm going to get your brains connected to those muscles of yours.
Matt: I'm glad that you brought that up because over the past year I've found that. I'm sitting more working out less and I've lost all motivation. I don't even know how to get started.
David: Well, that's what I'm here for. So the important thing Matt and Tara are that you've got to have the right mindset. It does not matter what your goals are and what you set out to do. If your mindset is not there.
So everybody's got these great intentions they're going to get in shape. They get a diet or whatever, and whatever that goal. And then they don't follow through because they never got their mind ready for the goal that, that set, they set a goal and they jumped into it. 30 days later, they don't do it anymore.
So how do we do that? I mean, the main thing that you have to do is understand that there's no option. And if, once you want to stand that there's no option, then you can get yourself motivated to follow through in a program, you know, with MS and I've had MS for 15 years. I wake up tired. I go to sleep tired.
I workout tired. So if I didn't work out, would I be less tired? No, I'm tired. So I've learned to understand that, to beat that fatigue, I have to exercise. It's all mindset. It's how you look at what you're going to do. If you're going to look at this as a challenge and a negative road to go, then that's how you're going to feel.
And you'll never follow through. But if you take the same negativity that you have and you flip the switch and you make it a positive thing in your mind, I'm going to do this. I have to do this. I have no choice. Then it becomes something that you will follow through. You make your short-term goals, you make your long-term goals.
Those long-term goals could be something crazy. Like I'm going to run a marathon, but the short-term goals have to be realistic as well. For you to be able to get to that crazy long-term goal that you have, if the short-term goals are unrealistic, the long-term goals will never happen. So you've got to kind of shift that mindset.
And once you do that, this becomes easy.
Matt: You know, and goal settings have always been a difficult thing for me because sometimes my goal is just to get out of bed and do something. You know, so I always am envious of people with five-year goals and stuff like that, that know where they're going, or have some of these things set.
If you have a chronic condition like MS. How can you plan for tomorrow? How can you set a fitness goal if you're not sure how your body's going to be reacting?
David: Well you can't if you have the wrong fitness program and that's the problem. And that's where my frustration came in, and this is why I launched this program. I wanted to provide for the MS community and the disability community and the community of people like us that are challenged with is...
