This is the second episode I’ve made in recent times. I made one last week. On the trail, I mean — I’ve been doing studio episodes for a while. But, fully back from the hiatus, we are doing our standard thing. I almost left home without my wallet and my water. I probably could have gotten by without them, but I guess you should have your license with you when you drive. So I got the wallet, and then I realized I didn’t have water, and I needed to hydrate before and after. So I Mio-ized two bottles of water and put some ice in there because I didn’t have any in the fridge. I used to keep a five-gallon jug of water with a tap on it in the fridge. I no longer do that. I just chill the water bottles; they take up a lot less space. I’ve been using the Mio Sport. I don’t have any at home right now. But it’s supposed to replace electrolytes like any sports drink does. Today, I just had Tang, which is a delicious orange drink that comes in the same format as Mio. It’s liquid in a little bottle. You squirt some into a bottle of water. And no calories.

Well, I’m trying to be considerate, and I’m walking the other way than I did last time so I don’t go past that really loud portion that’s right next to a busy road that’s always very noisy. I’m going the other way, which is into the woods. The wonderful woods. It’s a beautiful day at Lake Fayetteville, as always. I’ve never been here when it wasn’t beautiful. Even in the dead of winter, I still found it to be beautiful. Even when the rain’s pouring down, I find it to be beautiful. I always see different things. But it’s all beautiful.

Now I did about a mile and a half, maybe 1.6 miles last time. My goal is to do 2 miles today, but I dont’ know. If my back starts hurting badly enough, I may turn back earlier. I’ll leave that option open.

This area is completely shaded, which is another benefit of walking in this direction. I apologize for any wind noise cause I don’t have that little fuzzy thing on my microphone anymore. It might have gotten lost in the transfer from Patti, who was using it for awhile. Patti Brunner is star of the Truth of the Spirit podcast, which you can find at PaduaPodcastNetwork.com, along with all the Running: A FEVER episodes and some other stuff. I’ll just let that be a surprise.

So yeah, I apologize for the wind. Arkansas is a very windy place. We’re right on the border of Oklahoma. You know the song “Oklahoma” says “Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains..” or something like that. Something is seriously moving off to my left. I can’t see it, but I can hear it. Rodent Department. And also Kansas is very close. Right in that area in Northwest Arkansas. It’s right on the edge of Tornado Alley. And we definitely get tornados here. We had one last year that was less than a mile from my house. It touched down and did damage less than a mile from my house. Serious damage. A few buildings. But it was at about four o’clock in the morning, fortunately, so not many people got hurt. But they are still rebuilding some of those buildings. It doesn’t seem that windy right now.

Now this side we’re going up. If I go a full mile, it will be 4.81 miles. Live math, folks. I’m a professional. Do NOT try this at home, for your own safety. Live math. I can handle it. I’m not perfect at it for sure, but I can withstand it.

It’s a good day for a walk, 82 degrees. It feels nice. A little breeze.

Well, lately, I’ve been thinking about all these new drugs that are coming out, like Wegovy; I think Ozempic is another one. It’s a group of drugs. I’m not sure. I haven’t really read anything about it. I just heard about it and read about it a little bit, but I’m not really researching. I think you can count on there being an episode about this specific class of drugs. What they claim is that you just take the pill, and you lose weight. Naturally, I’m suspicious of anything that seems too easy, fad diets, and so forth. If you’ve listened to any of my episodes, you know how I feel about those things. So anytime that something comes out that’s a pill that’s going to take care of everything–there are good drugs, don’t get me wrong. There are several that I take myself on a regular basis, and they are helpful to my health. But I guess the questions that I have that I want to answer in this forthcoming episode would be: Do you take it all the time for the rest of your life, or do you take it until you reach a certain weight and then go without it? What happens at that point?

4.25. Well, okay, I guess I’m going up. I just messed up my live math. I guess if I get to 4.81, that will be the turning-around point. That will be a mile.

So I want to ask that question: is it just an appetite depressant? Is it not like the glorified speed that was the appetite suppressant of the past? Cause I gotta tell you, most of my eating has nothing to do with being hungry or having an appetite. I should say I have an appetite, but it has nothing to do with being hungry. This is America! Now, I know some people go hungry in America, but I don’t know that I ever have. Except for any forced starvation I have used in the past to lose weight. Obviously, that works for a short period of time. Which is what the “Shattering the Yoyo” series is all about. Trying to break that cycle.

