Situation Positive Podcast

https://youtu.be/o2xcd5cIQPc Hey everybody, it's Matt from Situation Positive. For those of you who've been following my weight loss journey. I wanted to share a recipe that, that my wife and I came up with. So one of the foods that I really love is a good Philly cheesesteak sandwich. I love the bread. I love the cheese. To me, it's the perfect sandwich. The problem is that on this diet, I can't have the bread and I can't have cheese or any dairy. So we wanted to come up with an alternative and we created something that we call the Skilly or skinny Philly. What you are going to need is: Six ounces of shaved steakOne tablespoon of garlicOne cup of mushrooms One cup of peppersOne teaspoon of onion powderOne teaspoon of saltOne teaspoon of garlicPam, or other no calorie oil susbstitute Skilly ingredients You can't use olive oil or butter or anything like that. So I just give a quick spray of Pam to make sure the ingredients don't stick. Because of my acid reflux, I can't eat onions anymore, but I still like the taste. So I used just a little bit of onion powder not enough to overwhelm the dish, but just to get that kind of taste the onion that I love a little black pepper and, and some salt, you know, seasoned to taste, obviously. So what we do is we, how do you cook the Skilly? First, you're going to go ahead and you're going to coat the pan. You're going to go ahead and put your garlic in there just for a second. Once you start to smell that garlic, like a little bit, then you go ahead and put the beef right on top of it and break that up. And you saw that you know six ounces is a good amount of beef. You know, I thought when I started this, that I was going to be giving up a lot of food, but this is still a really nice amount of beef and it actually ends up being a really filling dish but filling in a good way. So I'm going to let this, this is cook a little bit. And before I put the vegetables on, I'm going to season it. We're going to give just a little shake of the onion powder, a little pepper, and a little salt now shaved steak, which I got cooked up pretty quick. You know, and when you're preparing these kinds of meals if you go to your deli counter, you're going to see that and you can get a lot of chicken or steak that's already been cut up. So it saves you a lot of prep time. One of the things we've noticed is by eating fresh all the time, there's a lot more prep time involved. And when you're like us and you have kids you know, and you're working, there's not, there's not really a lot you can do. So you try to take advantage of as much prepared stuff as you can. So now we're going to go ahead and add the peppers in there, and it's such an easy meal and it cuts out all the stuff from the Philly. That's not good for you. It's going to take a little bit to break down the vegetables, but then it gets sauteed the beef starts to look good. A few moments later, the Skilly is really coming together. It smells so great in here. I wish you guys could smell it just as proof. I have these two little guys that are hoping for a handout. Here, The finished Skilly skillet You can see our Skilly has been playing. And it's a lot of food. It is a nice filling meal. It's six ounces of steak, a cup of mushrooms, half a cup of peppers, and a tablespoon of garlic. Now for the taste test. Matt tasting the Skilly That's good. It's seasoned perfectly. It has that hint of the Philly flavor that I really love. It tastes like Philly steak, right from a sandwich shop. And you know what, I'm not even missing the bread or the cheese because I know the bread and the cheese contributed to my weight gain. So I can still enjoy the flavors that I love without adding on those extra calories. I mean, this is only 300 calories. And it's going to keep me full until dinner time. I posted this recipe on our blog. So go ahead and visit situationpositive.org. And if you would like,

https://youtu.be/6hMIXA8f3uQ Fitness expert, champion bodybuilder, and MS advocate, David Lyons, teaches Matt and Tara how to form the mind-body connection 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 two 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. 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. 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. Tara: Alright, so we're ready to get started if you are? David: I'm ready. Okay. Matt: So I'm a little scared. David: You. You should be. Matt: I know. David: Tara's not scared, but you should be. Wait. Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be showing you different exercises for different body parts because the way to train correctly is to separate what you're doing. We're not doing a full-body workout here. This is not a 30-day beach body. This is a three-day cycle of breaking up muscle groups so that we're getting the most out of each one of those exercises, the sets that we do, the reps that we do, and we're getting each muscle connected to the brain. If we do all of it at once, the brain is going to get too confused. We're not that smart. So we've got to break it up a little bit. So the first body part we're going to be doing is we're going to work our chest and we're going to be doing something called the chest press. So similar to working out in a gym using a bar and doing a chest press, we're going to be doing this with resistance bands from an upper angle, which you could also do here. I had it connected to my equipment, but you can connect this to a door using the door anchor, and you put the door anchor over the door. You put the bands into, through the door anchor and you can pull it from the door at the same angle we're going to do here. So I'm going to step over here and demonstrate it for you. Matt: So if you're like me and you don't have workout equipment at home, this is something you could still do? David: Absolutely. Because all you need are all these great resistance bands and a door anchor. And if we're doing leg exercises, you could use a, uh, ankle strap as well. But what we're going to do is we're going to be stepping forward away from where the band is attached. So that we're getting some resistance. Even when our arms are in the back position, our elbows are up and our arms are being pulled back, our chest is being stretched. We're pushing forward. So this is a chest press. So this is the press in this position. We are going to be holding and squeezing our chest for four seconds. So, Matt and Tara, we're going like this 1, 2, 3, 4 squeezing as hard as we can, the muscles of our chest coming back, getting that stretch. Now, this is called contraction training, and it's a, um, it's a training method I created so that when you're holding that position in a contraction position, your brain is being told that your chest is being contracted. So as we're holding and squeezing, we're literally telling ourselves that we are pushing with our chest and we're holding that chest that gives our brain, the time to connect to the chest. Four seconds is all you need. You could actually push the six seconds more than that is overkill.

