Two years ago, Justin Lacy weighed 500 pounds, and could move about only on crutches — when he could move about at all. His tendonitis and lymphedema made standing painful and walking all but impossible. Following his mother’s stroke, the then-30-year-old Justin decided that he was going to make changes and get healthy, no matter what.
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Someone I met at a plant-based conference emailed me the other day, looking for advice on getting started with running. I hope my responses will be useful to you, dear reader. The questions are indented, and my replies are not.
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When my right knee started hurting so bad that I couldn’t run, do yoga, squat, or ride a bike, I did all the things I knew how to do.
I got massages. I iced. I rubbed hot and cold ointments into the skin. I visualized. I went to the chiropractor. I stretched.
And nothing worked.
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Jim Gray (middle of the photo) knew that he had been dealt a lousy health hand when he was diagnosed with high blood pressure at the tender age of 18. At that point, he was in good shape, a high school athlete, muscular and lean at six feet tall and weighing under 200 pounds.
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When Tim Kaufman was in his late 30s, he weighed about 400 pounds, struggled with addictions to pain killers, and figured this was how his life was gonna be from now on. After all, he had been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a genetic disease that messes with connective tissue and left his knees essentially useless.
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Doug Lisle, PhD, is an evolutionary psychologist, Director of Research at True North Health Center, and co-author of one of the most important and – to me – challenging books on human happiness and health, The Pleasure Trap. The other author, Alan Goldhamer, was a recent guest on this podcast, and credited his desire to beat Doug at basketball as the motivating factor behind his own search for the truth about health.
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Hey there, it’s me, Howard.
My mind has been buzzing lately, full of input from some of the guests I’ve interviewed over the past few months. It’s like they’ve been talking with each other, in my mind, and I have these momentary revelations and confusions as I go on runs, sit down to write, and lay awake at night when I’m not tired enough to sleep
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Steven Sashen is co-founder of Xeroshoes.com, and a fierce critic of the athletic footwear industry. Steven and I met when we were in the digital marketing world, and stayed in touch as we both migrated into health and wellness.
Steven has been my “almost barefoot shoe” supplier since 2011, when I read Born to Run and got my mind blown about the harm done by hyper-cushioned and hyper-supportive footwear.
There are so many parallels between the misinformation promoted by Big Food and Big Pharma and Big Sneaker, I wanted to get Steven on the podcast to share his naturalistic approach to moving in a way that doesn’t lead to injury and limitation.
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True confession: I usually multitask while I eat, despite telling other people not to. I read, I Facebook, I talk on the phone, I create presentations, and so on. I rationalize it very well: I’m busy, I can still chew slowly (note to self: “BS!”), and this is the last time.
And luckily, I tell myself, it’s no big deal.
Marc Schoen, PhD, assistant clinical professor at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine, disagrees. And after reading his absolutely amazingly important and helpful book, Your Survival Instinct is Killing You, he’s convinced me.
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Irving Kirsch is a soft-spoken researcher who accidentally stumbled upon one of the biggest and most costly errors in modern medicine. His cautious yet relentless search for the truth has made him persona non grata to much of the psychiatric profession and pharmaceutical industry, and a hero to the rest of us.
His findings, documented in his book The Emperor’s New Drugs as well as in dozens of published papers and book chapters, has generated a lot of controversy, including a 5-page cover story in Newsweek and a segment on 60 Minutes.
His conclusion: antidepressant drugs, including blockbusters like Prozac and Paxil, don’t work. They’re no better than placebo, meaning the only reason people feel and get better when they take those drugs is because they believe they will.
When you look at the evidence collected and analyzed and curated by Kirsch, it’s hard to disagree.
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