Menu

High heels hurt more than your wallet

by

At my son’s recent graduation, I couldn’t help wincing as I watched almost all of the women graduates teetering on 4″ (or higher!) high heels. As you would expect with our cultural norms, all of the men wore flat dress shoes.

high heels

Why do women wear high heels?

Bet your answer is one of these:

  • Because they are fashionable
  • Because they look professional for work
  • Because they look dressy for special occasions
  • Because they can make women taller

What all of these answers have in common is that they are all about appearance. There are NO health benefits.

How wearing high heels hurts your body

High heels not only lighten your wallet, wearing them can hurt your body in several ways:

  • puts force equal to 4-4.5 times your body weight onto the forefoot bones compared to walking in flats
  • immobilizes the midfoot muscles, affecting gait
  • strains joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles from the feet to the legs, all the way up to the lower back

Why don’t men wear high heels?

Surprisingly, men wore high heels first, in the 10th Century. Persian horseback riders used them to keep their feet in the stirrups. The trend spread to Europe and became fashionable for the upper class for both men and women, but by the 18th Century, men were smart enough to ditch them in favour of flat shoes that fit feet comfortably. Check out this podcast by 99% Invisible, “Feet of Engineering,” episode 119.

Women should stop wearing high heels

Here’s a sobering fact: For every male patient referred to orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Roger Haene, he sees 19 women. Why such a difference? Women suffer more foot problems, including hammer toes, bunions, corns, nerve pain and plantar plate tears, because they wear high heels.

For this story, for the Canadian November/December 2016 edition of The Costco Connection, I interviewed an orthopaedic surgeon, a podiatrist and a chiropractor. They provided some great insights and tips to reduce foot problems. Click on the image to read the story.

I think women would be wise to give up wearing high heels altogether. I gave them up years ago and I’m glad I did!

Fancy Feet Follies

Successful long-term weight loss strategies

by

Have you already dropped the ball on your New Year’s resolution to lose weight? Did you fall for silly diet season or try to stick to an unrealistic fitness plan that would put an elite athlete to shame?

We live in a world that’s increasingly driven by short-term rewards, but successful long-term weight loss can only be achieved if we make changes we can live with for the rest of our lives and stick to what works, every day.

If we don’t, the weight comes back. Simple as that.

I first wrote about the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) almost three years ago, in the story, Best Strategies for Maintaining Long-Term Weight Loss. Last March 2014, I met James O. Hill at a presentation for health journalists at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado. Hill is one of the co-founders of the NWCR, an ongoing study tracking the habits of over 10,000 people who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for a long time. On average, they have lost 66 pounds and kept it off for 5.5 years. It was great to interview Hill for this story and dig deeper into the strategies that work for the NWCR participants.

What are the successful weight-loss maintainers doing right? Lots of things and surprisingly, most are not rocket science. The secrets of success lie in the mindset to embrace sustainable changes, and doing the things that work, consistently, with a long-term view for improved health.

It was a real pleasure to profile Ann Douglas for the success story. Ann graciously shared her experience about how she lost a significant amount of weight and has kept if off for more than two years. She followed the learning of the NWCR and focused on the long-term rewards of her improved health. Ann is a prolific parenting author, speaker, and has just published Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows and Everything in Between, a guide to parenting children with mental health, neurodevelopmental and behavioural challenges.

Check out my story online by clicking on the image below. Coming soon – an adaptation for the Canadian edition.

CostcoJan2015_post image

Standing desks boost health and productivity

by

On January 20, 2015, I spoke on a panel for the Toronto Branch of the Editor’s Association of Canada about Enhancing Productivity: Tips, Tools and Strategies, together with fellow freelancer Luigi Benetton.

One of my favourite tips to boost health and productivity is to use a standing desk. I’ve been using one since the summer of 2011 and I love it! Here’s why I decided to use a standing desk and some helpful resources if you are thinking about making the move yourself.

too much sitting putting your health at risk

Where it all started

I first learned about standing desks from Stéfan Danis. Stéfan is now a partner in a handful of executive search firms, but many years ago, we were colleagues working in consumer brand marketing at Procter & Gamble. In 2009, I met with Stéfan to learn about how he trained for the Gobi March, an extreme desert race where participants compete in a gruelling 250 km race over 7 days and carry their own supplies for the duration.

One of his surprising training strategies was to switch to a standing desk. He even wore a weighted backpack months before the race to simulate race conditions. Stéfan recommended I read James A. Levine’s book, Move a Little, Lose a Lot to learn more about the science behind his decision. Levine is an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic and the inventor of the first treadmill desk, which in its first concept design consisted of a bedside hospital tray over a treadmill. In his research at the Mayo Clinic, study participants wore special undergarments with microsensors that measured every movement. It’s his research that found that standing burns 3 times as many calories as sitting.

