[00:00:01] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield remax team presents real estate and more.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than in all of America. And why? What's up with buyers? What's on sellers'minds? How is the market? And much, much more.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield. Good morning and welcome to real estate and more show. Thank you for listening. We're getting close to the new year, and that's when I begin to think on New Year's resolutions. One great resolution is to improve the health of yours truly, to live better, healthier and longer. And who else could be better at sharing what one can do to improve our lives than our next guests, well known author, nutrition expert, exercise physiologist and longevity specialist Karen Owach. That's spelled O-W-O-C. Welcome to the show, Karen.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Certainly our pleasure today, especially getting so close to that new year's when we have to make some adjustments to our way of life, or at least try. And that's how we look at it in my little family.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: So you've spent more than 20 years as a clinical exercise physiologist, having specialized in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation at the Palo Alto VA medical Center. As it is easy to say, you are very dedicated to the subject of nutrition, fitness and longevity. And what exactly inspires you to undertake a career in the field of longevity?
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Well, several reasons, but the number one is I saw the writing on the wall when I was very young in starting college, and I have a family history of early onset heart disease and stroke, and I lost several relatives very early on, and I wanted to help people prevent that. And at the time, I was a competitive athlete, and I used to wake up very tired. And I was thinking, how could someone who's fit and young feel the blaws in the morning? And then my coaches at the time, they were really into eating healthy, plant based. So I started following along. And then at the same time, I was studying nutrition physiology, anatomy, and I made that connection. And once I changed that, I felt totally different.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Wake up in the morning, feel like a million dollars.
[00:02:36] Speaker C: Yes. Filling energy.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Wow. You actually have done quite a bit more. You've actually developed and authored a book on the shelves right now. It's entitled athletes in Aprons, the nutrition Playbook to break 100. And this book was written to help us with how we can live longer without growing older, correct?
[00:02:56] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Well, tell us about your athletes in aprons book. Give us an overview here and let us know what it's all about.
[00:03:03] Speaker C: So, first of all, athletes, I redefine what an athlete is. A lot of people think an athlete is someone that wears a uniform and is a high performer. But athletes are people, in my opinion, are people that really strive to be better than they were yesterday and really strive to just get healthier and be better. And if you have a body, you are an athlete.
The athletes club is very inclusive. So this book is for anyone that wants to live longer without growing older, meaning they're very functional, they can perform, they could do the things that they really want to do, love to do as they get older.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Takes a lot of passion and motivation to write a book like that. Where did you get that? I mean, just naturally, because you started out feeling that you wanted to do something for people, and I think your father was a little bit involved in that. And you had a brother, too, right?
[00:04:05] Speaker C: Yeah, my brother passed away early on. He had a heart attack at 35 and then a quadruple bypass. And he had other diseases, too, at the same time. Type two diabetes, a lot of visceral fat. That's the belly fat. So high blood pressure.
Those are lifestyle diseases. And so I wanted to make sure that people knew that if they changed their lifestyle, they could live longer. And when they live longer, they don't miss out on a lot of things. My brother missed out on a lot growing up, watching his nephews grow up, and being with me and doing things together.
In my profession, I've worked with a lot of men and women, mostly men. Those are the ones that have a lot of the heart problems. The women generally don't survive, but the men, I realized, because in one of the hospitals where I worked, I used to have a whiteboard, and I'd put bullet points of every day I'd have a different topic, and I found that the men were very interested in what I had to say, as long as it was very succinct. They liked the bullet points, and they were very engaged. And I thought, okay, men like to. They like to learn.
They will read a book.
So the book is written very lightly. There's some sports speak in there, and it's meant to make it very friendly to read. And when a man tells me that they couldn't put the book down, I feel like I succeeded.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Definitely succeed. Well, that is a huge motivation. Not a great positive motivation, but a motivation to help people. We were speaking with Karen Owak Owoc today. She's written this amazing book on nutrition, fitness and longevity. Athletes and aprons. The nutrition playbook to break 100 we're going to continue on here. Tell us about the importance of not losing muscle mass as opposed to simply getting on the scale saying, I need to lose 20 pounds, not to focus on that more to focus on increasing your muscle mass as we age. Correct?
