365: Nature-Infused Blue Zone Living: Camping, Yoga, and Eclipse Watching

Again, we got together in various capacities as far as living accommodations, but the whole idea was to experience, nature and the outdoors. And this is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast, and I'm your host, Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me, together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life, and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started. Welcome back, everyone to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast. I'm your host, Maya Acosta. And today I have Dr. risks with me. And you know what today is Dr. Reyes? Yes, ma'am. Today is Monday. That means we have another segment of doctor in the house with Dr. Rizwan Bukhari, my husband, who sits with me on Mondays, and we talk about various topics today, friends, we are going to fill you in on our weekend. Yes, indeed, we are going to tell you about how we went camping with a group of friends here from Dallas, and how we made it a BlueZone experience. So let's get started. We headed off this weekend to Cooper Lake State Park, South sulphur. You chose this particular park why? Well, we had been there before. And also pretty close by it's only, you know, not even about an hour and a half way maybe depending on where you start up to an hour and 45 minutes. So it's very accessible. It's, you know, it's close by it's easy to get to. Yes. And that was the whole key. Yeah. And also actually, when we, when we were originally looking, we were hoping to find a place that did not have a burn ban going on. Which subsequently they did put a burn ban. And they did. It's been a hot summer in Dallas. And then even though this place is an hour and a half away, it's been very dry across the country, very hot in various states. Now we announced this camping trip to some of our groups, local groups that we have here. We didn't really publicize it a lot, even though we mentioned it to you on the podcast. But we wanted to know who was going to go and then just, you know, make it a good experience. And so we ended up being a total of 12 of us. Some work couples and then a couple of friends that also went along and we had a great time, like Dr. Riz said he mainly chose this location because he wanted to set up a campfire. But the place itself we've been to Cooper Lake state before, there's two units, there's a south side of the lake and then on the north side of the lake is called doctors Creek. Okay, and so there are kind of two separate distinct campsites on opposite sides of the lake. So we thought it would be a lot of fun to share with you like how do we focus on creating a Blue Zone experience in such a short time a weekend, because we arrived there at Friday, closer to four o'clock, maybe four o'clock PM, and we headed out around noon today out of the campsite. So I thought it would be fun to start to talk to people about what they can look forward to in some of these parks. And so I like to pick up fliers and information wherever I go. So I'm going to read to you a little bit of information on this park that we chose. All right, so building the lake the 19,300 acre Cooper Lake is a young lake the Cooper Lake project was authorized in 1955. Construction began in 1986. Construction finish and water collection began in the fall of 1991. The US Army Corps of Engineers build the lake to help control flooding of the South sulphur river to supply water for towns in the area and for outdoor recreation such as fishing and boating, 1000s of acres of parks and wildlife management areas around the lake. The lake has evolved into one of the best fishing lakes in the region. Okay, so let's talk about the actual Park Cooper Lake State Park is 3026 acres. That's in northeast Texas. Like we said about an hour and a half of Dallas. The park has two units. There's the doctors Creek which is a little over 716 acres in the Delta County and then south sulphur where we were which is over 2300 acres and Hopkins County. The State of Texas leased both park units from the US Army Corps of Engineer in January of 1991. The park open for both axes in November 1992, the DRS Creek unit open in January of 1996. The South sulphur unit opened in April 27 1996 and the park is convenient for surrounding communities, including Paris Cooper, Greenville, Sulphur Springs in commerce, as well as the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex and Texarkana experiencing the great outdoor ranges from roughing it in a cabin

With central heat and air to primitive camping beneath the stars, wildlife observation can be very rewarding with sightings of bald eagles, White Pelicans, wild turkey, waterfowl, white tailed deer, squirrels, raccoons and beavers. And you know what they didn't mention armadillos. And that's like what we saw the most. Well, it was a group of 12 of us, we had three different types of what I'll say accommodations, maybe you'll use a different word, but I kind of just described, there's primitive camping, there's, like actual campsite with or without electricity. And then there's cabins that they had throughout the park. Yeah, I want to give you all this background, in case you're interested in checking this place out, like the more that we visit parks, the more that I'm hoping that, you know, you'll gain information from here. So I did not have chance to check out how much it costs to do primitive camping. But I want to say that primitive camping is probably just an open space. Without any electricity, you'll have to go to the website and I'll put a link in the show notes for you to check it out. But to enter the park is a $5 fee. And primitive camping is just like I said, basic camp, I put in the second category, you know, camping and RVing.