There’s a couple that decided to go into the woods. There is a trail there; I think it’s a biking trail. Northwest Arkansas is well-known for biking… enthusiasm, shall I say? People come here from long distances just to experience all the biking opportunities here. Bentonville in particular. There are several street races that go on, and I know there’s probably some trail cycling that goes on as well. And I think I’ve been to a bike park up in Rogers, and I did an episode from there.

4.41. We’re really moving on. I think we’re going to make it. It may be harder on the way back, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it’s too steep either way. I filled in my phone number on a website, and in less than a minute, they called me. And they are calling again. They called twice in a row because I didn’t answer, and they left me a voicemail, and now it’s an hour later. I hate that because I don’t want to talk to anybody over the phone until I have to. But they don’t give you the information until you give them your phone number. I don’t know why, because if someone doesn’t want to give their number, why do you think they’ll answer the phone? Sorry for the ring.

Four-and-a-half miles. My back’s starting to tighten up just a bit, but I think I can make it. I really want to hit that two-mile point.

So I have a feeling that these miracle obesity drugs are going to be like the old cereal advertisements that I used to hear when I was a kid. Some cereal that’s a hundred percent sugar, and they say it’s nutritious because it’s “part of a complete breakfast.” And they show the cereal and the complete breakfast. Just about every gimmick that I’ve heard, fad diets, and so forth, has a disclaimer like that. That you should eat a healthy diet and exercise, and that’s how you really lose weight and keep it off, which is true. It’s just basic. It’s not easy until you get into the habit of doing it. I think I’ve proven that. Habits are hard to break.

Do you know how you get when you can see the finish line, figuratively and literally? It gives you a little motivation to go on when you haven’t much less to go. In this case, it’s just the midpoint, and I have to turn and walk the same distance back. However, the entire trail is five-point-screw-five miles. Once I get to two-point-six-two miles, then I’ll be doing half the trail. This doesn’t mean I can do a complete circuit. It just means I can do half the trail. At this point, I’d still have four miles to go. That was 4.69, so we’re less than two-tenths of a mile to go. 4.75. Six-hundredths of a mile to go. I mean, if I’m going to go this far, I might as well go the whole two miles. Well, I’m walking a little slower now. I had a pretty good pace going out, and now I’m heading back to the car. I should have looked at the clock. I didn’t wear my watch either. Last time, I said I wouldn’t come close to 5,000 steps. But when I got home, I looked, and I had 7900 steps. So today, I might have 10,000 steps. I don’t know. We’ll never know. It will remain a mystery through all time.

A lot of leaves are still on the trees. And there is plenty of grass growing in my landscaping, so we’re still maybe not into the heart of fall, but we’ve had some days when it’s kind of felt like it, especially early in the day. Even today, it’s nice and cool, sunny, perfect. A little warmer now, but I think it’s definitely the beginning of fall. We did have triple digits here this year. It’s not terribly rare, but it’s not like when I lived in Austin, where we had triple digits every year. It even happened in February once. 102 or 103. Those high temperatures are not unusual there. They are kind of unusual here but not unheard of.

I see some scooters along the road turned over in the grass. Probably ran out of juice. I think these are the ones that are provided by the city. And they are probably GPS-tracked, so somebody will come and pick them up and take them back to someplace. I have no idea how they get charged. I guess they must have a solar charger around here.

So I got out twice last week. I only recorded one episode, but I did go out one more time. I couldn’t yesterday because I had work… I don’t want to call it an emergency, but it was a serious problem. One of the systems I managed had a problem, and I had to fix it, and it took all day and into the night. I want to get back to walking three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then eventually do some resistance training on the other days and add some cardio as well. This is really not cardio, not at the speed I’m walking. I don’t know how long it’s taking me. A twenty-minute mile was pretty average for me back in the day. That would be forty minutes, but I’m not sure when I started this, so I can’t really tell.

It’s much quieter back here. I think I see water through the trees. But it’s very blue. Light blue like the sky.

It just occurred to me that I will eventually know my speed because it will be two miles, and I will know how long the episode is. I started the episode when I started walking. (Note: It turned out to be a 25-minute mile). I’m going to feel good tonight. It always feels good after a good long walk. And right now, two miles is long for me.

Don’t forget to go to YouTube and subscribe, even if you don’t YouTube me all of the time, like some videos. It helps me get the story out there. You can comment there. Thank you for joining me, and remember: If you’ve got the fever, keep it, and if you don’t? Catch the fever, and I’ll talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.