D-W-M Swan Song

In case you missed it I have been almost only posting hike reports. I think that means it's time to bring Dog Walks Man to a full resolution. That means some summing up and some fessing up along with a little catching up.

What have I learned over the last 3 1/2 years? What is worth passing on to others? What can I still do better? That is what I hope to cover here.

What have I learned? First, there is no better thing I learned than there is a mind - body connection that colors everything else. To be right with others you need to get right with yourself. You need to find positivity inside yourself and you need to eliminate negative factors from your life. The good energy makes you well and the negative energy makes you ill. You can't fix the little stuff until you have a grip on the big stuff. We are all going to have bad days, but keeping the focus on positive thinking is key.

There are people who are used to you being who you were prior to deciding to be better that will get in the way of you getting where you want to go. It is hard to fully accept that, but it is true. They will have their own motives, but you will encounter them. If you are trying to get healthy and eat better some of your friends and even family will be there attempting sabotage. Be prepared for that. Maybe it is about disliking change or the inevitable pressure they will feel to do what you are doing if you succeed - I don't know, but it happens.

Second, If it isn't in the house you can't eat it. You may need to take over preparing your own food or doing the shopping if you don't already do it. If you are like me the wrong stuff gets eaten first. I was a sucker for ice cream and I still have trouble wanting pretzels and stuff after dinner. I do badly when I go to Trader Joe's. I call it my carb stop because they have some of my favorites.

When the carbs aren't around I snack on better stuff like nuts and veggies. It is really simple, but it works. Don't buy it and you won't eat it.

Third, It is easier to stay moving than it is to get moving. Keeping activity as routine as possible makes it easier to keep it up. That is why whatever you pick for activity has to be something you want to do. Don't run if you hate it. If you like walking then walk. If you hate the gym don't go. Design a program you can sign on to for the long term. If you like o bicycle and live in a tough winter place then either get a mountain bike or by a wind trainer to ride inside. So, do what you like, but DO IT.

Skinny is not the same as healthy. There are lots of thin people who are not healthy. Healthy requires you to have good nutrition, activity and attitude. That balance is key. None work without all of them.

I can do all three things better than I currently do. I constantly try to better my diet. I don't eat dairy, red meat or pork with the exception of a little cheese on pizza from time to time. I have cut down on bread and all things wheat quite a bit. I think an interesting test would be to go gluten free for a month to see how it affects me.

The stuff I learned that have been invaluable and that I will stick with include vegetable juicing, eating a lot of kale, and doing as much of your own cooking as possible. The juice gives you instant feedback and vitality that lasts through the day. Kale is this wonderful, life giving food that energizes you, and controlling your food supply by cooking it yourself makes it easy to do what you know is right.

The easiest stuff to avoid are the ones that everyone thinks they'll miss the most. Fried foods and other greasy foods are the first you lose your taste for if you cut them out. Super sweet stuff is the second easiest to avoid and the salty stuff - for me at least - is the hardest.

What I want everyone to know is that you can do whatever you need to do. The trick is to make it a need. If you need to drop some pounds to get healthy than do it. You know you can. Make simple decisions and choices. If French fries are your drug of choice cut them out entirely. Don't have "cheat days" included. Those are really slippery slope days where you can begin sliding back into your old ways. Don't put yourself in that place.

Local, organic food from your own garden is best followed by organic food straight from the farmer and then organic food from stores. You CAN eat that way. It WILL make you feel better.

I will create a hiking blog so you're not getting rid of me yet. I am easy to get a hold of if you have any questions and I am always happy to pass on whatever I can to aid others in their journey. This is a life pursuit - being healthy. It doesn't have a beginning and end date other than birth and death. Everything you have done is over and you can't change it. Today is what you need to focus on. Tomorrow will come when it comes and you can't do anything about it today.

Be very well and thanks for reading. Somehow this blog has had almost 17,000 page views.

Maybe The Biggest Lie Of All

I keep hearing that food grown with chemical fertilizers and herbicides sprayed on it - I can't talk myself into calling it conventionally grown - is just as nutritious as food grown without. That is crap. It is a complete impossibility.