Soon after that, I began to read studies from researchers in Canada, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom about the health risks of sedentary behaviour. I made the move to my own standing desk in the summer of 2011 and wrote the post Is Too Much Sitting Bad for Your Health for GE’s Healthy Outlook blog. Later, I wrote The Sinister Side of Sitting for Canadian Health and Let Your People Move for CMA magazine.

The health risks of too much sitting

You’ve probably heard by now that “sitting is the new smoking” or read about “sitting disease.” A landmark study published in 2009 found that people who sit most of the day have:

  • twice the risk of heart attack
  • twice the risk of developing type 2 diabetes
  • twice the risk of dying from any cause
  • later studies have also found a higher risk of cancer

James A. Levine wrote that sitting is also a major cause of orthopedic pain. When we sit for extended periods of time our back muscles loosen, our hips get tight and our legs get stiff and weak, so over time, we can have back and neck pain, and become hunched over like Cro-Magnon man.

@IStock.com/dane_mark

@IStock.com/dane_mark

What was most surprising from the landmark study was that these risks were true even for people who were meeting weekly guidelines for moderate to vigorous physical activity of 150 minutes. This means that even if you pound out a 5K run on a treadmill for half an hour, and then sit on your duff for most of the rest of the day, you’re at risk. And most of us sit for most of the day: the average Canadian sits for 9.5 hours a day, about 70% of waking hours.

What happens when we sit all day?

Researchers analyzed blood samples from people who had been sitting for several hours and found significantly elevated levels of blood sugar and fat. When we sit for hours, the transport proteins and enzymes that would normally move sugar and fat out of the blood and into cells where they can be burned for energy start to shut down. If we sit for the entire day, their activity levels drop by 50%. Then if we eat a meal high in sugar and fat, blood sugar rises too high and the pancreas starts pumping out excess insulin to try to keep up, and blood fats skyrocket by 180%.

Over time, when our body can’t use the energy we eat as fuel, it leads to health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and excess fat storage, particularly in the abdominal area. The great news is that the single act of getting up out of your chair is all it takes to get nutrients moving into cells again.

My standing desk

For my first effort to build a standing desk, I didn’t want to buy one until I knew it would work for me, so I tried an experiment with things I already had. I measured how high I wanted the tabletop and put stacks of old textbooks under each leg to raise the desk up.

It worked, and I loved it, but I had no option to sit down when I was tired. It takes a while to work up to being able to stand more than sit in a day. Besides, it’s not really good to stand all day either — just ask anyone who works in a factory or a restaurant where their job demands that they stand most of the day.

After checking out some sources online, I built my standing desk with parts I bought at IKEA – a large tabletop about 5 feet by 2.5 feet, four extendable legs and a bar stool. All in, it cost about $250 plus tax. The tabletop is 43 inches off the floor, just right for my height. The bar stool tucks under the table when it’s not in use and I alternate between standing and sitting. My desktop Mac is pushed back towards the wall and I have a nice area in front for my keyboard and to the side for reference materials and other office supplies.

Standing-Desk

Here are a few tips on optimal setup from WIRED magazine:

  • your computer screen should be about 20-28 inches away from your eyes
  • the screen should be tilted about 20 degrees
  • your eyes should be level with the top third of your screen
  • your elbows should held at about a 90-degree angle

There are lots of variations of standing desks. Some are static and some are motorized so they adjust for sitting or standing at the touch of a button. Here’s a standing desk hack that costs only $22, using parts you stack on top of your existing desk. If you are looking for a top of the line motorized adjustable sit/stand desk, check out the Steelcase Series 7 Height-Adjustable Table, which starts at $1,439 or the NextDesk Air, which starts at $2,180.

In November 2014, IKEA launched a new motorized sit/stand adjustable desk called the BEKANT Ergonomi. It will cost around $600-$700 in Canada, less than half the cost of many other motorized models on the market. It’s not available in store yet, but coming soon and available by phone order if you call a store.

Try a standing desk

Perhaps you’re not convinced a standing desk is your cup of tea. Katharine O’Moore Klopf, a freelance medical copyeditor in the U.S., started using a sit/stand desk in 2012 and hasn’t looked back since. Together with other healthy lifestyle changes, she has lost a significant amount of weight, reduced her diabetes medication and says she has more stamina, sleeps better at night and doesn’t get drowsy or bored while working.