You can call it glamping. But if you're in sort of a rig and an RV unit like that, you do have the ability to plug into power, and also city water. And then number three were the cabins, which half of our group decided to do there were two prices for the cabins. There was a $60 a night. And then there was a $125 a night accommodation. And the main difference between the two were whether you could actually cook and shower in those spaces. Yeah, so the the $60 cabins had are air conditioned and had sleeping spaces. But it was kind of a kitchenette, it didn't really have a full kitchen. And it also didn't have a bathroom. So there was a like a communal or local bathroom that you could go to if you wanted to use it. Whereas the the $125 cabin was literally almost like, you know being in kind of a hotel suite, because it had a couple couple of sleeping areas it can accommodate for six people. It had a kitchen, it had a little dining area. So I was very impressed with him actually, right. If you get a chance, follow both of us on social media because we will be putting out content this week on it to show you with our photographs and videos, you'll get a chance to see what the spaces look like. Like Riz said, we did not see the cabin. That's only $60 A night. Because from what I know, no one in our group rented that space. But it didn't have first of all pets were not allowed. So we did not take Papi Chulo with us at all, because there were a lot of restrictions with animals like they don't want the animals in the public restroom. So I don't want animals off leash, they definitely don't want animals in the cabins. So the less expensive cabin only had a microwave and a small fridge. So if you're really relying on being able to have that cooking experience, you would have had some restrictions kind of like being in a basic hotel room, where you have the microwave and a small fridge and that's it. But at least in a basic hotel room, you have a bathroom to shower in. And these did not like you said, but you did have AC and that's a big advantage. This past weekend was pretty hot, we knew was going to be hot. And even though we announced the camping trip a while back. Some people did not come with us because they knew it was going to be hot. And then the other better accommodation we did have an opportunity to check out because we had two activities in a cabin. So we did our potluck and another activity of rock painting in that space. And that's when I was able to check out that they not only that they have a sea but they had an a deck with like a picnic table a grill, also a place where they can do campfire. Yeah, and the deck was overlooking the lake to oh my gosh, it was beautiful and nice and breezy. Of course at the cabins you you're not allowed to set up camp like an actual tent or bring in an RV and you do kind of pretty much have to bring everything with you. You have to bring your own linens, all your own cooking utensils, your own dishes and stuff like that. So you know it's it's got the facilities but you have to bring all the stuff. That's right. I mean, it's got the most important things that you need which is a sink to wash dishes, a coffee pot, a stove, not an oven but a stove, refrigerator, microwave, a toilet, a shower and about tub by what I was gonna say the best thing is that you could actually dine indoors at a table with four chairs and they also had a couch so you know, I can see where six people can fit in there because we were 12 P

Bull in the space and we were fine. Again, it's one bedroom with two double beds and a deck. So that's what the cabin that's $125 that's how much it cost. It's a great way to disconnect from city life. It's a great way to connect with nature, and to take walks and to hike and the sunsets were also incredible. Yeah, I think though, you know, what's nice is that the State Park offers a variety of lodging capabilities for people from all different walks of life, and basically what different people want. And we had that kind of spectrum in our group, we had somebody who did the primitive camping, which is just nothing but a camping spot, and you can go and pitch your tent there. Although I think they did have access to water, so they could use water. And then then the wreck what I consider to be kind of the more traditional campsites are the are the RV sites. And either people can drive their car and pitch a tent there. Or people drive their RVs there and plug in both to water and electricity to power their RV and supply their RV with water. So and then they had the, you know, the the the two different types of cabins. So there was all sorts of different kinds of accommodations to suit one's needs. And we were there for two nights. So one night, I actually pitched a tent and enjoyed that. And the other night, I stayed back, okay, and went back and stayed in the van. So yeah, you know, I think that there's something for people of all walks of life some when what they enjoy, yep, I actually consulted Brittany Durruti ahead of time, but ahead of this this camping trip, because I saw that she had done something really nice in the East Coast, and I so happened to have interviewed her. And after the interview, I said, Do you mind if I ask you? How did you decide on the location? And how did it all go, and it was just the weekend. But now she has like 5060 people join her, she picked a park that was near a resort, so that people could have the choice of either staying at a resort hotel room, or bringing some people actually rented an RV that was delivered to the property to the park. And so people have various experiences in accommodations, and I am for all of that.