An apple grown corporately has over 30 chemicals sprayed on it. An organic apple has no chemicals sprayed on it. Our digestive systems only have 2 reactions when we ingest something. It can recognize it as nutrition and work to break it down and utilize the nutrition or it recognizes it is a toxin and has a white cell reaction to protect the body from the toxin.

There is no middle ground. It doesn't say "Oh let me quickly separate the toxins and then I'll get to digesting the rest." It's an all or nothing process.

So when they tell you the stuff they sprayed with herbicides and pesticides and fungicides is just as healthy they are NOT telling you the truth.

The favorite chemical for the genetically modified crops is glyphosate (roundup). It works by blocking nutrition to the plants it is sprayed on which kills it by basically starving it. The modification allows a plant to grow even after being sprayed with glyphosate, but there is no peer reviewed science showing that the plant has the same nutrition as an organic or even just non-gmo plant.

There isn't a lot of science one way or another because the patent laws require the patent holder to approve research which they do not approve. They prefer you and I be the lab rats for their experiment.

Just say Yes on 522 and make sure your parents and aunt and uncles and grandparents know what the truth is.

Be very well and more soon....

Crystal Peak Was A Great Second Choice

Saturday we headed off to hike Norse Peak with a loop that took Trail 1161 through Goat Lake. We arrived at the trailhead to find signage that said the Goat Lake trail was "obliterated" by a slide and was impassable. We made a quick decision to head to Crystal Peak Trail which is just over 8 miles away since it was a beautiful day and we had yet to see the view from there in our 3 previous hikes there.

So we headed up the very well maintained Crystal Peak Trail and were very surprised to see a ton of perfectly ripe huckleberries. That slowed our pace quite a bit since we were all eating our way up the trail.

 

We finally got back to hiking - mostly because as we got higher the berries went away, but the view got outstanding.

 

 

We decided the right thing to do was to pick some berries to take home on the way down so we had a snack and a little break at the top. Garry noticed something a little too white over on a steep slope a peak away from us so I zoomed in as far as I could and took a couple of shots and sure enough it was a mountain goat.

 

 

 

We took the pictures you get to take when you haul your butt up a mountain and headed down to get some berries. By the time we were done picking we were the purple finger and tongue gang, but we had some great berries and a good bit of exercise as well.

 

 

Be very well and more soon...



 

 

 





 



Pacific Crest Trail Days and Tunnel Falls

Pam and I headed down to Cascade Locks to PCT days. It was held on Thunder Island in Cascade Locks Oregon. Thunder Island is only open for camping when PCT has this event so it's pretty cool that way.

 

 

While we were there we decided to hike out the Eagle Creek trail to some waterfalls. There are many on this east trail to enjoy. The trail is rocky, but easy with little elevation gain. We had brought along 2 folks we met at PCT days who are both planning a PCT through hike. Willow owns a restaurant near Camano Island and Dan who works in his family's rare rock business in McCall Idaho.

We headed up under Pam's easy hike pace and pretty quickly decided to go beyond the original 4 mile turnaround we had planned to hike through to Tunnel Falls - about 6 1/2 miles out. We ran into some through hikers heading north that told us to go past Tunnel to a more special view and we can't pass on local information so off we went.

Tunnel Falls has a tunnel behind it that you walk through. There is a lot of "chicken wire" along this trail since it drops off dramatically in places. They have cable installed on the inside of the trail for people who may want to use it.

 

 

Around the corner from Tunnel Falls is a really pretty cascade that was perfect for us to take in some calories before turning for home.

We slammed back down the hill with Dan in tow. He was wearing some shoes with pliable soles and the rocky trail was taking it's toll on his feet.

We made it back to PCT days in time for a shower and some late lunch before the drawing for gear. They had a raffle for over $7000 worth of gear! We bought $45 worth of tickets and ended up with $450 or more in gear!

The vendors there were varied, but many had lighter weight options in tents and packs. We saw a 2+ person tent that weighed under 3 pounds. There were demonstrations and talks on varied subjects and Friday night they screened "Mile -Mile and a Half" which is a documentary on backpacking the John Muir Trail in California.

We will likely attend again next year if we can. We both enjoyed it immensely.

Be very well and more soon....