Many of the top technology companies like LinkedIn and Google are using adjustable sit/stand desks for all employees and brief all employees from top managers to interns on the health risks of too much sitting.

Run your own experiment and see if a standing desk is right for you.

Update January 10, 2016: The Ombee portable, modular system looks like a neat option to consider. It turns an existing table top into a standing desk and comes with anti-fatigue mats to stand on. Price is not listed on the website, however Ombee is offering 50% off retail for those who subscribe to crowdfunding launch updates.

Take a Nordic Hike!

by

Winter blues got you down? Take a nordic hike before the snow is gone.

Last week, my walking buddy invited me to join her for a brisk morning hike in the woods along a section of the Oak Ridges Trail.

Brisk was the word for it: we trekked 9 km in 2 hours through the Happy Valley Forest. The snow wasn’t deep enough to require snowshoes, but I was glad I brought my ski poles to turn it into a nordic walking workout. Nordic walking is good for cardiovascular stamina as well as balance and stability. Adding poles while hiking adds 15-20% to the calorie burn, increases oxygen uptake and engages more muscles.

The hikes are free, run by volunteers and take place several times a week at various trails along the Oak Ridges Moraine, a ridge that extends over 160 km to the north of the most populated region of Ontario. Left over from the last ice age, the Oak Ridges Moraine acts as nature’s filter to provide clean drinking water to over a million people. The trails are beautiful and I hope to do more of these hikes in various seasons. Since it has mostly deciduous trees, the Happy Valley Forest would be particularly gorgeous in fall.

It was great to exercise in nature’s gym for a change – lots of fresh air, sunshine and only the sound of a solitary woodpecker pounding on a tree in the distance.

This was a good kickstart to get ready for the spring running season before the snow is gone.

winter hike in the woods

Echolocation Helps Blind People Navigate Everyday Life

by

New study investigates neural basis of human echolocation.

You probably know that bats and dolphins use echolocation to navigate, but did you know that some blind people use it to mountain bike, play soccer, or navigate cities? They make clicking sounds with their tongues and listen to the returning echoes to sense information about the position, size, shape and texture of objects.

echolocation helps blind people navigate everyday life

A new study, the first in its field, found that blind echolocators process the clicks and echoes by using brain areas that sighted people use to process visual information.  Published recently in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, the study examined brain activity in two expert blind echolocators using functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (fMRI). The Early Blind and Late Blind subjects lost their sight at 13 months of age and 14 years of age respectively. Two non-echolocating sighted subjects were also evaluated for control purposes, matched with the test subjects by sex and age.

The study design required a creative approach to measure brain activity, given that a test subject needs to be completely still to produce a good fMRI scan. To address this, researchers made sound recordings of the subjects’ own clicking noises and played them back while using an fMRI scanner to detect BOLD, or blood-oxygen-level dependent activity.

Surprisingly, when the echolocators listened to test sounds that contained clicks and echoes, compared to test sounds that contained only clicks, researchers measured activity in the subjects’ visual cortex areas known as the calcarine, but not the auditory areas. Lead author Lore Thaler, postdoctoral fellow at The Centre for Brain and Mind at Western University in London, Ontario says, “This was exciting for us! With this comparison, we saw differences in the visual parts of the brain without differences in the auditory. I expected to see brain activity in both the auditory and the visual cortex of the brain.”

Both the Early Blind and Late Blind test subjects showed brain activity in their middle temporal and nearby brain areas when they were listening to sound recordings of moving objects. Those are the brain areas that activate when sighted people view an object in motion. The Early Blind test subject showed more proficiency in distinguishing the angular position of a pole compared to the Late Blind tester, but both were excellent.

Daniel Kish was the Early Blind test subject in Thaler’s study. He is able to mountain bike, navigate in the wilderness alone and can sense a building 1,000 feet away. He founded World Access for the Blind, a non-profit organization with a mission to help blind people learn echolocation so that they can participate and achieve at the same level as sighted people. Daniel and his colleagues have worked directly with over 500 blind students to teach them how to use echolocation.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are 39 million people worldwide who are blind. In the United States alone, there are 937,000 adults over the age of 40 who are blind. Kish says that there are no hard statistics available about how many blind people are using echolocation, but from his experience, “about 50% of blind people may use some form of echolocation to help them interact with the environment.” He continues, “this is usually rudimentary, and they are usually unaware of what they are doing, or how. Perhaps around 5% actually develop an advanced form of echolocation whereby they typically use some form of self-generated sonar signal.”

Thaler says that echolocation can be a useful tool for sighted people, to sense objects in the dark or behind them. She is trying to learn the technique herself, and can sense the difference in objects placed in front of her while blindfolded. She admits that she needs to find an uninterrupted stretch of time to refine her learning.