I don't care for the people that say, oh, but you're glamping or Oh, but you're not really camping. If you're enjoying nature, who cares, you know, but at the end of the day, I think the most important thing for me is to encourage people just to be in nature. And so while I was out there, I recorded a little review of a book on forest bathing. And if you listen to my podcast regularly, you'll you'll know that I often try to explain why forest bathing is important for our physical, emotional and mental health. So I'm going to read to you a little bit about what forest bathing is. And then we'll continue on with like what we actually did at the park. So there's some science behind forest bathing. And this comes out of Japan, Dr. King Lee. He's a leading expert in forest medicine. And in his book, he takes us on a journey through his groundbreaking research and forest bathing, which is also called Shinrin Yoku, it is the practice that involves immersing yourself in the sights, sounds and sense of the forest. It's like a walking guided meditation to take in the sights, the sounds, everything that you are experiencing in that immediate surrounding. And I think that even going to a state park, you can receive similar benefits. And they say just one weekend, a month could give you 30 days of benefit. And so look out for that video because I am going to share it on my Instagram, and that the Instagram has healthy lifestyle solutions. So what did we do this weekend? Well, I mean, we did a lot of stuff. And in a sense, this was kind of like a, a little blue zones living weekend, right.

And we had, you know, we got together with some friends. And again, we got together in various capacities as far as living accommodations, but the whole idea was to experience nature and the outdoors. And we actually had a pretty busy weekend, you know, it was kind of nonstop stuff. You want to go over kind of what we did. Right. So we got on a call with everyone who was interested in coming on this trip. And we had just finished watching the Docu series by Dan Buettner that is on Netflix is called Live to 100 lessons from the Blue Zones. And so we had just finished doing that. So we got on a call with everyone to kind of see where's everyone at in terms of their nutrition, but also in terms of their experience of being in nature, like camping. So I thought that was a really good thing that we did. And then I think it was Cheryl that said, Well, what's the theme because we were trying to decide what foods we wanted and I thought immediately it came to me well let's make it a Blue Zone living kind of experience. What

Does this Docu series talk about what are the four main things that the Docu series focuses on that people that live the longest throughout the world have one was being plant slanted, mainly, they eat plant based foods. Number two, they move naturally, which means regularly in their environment. Number three, they have a sense of connection. And number four, they have this positive outlook on life. And so that's sort of what we did, we got together, like I said, on Zoom, and then I created a document, a shared document where we all just kind of laid out the different things. So every, I kind of recommended a list of like Mediterranean type dishes, and everyone decided what they wanted to bring for our potluck on Saturday. And then we knew right away that we wanted to be do something physical. So we decided on a hike this particular weekend, we did a 4.6 mile hike. And then this morning, Sunday, Marla led a yoga by the lake experience, which was beautiful. And then the other experiences, activities that we did, were also related to connecting as a group and having a positive outlook. A couple of people went and kayaked. And then there was one activity where we, you know, that K, another group member, recommended, and there's a whole website about painting rocks and having positive messages on them. Then we all got together and watch the sunset twice on Friday night, and Saturday night for getting there on a Friday afternoon and finishing up on a Sunday morning. We had a very full schedule and a lot of good interaction. And it was really great weekend. And yeah, what I liked most about it, well, there's so many things, but one thing that stood out was how we all contributed to organizing the weekend. So it wasn't like one person was in charge of running it all. Everyone decided I will take I'll do this, I'll bring that. Like I said, Kay, organize the rock painting activity. And then Marla took charge of yoga. And I recorded it by the way, again, go to my social media, because I'm going to be releasing the content. I wanted to tell you about the different hikes. In case you're interested. So we did the first hike was the coyote Run Trail. It's an SS park at the Heron Harbor Day Use Area in height the trail to the ending loop and return the distance is 4.6 miles. Now on the literature. It says it takes about three hours. But we did it in two hours. Yeah, I mean, I think that they are quoting a very, very leisurely pace. Yeah. And we were definitely power walking. Yeah, absolutely. We had a whole bunch of experienced hikers who wanted to get some good activity in Yeah, and it was. So that's one thing that I've learned from us doing the walks monthly, is that if you're going to go on a hike, probably do a hike with a smaller group, not with like 1020 30 people, because then you're going to spread out too much. So a hike of six people is a good with a strong hiker in the group, I think is a good number. I think it's also important to understand what your your, your hiking level is, so that you choose the appropriate hiking for your level.

