Train Hard Live Strong

What does it take to be the best? What does it take to risk it all, to take a chance, and go for the unthinkable? In today's episode you're about to dive into the mind of an incredible, inspirational, and passionately driven individual. No matter who you are, how much money you have, how you grew up, ect, never let anyone even yourself tell you YOU CAN'T DO SOMETHING! You will never know if you never try. So many of us quit before we even take the first step, and I know dreams and goals are scary, but the things you truly want in life will always come with fear, consistency, and getting out of your comfort zones. Doing things you might fail at.

Yo wassup fit fam! It's Coach Matt coming at you again with another life changing episode! Nutrition, food, training, weight loss, health, wellness, mental health, and metabolism (and to be honest tons more) are things I get asked a lot about. One thing that will always play a huge role in any goals you want to accomplish is.............yep you guest it, "YOUR METABOLISM". This precious engine within your body will help you enjoy foods and shred fat while doing it!

The speed of your metabolism can be moved by genetics, bad lifestyle habits, and a long lasting time of being in a caloric deficit. I don't know if you knew this though but no matter what the case may be, YOU CAN CONTROL THE SPEED OF YOUR METABOLISM if you follow the 4 ways I will mention in this episode. Metabolic adaptation to a caloric deficit is common, and a lot of people are currently doing it right now without even knowing it. This is when you hear people saying, "well I barely eat, why am I gaining weight?". As a coach I've heard this a lot and still currently do, so I wanted to drop this episode for everyone to hear. Your metabolism plays one of the biggest roles within your body. It is crucial to understand how it works. Let's get it ya'll!

With the many guest speakers we've had on the show, everyone of them has made fitness & health a mental outlet to open doors to a greater version of themselves. Weightlifting & training has helped people with OCD, Depression, Anxiety, Anger, ect. Not only that, but fitness & health has helped young kids who grew up in bad homes and rough neighbor hoods find within themselves that they are great at something. Every human body has amazing gifts, passions, and dreams. All people need to do is be able to see it even in the hard times.

Following your dreams and listening to your body takes a certain discipline & passion. To do the unthinkable to push your body to it's limits will open doors with inside your and your external life that will fulfill the passion you've been craving. One thing I've always preached is how incredible the female mind is. The strength woman have is beyond this world, and once they figure out what their body can do with inside fitness it's game over from there. 

One thing that disgusts me that people do in the gym is look down at someone that isn't as strong, buff, cut, or experienced like them. One thing we all need to remember is our day 1 self. That person we once were when we were rookies, and remember the emotions we felt when we walked in the gym for the first time. Gym intimidation shouldn't even exist, but it does because people have to mess it up for the rest of us. One thing I love to do on my podcast is bring on people who are huge influencers, movie stars, celebrities, doctors, athletes, coaches, and more, to show that one person that WE ALL STARTED SOMEWHERE!!

Getting a nice lean body is always great, but is that really the main focus? One of my biggest fears is not being in control of my body & health and after years of abuse to my body, I am creating an illness for myself that will damage my life in the next 10 - 15 years. We never know if tomorrow will come, but what we can do is plan for tomorrow to come by dominating today. The longevity purpose to health & fitness is to continue to stay strong, healthy, and functional in your 70s, 80s, even 90s. 

You get one shot at making the best out of your health. You get one lifetime to make an impact on your family line, on your friends, business, ect. We are wanting to take the fast routes to a better body but in the long run, what are you learning? This path to optimal health, physique, and performance is a marathon not a sprint. During sprints you get gassed very fast and aren't able to hold that speed for a long time. same with taking these fast routes. You can't hold a deficit forever, You can't hold dehydrating yourself forever. What you can do is take the time to learn about your body, gain power about yourself, and take everyday into your hands!

The mission is not just to lose the weight but keep it off for good! When yo begin to change your nutrition lifestyle, drop body fat, and build that new body you've been wanting for years, you want to keep that old you put away and make the new you a permanent lifestyle. By going on a diet you find off google, you're going to experience a few things: 1) an aggressive cut in calories, 2) some crazy results or no results at all, 3) the feeling of being restricted from life, 4) low energy, and 5) once you finish the diet you're going to go back to your passed lifestyle and gain all the weight back because of the metabolic adaption you went through for that diet to work. It's crazy because the diet is the easy part, it's after your done with it that counts, so instead of "dieting" find out what works for your body and live a life of consistent progress. 

You have 100% control over your body and the decisions you make everyday that either damage or better your health. If you want to better your health you need to know that veggies will be apart of every meal. Your sleep must be 6 - 8 a night. Movement / fitness must be consistent along with the way you eat. America is the #1 country with the highest obesity ratings and diabetic ratings. Why? because the easy route is always the best route right? 