https://youtu.be/jw4uG7LIZ6w Matt: Hey everybody. It's Matt from Situation Positive. We are at Hapuna Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. And my son thinks I made very risque for taking the camera in the water. And so I wanted to bring him onto my video here. Would you, would you agree that swimming is a good form of exercise? Colby: Yes I would. Matt: Now, do you like being out at the beach? Colby: Yeah! Matt: Do you think I should have my phone in the water? Colby: No! Matt: You're probably right. We'll go ahead and cut this off. Stay positive, everybody! Do you have an experience or story to share? Check out our Positivity Project to learn more. For more tips like this, please follow us on social. Please like and subscribe to our channels to help us grow. Situation Positive is a nonprofit community dedicated to providing support and education to those affected by chronic illnesses. Thank you so much for your support!

https://youtu.be/i_I6vMO4QtE Hey, it is Matt Cavallo from Situation Positive checking in at the end of week two of my medical weight loss journey. Now, if you remember last week, it was, it was week one. We had just kind of started it. I mentioned some of the health reasons that I wanted to go through the medical weight loss journey. I talked about how you know, I had tried things like intermittent fasting and stuff like that in the past, and I just wasn't able to get those gains I was looking for. I mentioned that you know, I was experiencing things like acid reflux, hip pain, fatigue some of the things that, that came with how I was eating. And, you know, when we started this journey, 243. I think when we checked in last week, I was at about 236. So here we are in week two, and we're going to learn a little bit about my progress before we do that, though. I just want to tell you some of the lessons I've learned in you know, two weeks now of medical weight loss journey. So the most important thing to me is I'm doing this with my wife. If she wasn't here, I would not be able to do it. She has really taken charge of the diet, the meal prep making sure everything is measured correctly. So my wife has been taking that program to a different level. She's been cooking, delicious dishes. You know, at first, I thought I was gonna miss all the bread and the pasta and everything. You know, that I've grown accustomed to, throughout a lifetime of eating. But she's been making it interesting and I've liked it. You know, I haven't missed that stuff. And part of the reason is that I've had the mindset that I can do anything for 30 days. Yes. When people are like, man, why are you doing this? I'm like, I can do anything for 30 days. I don't feel good and I need a change. So I'm doing this for myself. And you know, I have noticed that change, I've noticed that my clothes are fitting a little better. I wore this shirt last week and I was talking about my dad bod, and it shrunk. You can see it's shrunk a little bit. You know, it's still, I still have the dad bod belly, but you know, that's going to come with a lot of work. It's, it's not going to take this month. It's gonna take time and commitment and an overall mindset and lifestyle change to get where I'm feeling good, where I'm rid of this. And I'm feeling good about myself every day. So I know that. 30 days to me is like a Bootcamp. You know, that's going to be kind of the fat-burning phase. After 30 days, I'm going to go into maintenance mode and I'm going to try to maintain the losses I had. Okay. So but we'll be talking about that as this journey progresses right for now I am seeing some, some progression. I've had friends say that, that my face is more defined. I'm losing a little bit of my Turkey neck, you know, I, I kept having the double chin and I'm noticing that tighten up. I'm noticing some tighten up in and throughout my waist area, I'm noticing that my pants and my shirts fit better. I'm noticing that it's easier to get up from sitting down than it used to be. You know, it, it is a process though. And you know, I've had coaches that say it's a marathon, not a sprint. And that's especially true here. I'm actually feeling great. I'm feeling my energy levels growing. But you know, we're all here to have the weekly check-in on the scale to see what kind of progress I made. Again two weeks ago today I started this and I was 243 pounds. Last week we checked in and I was about 236. Let's see where we're at today. So I'm going to step on the scale. The scale is 224.8 lbs. 224.8 down from 243, two weeks ago today. That is awesome progress. And it's come with a lot of sacrifices. It's come with, you know, learning new things. You know, and honestly back to my wife for a second the kids are not doing this with us, so she's preparing food for us and she's cooking the kids, the regular stuff. So she's truly been you know,

