Rules for 5-minute activity suggestions

I have officially reinstated the 5-minute Right Now! activities on this blog and am looking for suggestions from readers. The point of these activities is to get myself (and anyone reading) up and moving just 5 minutes a few times a day. Studies have shown that long periods of sitting is incredibly unhealthy, and now that I am plagued with arthritis, I feel it even more. So let's get moving!

I am probably asking for trouble, but here's a promise: if you make a suggestion for a 5 minute activity, I officially promise to post a photo of me doing the activity. Within reason of course. Rules include:

• Nothing involving nudity or things that will get me kicked off blogger or facebook. 
• If your suggestion includes music, please post either a youtube link or the name of the song. 
• These are intended to be brief activities that can be performed on breaks at work. So, save the "run a marathon" suggestions for weekends.
• If I'm doing these activities, I expect my readers to be doing the same! If you aren't brave enough to submit pictures, at least post a reply to my picture to let me know your experience!

You can submit in the following ways:

• Post your suggestion on twitter, using the #deemotivationgoyb hash tag. These posts will automatically appear in the feed at the left of the main page. 
• Reply to this post with your suggestion
• Send me email Please put either DeeMotivation or 5-minute Activity in the subject line.

Past 5 minute activities have included:

• Cross the fine line between kickboxing and ballet!
• Let the world know that you are the singular sensation!
• Develop your own silly walk. Bonus points for not hurting yourself or others

Lets have some fun with this!

Upcoming Event

Wednesday, June 1: Evening walk on 512. Meet at county pool parking lot at 6:30. Apropos of nothing, it is exactly 1.5 miles from there to Dairy Queen.

Sent from my iPhone

Event Update: Daybreak at A1A

We got out of bed early on a  holiday no less to do 5 miles out on A1A. If you didn't GOYB today, here is what you missed. As usual, click photos to embiggen:

 Sometimes we walk in more urban areas. There are advantages to both rural and urban. It seems one of the disadvantages is that we see more dead critters in the urban areas.  This is a baby bird, predated by something, not sure if human or some other critter.

I guess the red bellied woodpeckers really like telephone poles. This photo is almost identical to the one I took in the everglades a few weekends ago.

 This is a ...something worm... David told be what it is called, but danged if i can remember.

This is a dead legless lizard, also called a glass snake. Legless lizard is the most appropriate term, it is not a snake at all, it's a lizard with no legs. You can see that it moves completely different than snakes. It is a really pretty critter, and it made me very sad to see one dead. They look sturdy, but are in fact pretty fragile creatures, so it doesn't take much to do one in. We couldn't really tell what happened here, but it looks like something got its tail.

And, on a happier note, Heather and HFC David spotting something near the end of our 5-mile trek. A hot, but great walk as always!

Be sure to check the main page here for updates and new events. Hope to see you off your butt and outside with us soon!

Event Update: Viera Wetlands

We went out to the Viera Wetlands today. It was just me and HFC David today. Lots of cool stuff to see. If you didn't GOYB today, here is what you missed. Click on photos to embiggen:

 This is a snake skeleton, David thinks perhaps a garter snake. It was pretty neat, kind of the next stage after the picture I got in the Everglades a few weeks ago.

 This is a least bittern, in a somewhat uncharacteristic pose. They usually stick their beak straight up so they blend in with the reads. Notice how well his color blends in, when the head is straight up, they become almost invisible.

 A Gulf Fritillary nomming on a plant.

Yours truly. I am really not grumpy. I have those glasses that get dark outside, but they don't get dark enough, so I'm always squinting and looking grumpy. I really was having a good time out there.

HFC David, with binoculars.

 This was a really cute tiny alligator. My only fear was that his mom was around somewhere, but if she was, I didn't see her.

This was new for me: baby Anhingas. I didn't know they are white when they are little.

 A Sandhill Crane

 A White Ibis. They are common as dirt down here, but I still think they are so very pretty.

This is 2 baby great blue herons, one of whom was having a very bad hair day.

This was my favorite picture of the day. I have never seen a great blue heron's tongue before. This poor guy was very very hot and panting.

This is a 4-spotted Pendant dragonfly.

As we were leaving the wetlands we went through the Click ponds, there was nothing there, then we cruised over to River Lakes Conservation Area.

This is a view of one of the canals at River Lakes. Really pretty place. This is a really neat area that I don't get to often enough. David said there is a 6-mile-ish loop out to the river. I'm thinking this will be a future event, but perhaps when it gets a little cooler and less buggy.

Sorry if you missed all the cool stuff today, Be sure to check back for upcoming evens!

Event Update: The Tropical Elevator From Hell

So, we had grand designs to walk 5 miles out at Goodwin WMA this evening. A few drawbacks to this plan:

• The mosquitos are ferocious
• It is approximately 8,000,000 degrees outside
• I worked past midnight 3 nights this week

Thus, we decided to make a last minute substitution to get dinner, then take a long walk along the riverfront. This would have been a good idea had I not notice the chocolate-raspberry martini on the menu... Then the music started. I could not think of words to describe the badness of this band, but it was basically 80's pop, "played" (I use the term loosely-it was mostly pre-programmed) reggae style on a synthesizer. Heather thought of the perfect term: Tropical Elevator to Hell Music. Hence the need for a second martini. And, when you don't drink as I do not, this is the equivillent of drinking heavilly. Our exercise for the evening turned out to be trying to guess the tune that the "musician" (who, by the way, for no apparent reason, was dressed like a referee, which technically moved this dinner into the classification of "sporting event") was playing. After much, much debate, we figured out two songs:

• Bridge over Troubled Water
• The Theme From Arthur (Once in Your Life)

And yes, they were both played reggae style, with a synth drum. Trust me when I say, that sometimes mental exercises are more strenuous than physical ones.  Anyway, here are the pictures from tonight's event:

Me, ironically wearing my DeeMotivation t-shirt. For those of you reading, blowing off a walk to eat and drink is highly recommended now and then. You have to cut loose now and then.

Miss Heather, agreeing with me completely. 

We did decide to reschedule our 5 mile walk at Goodwin for Monday morning at 7:30. Be there or be square!

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!