https://youtu.be/OVhPYf47oP4 Fitness expert, champion bodybuilder, and MS advocate, David Lyons, teaches Matt and Tara the importance of community when starting (and sticking to) a fitness routine 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. This is part three of our interview with David. The transcript is below. You can also watch the video or listen to our podcast. [00:00:00] 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. Um, 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. [00:00:24] David: Thanks for having me guys. So I appreciate it. And you know, something I'm going to get you guys in top shape and 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. [00:00:37] Tara: Alright, so we're ready to get started if you are? [00:00:45] Matt: And once it becomes that part of your every day, like when you put me in the proper form, I did what three of them? I was feeling feeling tired because I haven't done anything like that one. It was much easier to do it the wrong way. How long does it take before that goes away? [00:01:03] David: Everybody's different. So it's like when somebody says to me, I, you know, I'm in a wheelchair, how long is it going to take me to get out of that wheelchair? Or I have a rough time lifting my arm up all the way. How long is it going to take? There's no answer to that. Unfortunately, we are all different in our limitations, in our disability, in the condition we have how our body responds. Our body, everybody's body will respond to this, but depending on how much you actually do focus, how much you actually keep your mindset on what you're doing and not thinking of something else, how much you're actually doing the exercises correctly, that's going to determine it. It took me guys a year and a half of this type of training to go from not being able to move my fingers, to be able to squeeze and do this with my hand. Okay. That's because my brain is connected to my muscles. I didn't do any specific movements or exercises to train my hand. I'm just worked out with this type of program. And then it created that connection all over my body. It took me a year and a half. I'm working with people that are in the program. And two months later, they weren't driving a car before and now they're driving a car cause they could move their legs. Why did it take me longer than the people that are in my own program? Who knows? My body might've been more damaged from the MS attack that I had. We don't know, but I will tell you this will work over time. [00:02:36] Matt: Well, um, I'm glad you brought that up because one of the things I was thinking about, and I think it may have taken you longer because you created programs. So you probably had to try, oh, this works, this doesn't work. That kind of stuff, but. I was thinking about like, I can get real negative. I can like try this a few times. And I'm like, oh, I don't get it. And I'm not coming back. How can I stay positive of this stuff? Even if I'm not getting the results that I want right away? [00:03:05] David: I created a community okay. On Facebook for all of my members. So in that community, you have everybody talking to each other and encouraging each other. You have some people that go on there and say, you know what? I had a really bad week. I didn't follow the program. And immediately you've got a hundred people jumping on your gone, come on, Karen, you can do it. You know,