Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Day 18 - The Price of Laziness

With a late start for work today (10am) you'd think that I would get up early and be productive.  Nope.  Not today.  Stayed in bed until 8 and got my lazy on.  Before I knew it, it was time to go to work and I didn't even prepare a breakfast or lunch - not good.  Luckily I had my bag of jerky to dip into quickly but it's not going to last very long with me doing that every time I feel lazy.

This is another valuable lesson learned during the Survivor Diet - planning and preparation.  Many people ask me about the Survivor Diet and often their most popular comment is, "I could never do that."  Not so much because of the food I find to eat but more so for the time that it takes to get done what needs to be done.  When someone gets really curious about the Diet they usually consider trying a variation of my system.  They think that by eating the same types of food or food groups that I eat - but by buying the items as the grocery store - they will achieve the same results.  Perhaps some of this is true - as observed in similar diets like the Paleo Diet and others.

What I have learned time and time again after doing the SDC for 6 seasons now is the fact that most of the benefits I get from this challenge come from the search, the planning, the preparation, the failures, the successes and the overall energy that it takes to obtain my food.  When you have a grocery store from which to buy a piece of fish, all of that is taken out of the equation.  The mystery of not knowing where or when your next meal may be, often sparks a bright light of creativity within me.  I HAVE TO think of something to do to put some food on the table.  Other options are not available.  If I get lazy one morning (like today) I spend a lot of time kicking myself for being stupid.  And hopefully next time I learn from this mistake.

In addition to the general quest for food, I am (usually) very active during the SDC - much more so that the rest of the year.  This is the 'exercise' part of the plan.  Even though I'm not exercising in the traditional way you may think - just by being out and about and building stuff and fishing and exploring and diving and clamming - I'm exercising both my body and my brain.  This part of the Survivor Diet can not be achieved if you simple obtain your survivor-like food from a store.  I hope that makes sense because I get asked that question a lot and it takes a bit of explaining to defend my case.

Anyway - lazy Tuesday morning.  Smoked fish for breakfast.  Still no animals captured in my traps.  Still haven't earned any of my weekly survivor rewards.  Fish and rice for lunch.  Same for dinner with the addition of asparagus.  I'm starting to look for something different in my meals.  On my day off tomorrow I am hopefully going to branch out with a little variety.  All I need is one small bird or squirrel to get stuck in my trap and I will earn that first reward of butter and spices - man, that will be a huge boost in flavor to just about everything I have been eating.

I will try to gather some wood and tools tomorrow so that I can make my first attempt this year at a primitive fire.  That too would release a reward but I don't know if I have the energy to do that right now.  At bare minimum I should gather the equipment so that when I feel up to it I can give it a go.

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