It's easy to sit around all day. It's easy to binge watch all the TV shows on Netflix when COVID hit. It's easy to stop by McDonald's after work and grab a #7 with a large coke because it's easier to do that than go home and cook. The crazy thing is that YOU HAVE THE CHOICE TO MAKE THOSE DECISIONS! Your health is in your hands, no one else's. Stop taking the quick route when it comes to your health. Enjoy the journey, take control, and fulfill your ultimate potential!

We all have these things with inside us called "emotions". These emotions come out and express themselves in many ways: body language, art, dancing, singing, poetry, fitness, ect. When a song artist or instrumentalist creates music he/she is expressing their emotions to the world to hear, relate to, and release from. Have you ever related to someone and began laughing or crying because of the release of emotions of knowing you're not alone? This is the beauty of the amazing guest speaker we have for today.

Katie Kasten, Owner of On Beat Fitness, created an amazing way to move your body by literally working out "On Beat" with the music. Expressing your body through movement, having fun, being accepted, and releasing that energy. Her programs aren't listed by difficulty level, but instead listed by mood: anger, sad, dance your butt, ect. Fitness should always & forever be fun and something you look forward to. On Beat Fitness has made it so. Listen to this episode and dance your way to a happier more fit body, health, and mind!

So much has gone down in the world in the past few months of 2020. We had a major pandemic that put us on lock down, forced us to adapt, and some of us had to make some major life changes. During times like these we tend to learn a lot about ourselves and truly see what we're capable of. There are many aspects to achieving a great body with tip top shape health, but guess what, It's up to you to determine how great you will be.

If you've been watching the Titan Games Season 2 you've seen some amazing competitors with outstanding stories. On the show today, we have yet another Titan Games athlete and OBGYN. Today's episode has an extreme amount of value in regards to pre-natal nutrition, during pregnancy nutrition, and post natal nutrition. For many athletes in many different fields, we've experienced the "soreness or fatigue" but nothing will beat growing a live human within side your womb and giving life to another human while nourishing yourself and the bay. Not only that, but the labor involved within giving labor greatly out does any workout or sport. with all that being said, this also shows just how important health & fitness is for pre, during, and post pregnancy. 

The importance of health & fitness is beyond any benefits you've been told. If someone has told you before that fitness will help with your confidence, mental health, business, ect, yes it will, but this goes even beyond that! We have interviewed amazing people who have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and other emotional conditions and movement, nutrition, health & fitness has helped in making life more in your control. 

Nutrition is essential to life, recovery, progress, improvement, mental health, ect. Food can and will control you or you can create the ability to control it. The biggest questions I get day to day have something to do with nutrition: "How many times a day should I eat?", "How much alcohol can I drink if I want to lose weight"? These are real questions I've been asked in the passed, and they aren't dumb questions, It's just the amount of knowledge we have on our own bodies and how it reacts to food is very minimal.

With nutrition being a major factor to health & fitness and also being the biggest thing we do not understand, I decided to create a 5 point action list that you can do TODAY that will improve your nutrition lifestyle. With food, the best advice I can give is to focus on improving your health. once you understand what foods keep you healthy (immune health, hormonal health, gut health, and mental health) then focus on foods that will help you shred fat and build muscle. Pay attention to this list, it might just be the 5 things you need to begin and drastically improve your results.

Imagine being completely not in control of your body and it's abilities. Imagine never finding out what it is that makes you feel and look the way you do. Almost 80% of people go through life hating how they look, feel, and those feelings push their health into a bad avenue of chronic illness and bad damaged health. What if you were to figure it out? what if not only did you figure it out, but you took action and learned about your body and became the one in control? How would that feel? Today's amazing guest speaker has gone through her fair share of life obstacles, health obstacles, relationship obstacles, and has overcome every single one of them.

If you've been watching the Titan Games and have been following these amazing competitors/athletes you might be thinking like "damn these athletes are badass!". You might even been feeling inspired to begin your fitness journey or begin getting out of your comfort zones to achieve your goals towards your body & health. The amazing guest speaker on today's episode shows just how badass girls can get when they go against the odds and strive to be strong & fit!

Kelly Alyssa, comes on the show to share her life within fitness, strength & conditioning, crossfit, and being in a career that demands a high amount of physical strength and mental drive. Alyssa shares an amazing story towards the end of this episode so make sure to listen to the entire episode because just with that small little 2 minute story, it'll change and impact your entire life. No matter who you are, female or male, don't let anyone control your life and the goals you want! Get out there and get it!