And but the good thing is about about these parks is they offer all sorts of different type of opportunities. Yes. Then we learned about the Honey Creek interpretive trail, which was pretty interesting. It's a third of a mile that we completed, supposedly it would take 30 minutes, but I think we did we took longer because we were photographing and discussing the different trees, but this one just kind of allows you to go like in a in a circle. But I thought it was really neat, because you know, it had the placards on all along the way. You know what, probably 20 of them, right? That was describing all the different trees. And if they bought nuts or fruits and what animals that they might have, you know, might come by and eat from them and stuff like that. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool, too. It was like being an arboretum. That's right, yeah, we completed it around noon, I think and so it was getting hot again. And so that's the one thing about we try to now I am going to start documenting in being more detailed about our trips, our camping trips, so that I can remember what are the better times of the year to count so that even though we plug into power, we're glamping in our van and our camper van, you know, being outside can still I mean you want it to be a comfortable temperature so that you can be you know, spend time outdoors be on the hammock. And so this time it was a little hot. Yeah. Well, that's a consequence of where we live in Texas. There's only limited times of the year where the the weather's just really comfortable in the spring in the fall. Otherwise, you know you're dealing with either extreme heat or extreme cold and and

And if you really want those times, because there's so much demand for, for all of these sites camping is so you know, so in, you know, it's so popular now that you really have to book months and months ahead of time if you want to get your ideal time. That's right. And that short trial that we did, we saw an amphitheater, which I thought was pretty cool. And then of course, I'm always brainstorming on possibility. So that could be a space where we could, you know, address the group as we're starting the entire weekend, and then come back and gather as we're wrapping up the weekend. So an amphitheater, there's also a pavilion for groups that you can rent for, like $75 that day. And so if you wanted to have, I don't know, a different experience, a gathering a group activity, that's outdoors, the pavilion would also be a nice, a nice option to have. So I mentioned that there was kayaking, so I'm going to tell you a little bit about kayaking in case you are interested in participating in something like that, I didn't get to do it this time around, because to me, it was a little windy, and then the following day, it was hot. So I was not in the mood for that. And also the window was short to kayak. So the in this particular part region of the park, they offer singles and doubles. And I don't know if you remember how many kayaks they actually keep in stock or around. Yeah, they have six kayaks, two or doubles and four singles, for singles. Okay? So they rent them by the hour, or up to four hours. So it's $16 for an hour, or up to four hours is $27. And if you want the kayak for the entire day, or up to eight hours, that is, it's $38. I think that's like, if you want to like start off in the morning, stop somewhere for lunch, and then take your time coming back. Because then you're always gonna go against the current no matter where you go. Yeah, those people who ran it for all day, you've got to be some really serious kayakers. Yeah. So all the kayaks, I do back by 4pm. And none can be rented out after 3pm. So that means your your experience has to start early in the day to get your full eight hours or to avoid the heat. So you would want to start much earlier to avoid the heat.

And then like I said, we had yoga by Marla by the water, which was a lot of a lot of fun. I really enjoy that I had a thought about this as well risk because people can have different types of physical abilities and mobility issues. And so if you can't do the regular kind of stretching type Yoga, you could probably just sit in a chair and do the upper. Yeah, I think that, you know, as doing any activities, good for you. So you can do do as much as you can. You know, and I mean, I think that I've been to yoga classes where they're teaching stuff that's well beyond my ability. So I just did whatever I could and then stopped and not not trying to go too far. So that's what I tell anybody, whether it's you're doing it at a beginners level or an intermediate level or whatever, this time around. Also, it was pretty quiet. I didn't usually when we're at a state park or any park you there's, you know, constant movement of people coming late. Or leaving early in this time, it seemed fairly quiet. We were probably the noisier people as we were setting up camp in the dark. Yeah. I mean, I think the quite unexpectedly and I was talking to the ranger about this is that the park wasn't at capacity. So there was maybe a third of the spaces spaces were available or not occupied.

And she wasn't exactly sure why she said maybe it had to do something with number one, how warm it was. And number two that you know, people were back in school. So that changed some some of the activity level. But I mean, normally when you and I have gone camping,

the parks have been pretty much full. Yeah, I also I, I agree back to school people have have responsibilities. All right. Let's start to wrap things up. I just want to remind all of you we won't have a walk in the month of November or December. So no Walk With A Doc in November or December. Our last walk of the year will be on a Sunday, October 22 at 1pm at Northpark Mall. So just follow us on social media because that's where we're announcing all of that this coming weekend. We're going on another van trip and this time we're going to Arkansas for we're going for Yasmin's white coat ceremony. Yes, Maine is your daughter and she got accepted into medical school. Right? So I guess it's a it's a tradition in their first year kind of a rite of passage. So the the new students are gonna get recognized and go up on stage and they get to put on their white coat. Yeah. Wow, I can't wait. That's gonna be amazing. I mean, cuz since she was little she has been wanting to go into medicine and now she's doing it. So

after that weekend, we are headed October 6, seventh and eighth. We will be in Houston.