The basic skills of echolocation can be learned in 2-3 days and refinement takes place over time for each individual. Kish says, “It is a skill much like any other. It definitely takes practice for refinement, and inherent talent does help, but is not required. It is easiest for young ones to learn, but older folks can also learn if they are motivated. Our motto is “the earlier the easier, but it’s never too late.”

Since the study was published, Thaler has received many emails from blind people who have never heard about echolocation before. She hopes that future studies will continue to unravel the mysteries of how echolocation works so that more can learn to live their lives with no limits.

CONNECT THE DOTS

Visit the site for World Access for the Blind to learn more about the organization, including training, workshops, services and advocacy efforts to help blind people live their lives with No Limits. Watch World Access for the Blind’s You Tube channel to hear Daniel Kish and his associate Brian Bushway discuss and demonstrate echolocation.

Originally published on GE Healthy Outlook, August 5, 2011. Copyright Jane Langille.

Blackwater Rafting, Kiwi-Style

by

On the South Island of New Zealand, JANE LANGILLE and her family enjoy blackwater rafting in a surreal underground landscape, drifting in pitch black darkness under thousands of glow-worms.

Our half-day adventure started early in the morning in a van, careening around the curvy road. There are no straight roads anywhere in New Zealand. Brendan and Rus, our tour guides for the day, were planning the day’s excursions and had picked us up at our motel in Westport. Their banter was difficult to tune in as we had only been in New Zealand for five days and were still adjusting to the Kiwi accent. They thought we sounded like Americans, until we suggested that they sounded like Australians. From that moment on, Brendan and Rus branded our family of four “Team Canada.”

The blackwater rafting adventure in Paparoa National Park was one of the many planned highlights of our four-week road trip exploring New Zealand. (The sport gets its name from the pitch-black caves that rafters drift through.) Paparoa National Park covers 30,000 hectares of very wild land in the northwest coastal area of the South Island. It was created as a reserve in 1987 with carefully chosen boundaries to encompass a diverse range of ecosystems from karst limestone cave formations, rainforests, granite summits and the famous scenic attraction of coastal cliffs and blowholes known as Pancake Rocks.

The tour guides brought my husband and me, along with our children, aged 13 and 11, to Norwest Adventures’ underworld rafting base in Charleston, which consisted of a shack of adventure gear at the back of a roadside diner. Charleston is a tiny village, about 25 kilometres south of Westport, left over from the gold rush of the 1800s — blink while driving through and you will miss it altogether. At the peak of the gold fever around 1870, Charleston’s population swelled to 40,000. Today, the population is recorded by one local mining historian as “130 in the summer and 80 plus one old grump in the winter.” We collected our required gear — full wetsuits, helmets with lights and life jackets — and piled into vans with seven other tourists. Access to Paparoa National Park is limited, so the vans drove us down a small hilly road to a miniature train station in the jungle. Somewhat reminiscent of the train in Jurassic Park, the Nile River Rainforest Train chugged on narrow tracks through the jungle while Marilyn, the train driver, gave a little spiel about the park. The topography of limestone cliffs and rock formations reminded us of the Niagara Escarpment, except we were passing large fern trees and lush jungle foliage alive with the sound of exotic birdcalls. Brendan and Rus hung out the sides of the moving train to hack away the overgrowth of vegetation with garden loppers to keep the path clear.

We arrived at a clearing in the bush and disembarked. The trees were buzzing with the sound of cicadas. We found our change area, which consisted of a large wooden pallet on the ground in the clearing. Brendan explained that peeing in the tour company’s wetsuits was “not an option.” If anyone felt that three hours would be too long, they were free to use the “facilities,” he told us while gesturing into the jungle behind some trees. I strode up to find some privacy but had to watch my step, as there were huge plops of cow scat on the jungle floor. Cows in the jungle? Apparently, local farmers allow their cattle to graze in the clearing.

We divided into two groups, Team Canada with Brendan, and the seven others — a couple of local Kiwis and some Americans — collectively labelled the Black Sheep, with Rus. We collected our inner tubes and waded through the refreshing water, crossing the Nile River to reach the steps leading to the cave entrance. The Black Sheep used the footbridge instead, which had been built in 1876 during the gold rush, one of the earliest suspension bridges built in New Zealand. After climbing a hill of about 80 wooden steps, and feeling quite warm in the wetsuits on this hot summer day in February, we arrived at the mouth of the cave known as the Triclops Entrance. This large hole in the side of the hill is large enough to walk into upright. The cave system was relatively unmodified; save for a few rope trails on the floor that a group of Boy Scouts had installed about 20 years ago.