https://youtu.be/gVJ8RcwbhKI Hey everyone. It's Matt from Situation Positive. And I want to share with you a story of one of our community members that called us in crisis, and we were able to turn the situation positive. So this community member had Crohn's and was paying $400 a month out-of-pocket for their Crohn's prescription medication. I can't even believe it, right? That is too much money to pay. And one of the catch 22s of having a chronic illness is how can you afford not to pay right? If the Crohn's had flared up, he wouldn't have had much of a quality of life anyways. So he had to make sacrifices and he was spending this money each month and it was a financial burden. But it was when he had to make, so he called us in and I said, "Look, we're going to figure this out together." So we looked up the manufacturer of his treatment. We Googled the financial assistance line for that pharmaceutical company. And we learned that with his treatment came a copay assistance card that had not been activated. I told him the next thing he needs to do is call his doctor. And when he called his doctor, we learned that the doctor had given the co-pay assistance card with the prescription. So at this point, we start at the, is a pharmaceutical company, went to the doctor and now we have to go check out the pharmacy because maybe that's where the chain broke down. We go to the pharmacy and it turns out that the copay assistance card was in his file, but it was marked as, not active. The pharmacy tech who entered the prescription didn't know how to turn on the copay assistance card. Because it didn't take care of the whole prescription. There was still a co-pay, so it looked like there were two payers right in the system just didn't know how to compute. Actually, check out this NY Times article on there is a pharmacy crisis going on that no one is talking about. We got that turned on and his $400 a month payment dropped to $40 a month just like that. And it just brought up a question in my mind, like how many of you watching this video are in a similar situation? How many of you are paying way too much money a month for prescriptions that you need to manage your chronic illness. There's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a way we can turn that situation positive. If you're like this community member and you struggling. Go ahead and reach out to us. Go to situationpositive.org. Join our community, and contact us. Because nobody should have to suffer in silence. You shouldn't have to decide on whether or not to take your medicine to manage your chronic condition or give up other things in life. It shouldn't be that trade-off. And if you're stuck there, come and join us come to reach out. We have people who can help. This is Matt Cavallo. Please remember to like share and subscribe. It helps our community grow. And if you want more information like this, visit us at situationpositive.org. Stay positive, everybody.

https://youtu.be/Q6_7G2VATgU Hey, it's Matt from Situation Positive. I am at the Mauna Loa volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. The park was closed so this is as close as I could get. The arrow in the video shows when the vent, or volcano's opening, is located. What do a volcano and a chronic illness have in common? There are a few forces in life as destructive or unpredictable as a volcano. And those of you who are living with a chronic illness know that the path that your disease can be as destructive and unpredictable as a volcano. But just like those who live on the island learn to adapt, rebuild, and move forward. The path of your illness can go the same way. Don't let the chronic illness volcano disrupt your life. Adapt to it and do the best you can with what you've got. Stay positive everybody! Do you have an experience or story to share? Check out our Positivity Project to learn more. For more tips like this, please follow us on social. Please like and subscribe to our channels to help us grow. Thank you so much for your support!

