On Being Sugarfree, Frustration, and Mike Doughty

A few months ago a song that I had never heard before came up on Pandora. I vaguely recognized the voice, but a line from the song caught my attention:

"I resent the way you make me like myself"

I thought it was the greatest line ever, and I ran to iTunes and downloaded the song. It was by Mike Doughty, who it turns out, used to be the lead singer for Soul Coughing which is why I recognized the voice. I have been rapidly accumulating his stuff and have come to realize he is probably in my top 5 favorite song writers now.

So what does this have to do with motivation?

Well, about the same time I discovered Mike Doughty, I was getting a bit discouraged in the gym. For well over a year now I've been working out 5 days a week, and leading hikes and other events on weekends. Although I have stated many times this blog isn't about losing weight, it's about getting out and enjoying life, it still frosts my shorts that the number on the scale has not moved in the past year. So, my trainer thought it might kick start my metabolism to go sugar free for 21 days. She threw down the gauntlet, I accepted the challenge.

Surprisingly, it wasn't as hard physically as I was expecting. Mentally though -- I pretty much thought about the fact that I wasn't eating sugar every waking moment, and in most sleeping moments as well. I had crazy dreams - I had one that I was eating cake out of a garbage can, and that was just one of the ones that I can talk about publicly, they got worse, trust me.  Anyway, I not only lasted the 21 days, I lasted 43 days without sugar.

Somewhere into the 3rd or 4th week, a friend asked me how it was going. I told her I was still off sugar, and she made a comment about how much weight I must be losing. "No, actually", I said, "I haven't lost a freaking OUNCE." Ok, technically I said "FUCKING OUNCE" but I try to keep the blog family friendly. I'm not gonna lie, it made me very very angry, like Marvin, except on a roid rage.

"But," she said, "How do you keep going? Aren't you frustrated?"

"Yeah" I said. "But I just have to keep telling myself what I say on the blog -- it's not about a number on the scale, it's about getting out, living life, and just feeling better."

But I have thought a lot about the conversation since then, and especially since I've started eating sugar again. The thing is, I don't really feel all that good. I have arthritis in my knee caps, and the medicine I started taking for it made me feel awful so I stopped taking it. My bones in general are old and creaky from a lifetime of the abuse and strain that morbid obesity puts on them.

But, I do still keep going. I am still at the gym every day. I still do hikes every weekend and just started back doing weekday long walks again. So, back to Margi's question, "How do I keep going?"

I've mentioned here before that I am an atheist, I don't believe in anything. But I do think that through random chance (or, in this case, the data mining program that makes Pandora work) things appear in my life when I need them. There is a Mike Doughty song that I've had on auto repeat for weeks that has the line:

"Feels so wrong, but I need to fake the will to get along"

And I really think that is what is doing it for me these days. I don't have the will, I want to quit, I'm tired of my knees hurting and I feel like crap and some days I just feel like I'm getting nowhere. The trick is to be able to fake that I have the will to get along. I try to keep this blog positive, and feel I have somewhat of a responsibility to my readers to fake having the will. But the cool thing is, if you fake something long enough, it eventually just becomes a part of you. (Hmm, maybe I should try to fake being really really rich:-)

But my points in this very long winded post are:

• The main lesson I learned from going 43 days without sugar is that I can go 43 days without sugar. I really really like sugar and don't see the point in completely abstaining, but it's good to know that I can moderate it when I want to. 
• If I wasn't able to fake it, I wouldn't have seen that wicked cool red rat snake, or the baby owls, or any of the other neat critters I've seen, and I wouldn't have the benefit of the hours of amazing conversations with Heather and others who join me on my outings.
• Mike Doughty is an incredible songwriter

'Nuff said. I am off to do stuff. If anyone wants to join me, I'm thinking of doing a dusk walk at Goodwin this evening. Hope to see you there.

Unoffical Event Update: Walk at ELC

I completely forgot to post this one on the site, which is a shame, cause for a very short (about a mile) walk, we saw a HUGE diversity of stuff. Check out what you missed if you chose not to GOYB! As always, click to embiggen photos:

 We saw a fence lizard...

... a bunny

 ... a very old looking gopher tortoise

 Miss Heather posed by a sign...

 An osprey with babies...

a great-crested flycatcher...

 and lots and lots and lots of love bugs!

Generally, I try to keep my events as safe as possible although on this trip we were accosted by a mammoth that brutally attacked poor Heather!

After the mammoth attack, nothing is scary. This was a harmess red rat snake. Very pretty and vibrant as he had just shed his skin.



Hope you can join us on our next event. There's a lot to see and do in this world, but you can't do it from your couch!

Event Update: Long Walk on A1A

Heather and I did a long walk this evening on A1A. Got a bit of a late start, and it was dark when we got back to our car. Not much to see this evening, but it was a great walk. If you didn't choose to GOYB, here is what you missed. Click photos to embiggen:

A beautiful moonrise. I know my planets!

Something ate this palm into a cool pattern.




We don't always do 5 miles, send me mail if you want to join us for a shorter walk, or even a longer one!