The Nile River cave was full of fresh air and never felt constricting. As the river originates in the cave system, the water level must be sufficiently low for blackwater rafting tours to operate. Brendan, with his vast knowledge of the geology of this underground karst landscape, explained the differences between stalagmites and stalactites. We saw unbelievably strange formations of calcium carbonate that cavers refer to as angel wings, columns, straws and ice cream falls, according to their appearance. Brendan reminded us to touch nothing, as oil from human fingers halts the calcification process and stops the incredibly slow growth of the magnificent underground features.

We sat down at one point and turned off our helmet lights to experience perfect darkness, the kind of darkness where you cannot see your hand in front of your face. It was incredible knowing that our waving fingers were out there, but not being able to see them at all.

We then ventured to an area with a pool of water. The cave’s roof was low here and we were able to walk right under some glow-worms. The kids were awestruck, as we could have reached up to touch their long sparkling strings that looked like diamond necklaces swaying in the light emanating from our helmets. Glow-worms have bodies that are only about two centimetres long. They attach themselves to the ceilings of caves and excrete a mucus string 10 to 20 cm long in order to catch insects to eat. Their bottoms glow with phosphorescence to attract their prey: the stronger the light, the hungrier the glow-worm. When the cave floods, they are attached firmly enough to the rock to hold on and wait until the water subsides.

After some serious spelunking, it was time for a relaxing drift on our inner tubes. We set the tubes into the pool of water, sat in them backward and, with Brendan steering, formed a five-person floating chain by interlocking arms and legs. We drifted into deep water and turned off our helmet lights, while thousands of glow-worms twinkled in the high grottoes above us. It seemed like we were looking at the cosmos from an underground observatory — such peaceful beauty in the pitch-black darkness, with only the occasional lonely sound of dripping water.

Eventually, daylight intruded on our starry ride and we left the cave system to rejoin the Nile River in the rainforest. As we were well ahead of schedule, Brendan decided to take Team Canada for some further New Zealand adventure: cliff jumping. The rock jutted about two metres above the water and Brendan explained the levels of difficulty for our next challenge.

Level 1 involved holding your inner tube to your backside and jumping into the water, landing sitting in the tube. Level 2 meant throwing the tube into the water first, then jumping into it to land in a sitting position. We were all able to accomplish Levels 1 and 2 easily. Level 3 was where I dropped out of the challenge, as I knew I would never be able to hold the inner tube to my backside, execute a front flip and land in the water in a sitting position. This was the perfect time to volunteer to be the group photographer.

Everyone else mastered Level 3, so Brendan introduced Level 4 as throwing the inner tube into the water first and then landing a front flip. My son backed out at this point, but my daredevil husband and daughter continued undaunted. They landed this trick a couple of times, albeit sideways. Brendan was the only one to achieve Level 5, a standing backflip into the tube in the water. According to local lore, only one fellow from the circus had ever achieved Level 6, some kind of running back-flip manoeuvre that made us dizzy just thinking about it.

The Black Sheep then made their appearance at the cave exit and joined us to float back down the river in the gentle whitewater rapids. Adults had to push themselves up on their tubes a bit to keep their backsides from getting “river rash,” which occurs when your rear is bruised and banged by rocks. We drifted and paddled back to the starting point, returned our tubes and changed back into our street clothes. Three hours had flown by, so we ate our lunches on the train as it chugged back through the tropical forest. Our adventure was complete with complimentary photograph souvenirs and a final treat of hot chocolate with whipped cream, New Zealand-style.

Pack your bags

MEMORABLE MOMENT

The breathtaking beauty of drifting through the darkness under thousands of glow-worms together as a family.

STRESS FACTOR

We were on the lookout for giant eels after our tour guide told us that just the week before, he had been frightened by a 10-foot-long black eel waiting in the water near the cave exit. Thankfully, we never saw any eels on our adventure.

GETTING THERE

Air New Zealand: 310-615-1111; http://www.airnewzealand.com. Offers daily flights from Los Angeles.

WHERE TO STAY

Chelsea Gateway Motor Lodge Westport: 330 Palmerston St., Westport, New Zealand; 011 64 3 789 6835; chelseagateway@xtra.co.nz;http://www.chelseagateway.co.nz. Rates average $115 per night for a two bedroom unit

THINGS TO DO

Norwest Adventures Ltd. 182 Queen St., Westport; 011 64 3 789 6686; norwest@xtra.co.nz; http://www.caverafting.com.

Originally published in The Globe and Mail Travel, Saturday, January 6, 2007