One big thing that a lot of people deal with (me included) is confidence and body positivity. If someone right now told you "wow, you look great in that bikini/with your shirt off." what would you say? would you deny the compliment or truly in your heart be grateful for the compliment and know that it's 100% true? Most times majority of us dislike how we look and wish we could be "10lbs light, more toned, ect".

Going from Doctor to Doctor, our guest speaker today was told that she needed two hip replacements because of how "Bad" her hips her. She had fought for months - years with pain to the point to where she couldn't walk to the door from her bed. Not only is our guest speaker today a complete badass, but she is also a mother and Titan Games Season Two Competitor. What our amazing guest speaker has to share with you today is seriously mind blowing!

Jessica Weatherby, became a expert in her diagnoses and began using her body to heal itself. Jessica began strength training, learning what strengthens the hips, and push through the unbearable pain to live the life she is now living. Jessica could of easily taken her doctors diagnoses and accepted the fact that she wouldn't have a normal pain free life and went through with the surgeries. Going against an "expert" in the medical field is risky, but then coming in on the other side completely better and even stronger than ever. That's incredible!

Wouldn't it be nice to have a simple checklist that you can use in order to move in the right direction towards your dream body? Well that's exactly what you're about to get in this episode! The steps you need to take to get shredded, beach season ready, healthy, and happy are NECESSARY and SIMPLE! 

The only thing that gets complicated is: 1) showing up even on days you don't want to, 2) staying disciplined and true to your goals, and 3) being PATIENT. One thing that you must always keep in mind as well is that if you're lacking in one step that's essential on this check list your progress won't come as fast as you want and you will run into unnecessary obstacles that can be prevented. Whenever you have things to do or needing to go to the grocery you might create a list just to be organized and ensure you don't forget anything. That's exactly how I need you to view this checklist. Make sure you take notes on the steps you need to take towards your dream body, and go for it!

Training, nutrition, mindset, all come into play when you're pursuing your dream body & health. One thing we also need to pay attention too is pain. Most weightlifters, powerlifters, crossfitters, and athletes get joint pains and even the regular human being. I have began incorporating a lot of stretching into my days and training regime and the benefits have been incredible! Your range of motion is something you have now but can lose tomorrow, and that's what the importance of flexibility and mobility are. 

True happiness for yourself and your body doesn't happen overnight. Most of the time we begin a fitness journey because we dislike something about us, we want better, we have an event, or we're trying to find an outlet to some sort of happiness. Fitness can become toxic by training until complete fatigue because you hate yourself. You need to train your body & mind because you know you're worth it. 

Every person's fitness journey will take them to places they need to go. If your journey takes you through tons of hardships, sacrifices, and struggles, then that's the path that was for you. Learn to make the best out of it and come out the other end stronger and better. If your path was filled with ease and everything you did came easy for you, then that was the path that was set for you. Make sure to absorb everything you need to and help make your world and many others a better place. Pursuing your fitness & health journey comes with a whole lot of everything, and no one knows it better than our amazing guest speaker today.

Imagine diving into the mind of the greatest athletes to ever live. Imagine seeing what happens behind the scenes, all the hard work, sacrifices, struggles, obstacles, and dedication. In this episode we will be going into the mind of a 2x Crossfit Games athlete, Titan Games Competitor, and Doctor of Physical Therapy. The human body is capable of many things, and our guest speaker today truly shows that.

Has weightlifting, training, fitness, or any aspect of self care changed your life in any way? There has been many people on this show with amazing story's of how fitness has empowered them, changed them, and improved them. The amazing guest speaker today truly shares the passion that runs through her veins of mental health, self care, and weightlifting. An incredible medic, firefighter, sponsored athlete, and mother striving to achieve her greatest self, be a role model for her kids, and help people achieve the same.

Striving for any goal in life demands sacrifices, hard work, and dedication. Why do you want to accomplish it and what are you wanting to achieve with it? One thing all athletes have in common is the will to be their greatest self. In today's episode we have a CrossFit athlete in the UK that shares all the behind the scenes sacrifices, mindset obstacles, and physically demanding training she has to do in order to get into the CrossFit Games. 

40% of our day is done subconsciously, which means you don't even have to think about it, you just do it. Now imagine that 40% was filled with bad nutritional food choices, surrounding yourself with bad people, ect. Imagine all 40% of that always equaled out to a bad outcome. This is where most of us are at. Most of us have to have desert after eating a meal, most of us have sweet tooth, most of us simply have no direction in how to create a healthy & strong lifestyle overall.