https://youtu.be/ljh2jX5YIo0 Hey, it is Matt from Situation Positive checking in with you. And it's about bedtime. And I have to do something interesting tonight. It's called an at-home sleep study. Did you know that more than 70 million Americans have some kind of sleep disorder? Let me tell you a little bit about mine. So earlier this summer I was having breathing problems. So I went to see a pulmonologist. A pulmonologist is a doctor who specializes in the respiratory system, the lungs, the windpipe, anything related to breathing. If you're having breathing issues, you may want to see a pulmonologist. So I went to see my pulmonologist and he treated my breathing issues. And then he wanted to know he was like, Matt, are you having problems sleeping? And I started thinking to myself, yeah, for years I toss and turn I'm up a couple of times during the night. I can't tell you the last time I've slept through the night without waking up. So he said, Matt, I want to do a sleep study on you. And you know, a sleep study that a pulmonologist is going to do is you're going to be focused on breathing. Right? A lot of people have undiagnosed sleep apnea or maybe some other breathing-related sleep disorder. Now sleep apnea. If undiagnosed can end up being fatal, right? So if you're having problems with sleep, this is something that you should probably look into. So I'm going to try it out right now. I'm going to go ahead and demonstrate how to put on this sleep study kit. So the doctor gave me this kit. It's from ResMed. And what you have to do is you get this from the pulmonologist. You take it home, you put it on before you go to bed, you keep it on for at least five hours while you're sleeping. And then the next day you take it back to the pulmonology office. Okay. So they can interpret the results. Now, this comes with a bunch of different pieces. It comes with the cannula tube, and this I'm going to insert in my nose. It's going to track my airflow. Then it also comes with this sensor belt. So this sensor belt I'm going to put around my chest. This serves as an input for all the different tubes. And it also tracks my movement if I'm rolling around and it's keeping all of the data that's happening while I sleep. The last thing is a pulse oximeter, which I'm going to put on my finger and that measures my oxygen saturation. So I'm going to put this all on and hopefully, I can sleep with it on, so let's go ahead and try it. So the first thing we got to do is we got to take out the nasal cannula. So as you can see, it's just a clear tube. It has these two little, two little things to go in my nostrils. What you want to do is you want to put it over your head behind your ears. And then you can come up. Is that the way to do it? So I've never done this before. So we're learning together. A few moments later under your chin. Oh, it was under your chin over your ears, and then through your nose. All right. So that took me a little bit to figure out it went under your chin over your ears and then in your nose. Okay. You know, I'm not a trained professional, so obviously. You know, it took a try or two, and never give up, you know, you gotta do this thing, you gotta do it. Right. So what the, what the nurse recommended and it's gonna make it even look more silly is to put band-aids on to keep it in place. You don't want the tube to pop out. You don't want to have to do this test again. All right. So here is the second side. We'll put the band-aid in there. Okay. So next thing I'm going to do is you can loosen this belt. So this belt comes with a Velcro cord. And you're just going to slip it over your head and try to get it right around your chest. And then what you want to do is you want to take the Velcro end and once you've got it centered on your chest, right about there. You want to pull it so it's nice and snug. You also then want to a screw in the nasal cannula.

https://youtu.be/7s-gqfTGmWs Hey, it's Matt from Situation Positive. Checking in with the green sea turtles on the black sand beach. These turtles travel a great distance, some over 1,500 miles, to have babies here. It's really a remarkable journey. Just like the journey you're on. The journey with chronic illness is remarkable and you never know what will happen along the way. Stay the course. Keep it positive everybody! Do you have an experience or story to share? Check out our Positivity Project to learn more. For more tips like this, please follow us on social. Please like and subscribe to our channels to help us grow. Thank you so much for your support! Matt Cavallo at the Black Sand Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii with Green Sea Turtles nesting by the ocean.

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...

https://youtu.be/8t5wYvUugbM Hey everybody. It is Matt from Situation Positive and I'm checking in today from my infusion suite. My type of medication isn't available to be administered at home. So I go to an infusion suite at a doctor's office where a nurse administers the IV as an outpatient procedure. I'm here getting my multiple sclerosis (MS) Treatment. I've been taking IV MS therapies for well over 10 years now. And as a result, I've developed some tips and tricks on how to have a more positive infusion experience. The first thing I do is make sure that I wear comfortable clothes. You're going to be in this chair for like four or five hours. So you want to make sure that you sit in comfort. The next thing I do is stay hydrated. Believe it or not. Staying hydrated is great for your skin and it makes it easier for the nurse to insert the needle. I make sure I drink a lot of water the night before and continue drinking the day of. It really helps. And speaking of inserting the needle, the final trick I do is I use hand lotion and I put it on my arms where I think that they may find a vein to stick the needle. I find that by putting lotion on, before I leave the house, by the time I get to the infusion center, When it's time for the nurse to insert the needle they're able to do it with one stick. So I hope these tips and tricks help you have a more positive IV experience. Do you have an experience or story to share? Check out our Positivity Project to learn more. For more tips like this, please follow us on social. Please like and subscribe to our channels to help us grow. Thank you so much for your support!