Unofficial Event Update: The Tampon Commercial Weekend

2 little boys are walking down the street and they find a $5.00 bill. They are trying to figure out what to do with it when one of the screams, "I know!" and he runs in to a pharmacy, and says to the woman behind the counter, "I want to buy a box of tampons!" The clerk looks at him and says, "Why on earth do you want those?" And the little boy says, "Well, on the commercial, it says if you buy them you can go hiking, and swimming and horseback riding and biking..."


But I digress...

This weekend, to celebrate my birthday and our 6th wedding anniversary, I went down to the everglades where David is working and we went kayaking, hiking, biking, and also did some birding by car.  We used David's camera for most of the kayaking pictures, will post those later. But here is the rest of the weekend. Click photos to embiggen:

We saw this little fella the day we went kayaking . Ok, technically, we saw him at Gatorama on the way home from kayaking, but it was the day that we went kayaking!

We went biking on the berm beside the canal on Lake Ockechobee. It was a really pretty area.

 We came across a very large dead cottonmouth. The thing that I thought was cool was that he was pretty recently killed, but the ants had already started cleaning him. If you enlarge the picture, you can actually see his bones. They look quite a bit like fish bones, which I thought was kind of neat.

 HFC David, when we stopped for water.

Yours truly. If you look very closely, on the telephone pole, there is a really pretty red bellied woodpecker. Or, you can just scroll to the next picture.

 The aforementioned red-bellied woodpecker.

 After the bike ride, David drove me around to show me the places he is working. One very cool spot was a rookery. The is a yellow-crowned night heron and her babies.

 This is a baby little blue egret. He is folding his wings in that weird way that adult great blues do. Neither David nor I have ever seen a baby bird do this before.

This is another family of yellow crowned night herons. The baby is hollering at the mom.

My favorite thing about the rookery was that the longer I looked, the more babies I saw. Enlarge this picture and try to count all the babies!

A little blue heron and and even littler little blue heron!

Another shot of a night heron with babies. It amazed me how well camouflaged they were.



Take a look at the schedule, our regularly scheduled long walks will resume this Wednesday, and we will be doing something on the weekend, haven't decided what yet, but am open to suggestions!

Event Update: Goodwin WMA

I did another dusk walk at Goodwin. I was by myself this time. Saw a lot of neat things. If you didn't GOYB, here's what you missed. Click photos to enlarge:

Can anyone tell me why his legs are white...

 ... and his are orange? Hint: It is most definitely NOT a method that I personally would use to cool off.

 I like the way the one on the right is giving the one on the left the evil eye, like he doesn't trust him...

I got mooned by at black necked stilt. It's cool though, it's one of my favorite birds and one that I don't see too often at Goodwin.

Funny, I usually don't mind walking by myself, but I do get a heightened sense of awareness that I am not alone sometimes...

 A cattle egret in flight. This is one of my favorite pix of a cowgret that I've ever taken.

 Another shot of the cowgret.

This is an artsy one of a great blue and a Roseate Spoonbil.






I only walked about a mile tonight, but it was a very productive mile! Just goes to prove that you don't have to be a triathelete, you just have to GOYB!

The Most Awesome Event Update EVER!

Today we had the most awesome event EVER! We kayaked down Turkey Creek. If you weren't OYB today, you missed a lot! Here are just a FEW of the pictures that Heather took (I wasn't feeling confident that I wouldn't drown my camera so Heather was kind enough to do the photography work for me today.) There are tons of other pictures as well, these are just the highlights. Click the photos to embiggen:

 Me and HFC David, attempting to kiss without capsizing our kayaks. That sounds way dirtier than it is.

 We had an awesome turnout today. In addition to Heather and HFC David, we were joined by Paul...

and Ibrahim...

 and Dawnell...

 and the lovely Kristen, our fearless tour guide!








This was about the coolest thing I have ever seen. A manatee actually came about 1/2 way out of the water to nom on some grass. Really amazing!

 David, looking good as always.

 There were a total of 9 canoes on the trip.

 Heather took all of the pictures today, I thought this one is amazing, definitely the picture of the day!

 An anhinga drying its wings.

 Me, David and Dawnell during our picnic lunch.

 A cute picture of Ibrahim.

 The kayaks, also taking a lunch break.

A soft-shelled turtle.

 Heather thought it was funny that my life jacket had an ad for Vodka on it.

 Me, looking like an adventurer.

 I think this will be the new DeeMotivation icon.

David, my little adventurer

The divine Ms. Heather. I finally got up the courage to take a few pictures, and I didn't even drop the camera!

 Our fearless tour guide, Kristen, taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

 This picture made me laugh, the turtle was goofing off with his legs sailing in the air. I think he was practicing his Superman moves.

 A cool shot of a manatee.  We saw quite a few today, and one even swam right under Dawnell's boat!

A scary alligator. I lie, he was actually very cute and not too big. But I'm glad he stayed on shore. As I explained to Dawnell, you don't have to outswim the alligator, you just have to outswim the other people in the water!

Today was an awesome trip. Thanks so much for everyone who came out and especially to Kristen from FLOC for making it such a safe and enjoyable trip. If you are looking for a great, fun thing to do on a weekend, be sure to check out her web site and business, located in Captain Hirams in Sebastian.