Stem because on October 7 Is the peaceful planet Foundation's annual yearly retreat that I'm going to emcee, I'll send more information out in the newsletter for all of you, I've been talking about it. I've been actually going live on Instagram, interviewing some of the speakers and people offering like yoga and meditation and talks about women's health and all of that. I've been doing that on Instagram Live. And so that's where we're going to do. And then let's talk about October 14. Okay, so October 14, we're going to be at another State Park. And this time, we may get a chance to see part of the eclipse. What do we know about that? All right. So in fact, I didn't even plan it that way. But it just so happened that that weekend freed up for us. And so October, I know would be an even better month for camping because the weather will be a little bit cooler. So we're going to Caprock Canyon State Park, which is up near Amarillo, Texas. We've been there once before. Last time we went it was the weather was not all that cooperative. It had been raining a lot. And so it was very muddy. And even though we enjoyed it, and we did do some great hiking, you know, the experience was dulled a little bit because of the rain. So I was hoping that we get to revisit it because I thought it was an absolutely fascinating

scenery. It's, you know, I keep telling if I describe to people I tell them, It's like being in Arizona, Utah, in Texas, who knew that we had these kind of great canyon type formations in Texas. And so anyway, we're going back in October, and hoping that we can get to enjoy the outdoors a little bit more. And so yeah, you asked me about the Eclipse. So there's going to be a Eclipse that's occurring on the 14th. I don't know exactly what time of the day. So I'm hoping that, you know, we'll be actually there and station so we can kind of watch it rather than being on the road. But either way, we'll stop and pull over and watch it. But it's going to be the it's going to be a complete eclipse on kind of a curvilinear line from Midland, Texas to Corpus Christi, I think.

And we're going to be a little bit north of that. So we're not going to see a total eclipse, we're going to see a partial, yes, yeah. But I mean, but any Eclipse is kind of cool to see. Yeah. So if you go to the Cooper Lake State Park, the one we've just been discussing, they are offering an annular solar eclipse, self guided. And so go to the website, and this one is actually in it's set for Saturday, October 14. And so this is I'm looking at the website for the Cooper Lake State Park, and go to go to all events and it says take a self guided tour of the annular solar eclipse happening today. Pick up an informational flyer at the headquarters, bring your eclipse glasses, we need to make sure we order those like now. And they're cheap cardboard glasses, I guess. And then the park programs are open to public and they're free with the entrance fee. And so I guess though, you know, they'll probably just tell you where to go, where to stand. But the reason that I even bring that up is because people like state parks right now are already booking for October 14th. Because like you say, depending on where you're located, and where you're supposed to see this eclipse, that's where the parks are gonna fill up the most. So I I think we're going to be in a good location. Yeah. So I mean, the state parks offer both camping permits, like, which is what we done, but they also offer day passes. And that's what's still available. There's not hard, I bet you that most camping spots are already filled up for October because it's great weather. And pretty much all the state parks in Texas are probably full at that time, as far as camping goes. But you can still get day passes, but they also limit the number of day passes that they issue. Because they don't want the parks to become overcrowded. That's right. And so that. So that's what they're saying is if you're planning on going get your day pass now. Yeah, exactly. So that's that at the end of October, we're headed to the lifestyle medicine conference that's in Denver, Colorado, and I just really every time I get a chance, I want to just tell you what's going on because people listen and learn about what we're doing through various platforms. And so And before that, we're doing chef Julius retreat. Okay, so the reason that we're offering our walk October Sunday, October 22, is because our regular third Saturday of the month, which is October 21. We are actually headed to Fort Worth to be part of Chef Julia's quarterly retreat. Ris is actually invited to give a talk as part of the retreat and then I always tag along to kind of mingle and photograph and video. But those are a lot of fun. So check out chef Giulia, I'll put a link in the show notes as well and just you know, she offers his wonderful experience

An all day experience of being immersed in a plant based eating healthy foods that are salt, oil and sugar free. So I actually like her cooking.

Her oatmeal cookies are delicious. And so that was about it. I started to record videos as we were taking off in the van. I did one of the stops, I headed to our campsite or to the state park I filmed us, you know, making bagel sandwiches. And then I wish I could have filmed like the two dishes that I made the two different salads that I made for the potluck. But I was in such a hurry because we really had like back to back activity so we didn't really have a lot of downtime. And so I didn't get a chance to film anymore. And then today it was just a quick wake up pack up and and head out but I need to make I always say I want to make more cooking videos in the van. Anything else that stands out from this weekend? No, I think we got it covered. All right. Thanks a lot, friends for listening. Until next time. Bye bye. You've been listening to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at rate this podcast.com forward slash H L S. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener.