Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

But isn’t the foot designed to run barefoot? “That doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it,” Dr. Archer says. “We used to use dial-up modems. Should we stick with them? If you’re nearsighted, should you avoid glasses because they’re not ‘natural’?”

In fact, she suggests that I buy a foam insert for my sneakers. As McDougall said, I do land too hard on my heels.

I’ll return to Dr. Archer in a moment, but let me say this. After talking to other doctors and reading everything I could on the topic, I can confidently say: The jury’s still out on the barefoot movement. It shouldn’t be dismissed as a wackadoodle fad. It does make some logical sense. But on the other hand, it probably shouldn’t be adopted by everyone. Medicine is increasingly personal, and the feet are no exception. It’s something to try. Nowadays, I take about a quarter of my runs sans shoes.

Back in Dr. Archer’s office, I slip off my shoes and socks for my exam.

She looks at my heels, which are covered in thick, callused skin. They have cracks big enough to fit dimes, maybe nickels.

Her diagnosis: “Ouchy.”

I’m going to need to add another task to my enormous list of daily commandments: exfoliating my heels in the shower. I tell her she should have seen my feet a week ago. Julie just took me to my first pedicure as part of Project Health, and the Korean woman spent five minutes polishing my heel.

“Did you like the pedicure?” she asked.

“Not really,” I say. The whole woman-kneeling-at-your-feet dynamic made me feel too much like a viceroy of a British colony.

“You have to be careful with pedicures,” she says.

Dr. Archer lists all the horrible problems that pedicures can unleash. When you get a pedicure, she tells me, you are submerging your feet in a swamp of germs. The jets in the footbath are clogged with bits of skin from previous clients.

“People get fungus all the time from pedicures,” she says.

If I ever go again, she says, I should bring my own nail file, clippers, and buffers. In fact, Archer is releasing an antifungal treatment—it’s made from tea tree oil—that I could apply to my toes pre- and post-pedicure.

“And you should never let them cut the cuticles,” she says. “The cuticles are your body’s defense against bacteria.” I assure her, my cuticles will remain intact.

Checkup: Month 14

     Weight: 157

     New vocabulary words learned to keep brain in shape: 301 (Today’s: “cyanosis,” the condition of having blue skin.)

     Quinoa consumed since start of project: 44 pounds

     Pounds lifted on squat machine (15 reps): 360

I’m typing this update in a tiny rented basement office. To get work done, I needed a refuge from my lovable but boundary-defying children.

It’s a depressing and dank little dungeon that’s only missing the foot chains. The upside? It’s freezing. At times, I have to put on my Patagonia overcoat and type with a pair of fingerless gloves.

This is good, because being cold burns more calories. A 2009 article in the journal Obesity Reviews by a University College London professor reports that the obesity epidemic can be blamed partly on our tendency to crank up the thermostat. American bedroom temperature has crept up from 66.7 degrees in 1987 to 68 in 2005. When it’s chilly, we have to burn more fuel just to maintain our body temperature. Cold also activates something called brown fat, which is easier to burn than white fat.

Tim Ferriss’s book The 4-Hour Body recommends cold therapy for weight loss. He says an ice pack on the back of the neck will help. Or if you’re a tough guy, a ten-minute ice bath. I hate that my dungeon has no treadmill desk, but at least I am shivering.

Incidentally, my arctic conditions haven’t given me a cold. Which makes sense, since even Ben Franklin pointed out more than two centuries ago that cold doesn’t cause colds.

But everyone else in my family does have a cold. Lucas, Zane, Jasper, Julie—they’re all sneezing and wheezing. I’m the only one in no need of a neti pot.

It’s no fun to be surrounded by cranky coughers, and I feel terrible, especially for Lucas, who is leaking like the maddening air conditioner on the floor above us. But there’s a small part of me that is smugly satisfied.

All this sweating, eating right, and stressing less—maybe it’s working. Maybe this is what it feels like to be healthy. Maybe my overly welcoming immune system has finally decided to get rude. It’s a historic time.

Chapter 15

The Lungs

The Quest to Breathe Better

ON A SATURDAY, we take our kids to the Bodies exhibit at the South Street Seaport. This popular museum show displays actual cadavers in various positions. Some are cut into slices like a deli pastrami. Some are stripped of skin and frozen in heroic stances, such as tossing a football or conducting a symphony.

The exhibit is a little more graphic than I anticipated. Maybe a little much for my four-year-old twins. Maybe a little much for me. In the bone section, one glass case holds a tiny pelvic bone from what looks to be a six-month-old child.

The woman next to me peers into the glass case, spots the remains, and says, with all earnestness, “Ohhhh. That’s so cute.” To me, not cute. Harrowing. It reminds me of Casper the Friendly Ghost, the strangest comic book in history. The creators just gloss right over the horrid backstory. Are we just supposed to forget that a child had to die to produce this chipper poltergeist?

Luckily, my sons aren’t too fazed. They are most interested by a huge plastic container filled waist-high with packs of discarded cigarettes. They love the colors and designs on the boxes.

A sign next to the container warns: EVERY TIME YOU SMOKE A PACK OF CIGARETTES, YOU LOSE THREE HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES OFF YOUR LIFE. Passersby are encouraged to drop their packs in the slot and regain those hours.

“Why do people smoke?” Jasper asks as we walk to