[00:06:32] Speaker C: Correct. And that's what I hear all the time when I say, what is your goal? And the first thing is I want to lose 20 pounds. Well, I always say what we want to do is change your body composition because we don't want to lose 20 pounds of muscle, we want to lose 20 pounds of fat. And as you get older, I have a mini course coming up calling finishing strong on the back nine of life. And the back nine are the 50, 67 year olds and beyond.
And that's when a muscle starts to deteriorate. You start losing muscle actually in your thirty s, and they just start going down, down as you go along.
But it's called sarcopenia, when you start losing muscle mass.
And if you don't keep the muscle up, then you're going to get fatter.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Well, I think I can work on both of them, but I'm very anxious to read your text and your book. I heard the term just recently, functional fitness. Tell us a little bit about what that means.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: So, functional fitness, you're able to do things that are perform your activities of daily life and just perform things that you need to do and want to do. So things like bending down, picking something up off the floor, bending down, picking up the newspaper, that's a functional activity.
Squatting down, getting into a chair. I've had people say I sunk down into the sofa and I couldn't get out of it.
Or if you notice, we were getting new bathroom accessories and a new toilet. And I said, why are these toilets so tall now?
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Especially for a girl from Hawaii.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Right. And so why? And it's because people can't get down. For some reason, as you get older, people stop bending their knees, and that means maybe their knees are a little sore, but oftentimes they've lost muscle mass in their lower extremities and their thighs and the hamstrings.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: I hate to confess, but I have some work to do. I got to get back in that gym. I haven't been in the gym for a while.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: Well, the thing is, too, about the gym, if a person is just doing machines, that's not functional.
The way I train someone is totally different. I really don't rely on a lot of machines because you want to make sure that what you're doing is utilizing multiple muscle groups at the same time. When you're sitting on a machine, you may isolate a muscle, maybe doing an arm curl. And how often in real life do you just sit and do that? That's not a functional exercise.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Better if you do a whole circuit, though, around a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But you cover all the muscle groups, right?
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Not exactly that. When you do an exercise, it's covering one. Exercise is covering a lot of muscle groups at the same time. So I'm focusing on functional movements. When you do a lunge, you're engaging a lot of muscle groups at the same time. So that's very different from sitting on machine and doing some leg extensions.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: I see. Well, I didn't tell everybody, but the important thing is Karen is helping me with my resolutions as we move forward.
I need to be more functionally fit, especially according to Nance. She always wants me to be functional and do the yard, do the dishes, do this and that. And Karen also is a medical fitness trainer. I would say she's medical. She has that medical background and cardiopulmonary. And she also works with the physiology of your body at the same time that she moves forward. Her website is karenowock.com. Karen at karen owalk.com. If you have a chance to do that, take a short break. We'll be right back.
[00:10:45] Speaker D: Welcome to the real estate minute with remax expert Michael Hatfield. What does an agent do to get a home sold?
[00:10:51] Speaker E: Typically, an agent will prepare a comparative market analysis so he knows the home's value, then creates a marketing plan tailored just for your home. With these plans, he promotes the home globally and locally in social media, publications, open houses, all for the purpose of getting your home front and center with prospective buyers.
[00:11:10] Speaker D: As an agent, how do you get it sold?
[00:11:12] Speaker E: Michael we do each and every item in the plan, negotiate vigorously on the client's behalf, on inspection, repairs, staging, and importantly, the deal itself. We do everything we can to get the deal done and closed.
[00:11:26] Speaker D: Call 925-32-2775 now to schedule an appointment or complimentary home analysis. For excellence in real estate, call the Michael Hatfield remax team at 925-32-2775 or go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Now back to our show.
Now tell me about a person's functional fitness and how it affects the brain.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: Oh, so functional fitness. Okay, so part of being functional is having good balance. And the Japanese did a study of over 1400 men and women, average age, 67 years old, and they found a very strong correlation between being able to balance on one leg, and, well, they weren't able to balance on one leg. They saw a lot of ischemic strokes, microbleeds in the brain, lower tests, lower scores on cognitive tests, and then cerebral small vessel disease. So there is a strong correlation. And I think it's because when you have poor balance, you're not functional. Just some of the basic things is you can't walk very well, and if you're not walking well, you can't do a lot of activities. So one of the things I always look at is balance. I do a full functional assessment to get a good idea of what that person needs to work on. But balance is so important, and everything starts with the feet on up.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Interesting. You've really done a lot of work with this. I know we were talking off the air momentarily a few moments ago about the importance of our veterans taking care of themselves, especially when they get towards the back nine. It takes a lot to deal with what they have obviously had to go through in times. And I know you were real involved with that and learned a lot from that, which I'm sure went into your book.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Veteran status alone is a risk factor. I always say that when you fill out those medical forms, you check off all the hypertension. Type two diabetes you check off. They should have a box for veteran status, because just being a veteran, just in the patients I treat, their service has actually caused them to be in the ill state that they are in now.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Now, you had mentioned earlier off air, we talked about diabetes, and I think we touched on it a little bit. Type two diabetes is something that affects a very large percentage of our population. We had a couple of diabetes scientists on the show. They were with tiger health technologies, and what they had developed was a protocol that worked for each individual person that a doctor, if the doctor took the time, could use all of the data from the testing their blood, everything else that they do and develop a plan that would make them feel better. And I'll connect you up with them. I think that the three of you would do really well with your next book.
[00:14:46] Speaker C: Well, that's interesting. And type two diabetes, it's a very serious disease. We talk about dementia a lot, and type two diabetes and dementia are strongly associated.
And you think about how many people have diabetes. Well, you're going to see a lot of dementia cases later on.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: That's so incredible. Now, also, I read, I just briefly got through your book. I'm going to have to go through it page by page, but I read that men have actually more heart attacks than women. And I think you touched on that. But women who suffer an attack are more likely to be fatal. Is that correct?
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Yes, that's correct.
A question had come up to me in our cardiac rehab program, because 99.9% are men. And they said, some men said, why are there no women in our program? And I said, because most of them don't survive. And oftentimes it's because they do have their heart attacks a little later in life. So they have other comorbidities, they have other diseases that they are plagued with, so they're a little bit more compromised. But the number one problem is that they don't go to the doctor right away when they start feeling symptoms. Men have their women behind them who are saying, okay, let's get to the doctor. You're not feeling well. Da da da da da. But women being the caregivers, they're the ones that will say, well, I could wait. I don't want to interrupt. I don't want to wake anyone up. I'll wait till the morning. So when you have symptoms, you have to get to the hospital right away and open up that blockage. You have basically an hour. Men will typically, in the studies, they show that they wait about 16 hours before they actually get into the doctor. Women wait about 56 hours.
I have had women patients who said, well, they had it late at night. They didn't want to wake anybody up. I thought, maybe my back. They have different symptoms, too. They don't have the same symptoms that men do. They have back pain and indigestion. And usually they have symptoms that kind of linger, and they come up slowly over course of one to two months before the actual heart attack. So they'll say, I thought I just was coming down with the flu, or I vacuumed too hard or did something that just kind of irritated me. So that's why a lot of women don't survive.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Man. Men, we have to take better care of our ladies. It's a great reminder, and we'll put that down as one of our new year's resolutions that are coming up now. I noticed there's a difference between cardiac arrest and heart attack. Can you explain the difference between those two, please?
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Yes. Because most people use the terminology interchangeably.
Heart attack is a plumbing issue. That means there's some kind of blockage. Usually the arteries are full of plaque, or a part of the plaque will rupture and break off and then lodge somewhere else, and then a clot will form. So that's a plumbing issue. The cardiac arrest is an electrical problem because that's how your heart beats. It's from electrical. So they're two very different things. You can have a heart attack and then go into cardiac arrest, but oftentimes they're different.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Why? And then you've got the difference in symptoms to recognize between the woman and the man. So there's a lot going on.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: The top five places where people go into cardiac arrest. Golf courses.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Really?
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Yes. Airports, shopping malls, jails and stadiums. But golf carts. So golf courses. So when you go golfing, do you ever think about your partner?
Do you know CPR?
Do you ever ask where the defibrillator is? And if you're on the back nine and you go into cardiac arrest, who's going to help you? That's why a lot of people, these heart attacks. Well, these cardiac arrests are fatal.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: It's very good question. One should ask themselves if they have or had a chance to play golf.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Now in airplanes, I'm familiar they actually had to be in the, I would say, 90s. They began putting the defibrillators on the airplanes, and just about anybody can learn to operate them. That might save someone's lives. And very important to look around. You see what's around you in life.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: Yeah. You see them more in the airports, don't you? Walk around, you see a defibrillate. Well, I pay attention to that, so I want to know where they are.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: You're so very passionate with this.
We're so blessed to have you to talk to us about such interesting things about our health and nutrition. So how would you construct an actual day's set of meals for a person like me that needs to lose some weight and get in better shape? How would you actually construct that, and what would it look like nutrition wise?
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Well, because I've done this for such a long time, plant based is actually the better way. And I had a patient that was very arthritic and could barely walk in our facility. I was the director of the program at the time, and the people that came to our program at that time were, this was their last stop, so they were very desperate to change. She could barely walk in. I couldn't get the treadmill slow enough for her. But after four weeks, just four weeks of exercising three days a week, our program was 2 hours three days a week and focusing on nutrition education and stress management, the things that cause inflammation in the body. In four weeks, she was bouncing into the facility, she was jumped on the treadmill, she was talking to everybody. She was just like a changed woman. You can make these changes in a short period of time by changing the way you eat, though. Changing the way you move.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Wow. So what are we supposed to eat, Karen? No big steaks for a while?
[00:21:37] Speaker C: For me. No, because those steaks, contrary to popular belief, the meat does not help with the muscle building.
So starting out, I always like to start people out slow. And I always say, start out. Can you eat three servings of vegetables a day? And some people say, no way.
So I just start introducing things very slowly. And I think people, by making those small changes, they're more likely to make the bigger changes down the road. So I don't just say, okay, this is what you're going to eat. And I also like to educate people to know why certain foods are better than others and why some are not. And once they understand the physiology of why certain foods are harmful, it makes more sense and makes those decisions a lot.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: You know, Karen has the same type of passion towards her work that I like to feel I do towards mine, especially when I was flying airplanes, it was like I could never quite do as much and as well as I would like to. And ladies and gentlemen, I tell you, I definitely looking to do something with her. Maybe she can help me even more to improve my lifestyle, potentially longevity and so forth. Now, I also know that data shows that there are more heart attacks during the holiday season. And look what we're at right now.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Yes. The number one day where there are the highest number of heart attacks is Christmas day.
And the second most, the highest is the day after Christmas. And then the third is New Year's Day. I think New Year's Day because people are coming off the new year's and then they get into New Year's Day. So it is very serious. And so I like to talk about this early on before we get too deep into December. So I'm offering a challenge to a lot of my clients. But, yeah, part of the reason why is stress. It's very stress induced.
You're not only thinking about who to buy, but also we're all struggling with our pocketbooks. People are thinking, well, I got to have to cut back, or what did I do when people even worrying about how they're going to feed their families.
So, stress is very important, because when you're under stress, your levels of cortisol go up. And once those go up, elevated levels of cortisol will increase your risk of having a cardiac event, a heart attack, or a stroke four times.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Oh, my. Certainly don't want that one of the things that comes to mind constantly is a person's attitude towards being happy or being mad. We have a lot of people that no matter what you do, they're going to be angry, they're going to be mad, they're just going to be that way.
Then there's the other people like you. I can see you walk in with joy in your heart and a lot of gratitude for what you have, not only your health conditions, but your new book that you have out. And helping people is also a big reward in that way, at least the way I see it. How does a person's healthy attitude affect their lifestyle, their longevity? How do you measure that?
[00:25:21] Speaker C: Well, we do know that depression, anxiety, they do affect your overall health. Particularly. There's a connection between depression and dementia.
That's one of the number one myths, is that people think dementia is something that just happens to you. It's kind of a stroke of bad luck, but it's not. There's a very strong correlation between the way you live your life and dementia. So if you're constantly under stress and when you're under stress, like when you're unhappy, that's a stressful feeling that's going to contribute to your longevity. And we want to be functional. We want to be independent as we get older. We want to be able to do the things we love to do without help.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Understand, gratitude is a learned skill. I think someone said that.
[00:26:21] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: You want to say a few words on that?
[00:26:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Gratitude is very much a learned skill. So it's something that we do need to practice and on a daily basis. So practice. One way to practice is to every morning, starting out with things that you're grateful for, even appreciating yourself, not just other people, but appreciating what you are able to do every morning.
So that's a real important part of just overall happiness.
I promote mental funness versus mental toughness. I like to promote having fun.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Going to her website, karen owak.com. So author, nutrition expert, exercise physiologist and longevity specialist Karen Owak, a person who actually cares about our health. Buy her book athletes with aprons at the nutrition Playbook 2100. Live longer and better. It's time for a short break. You've been listening to real estate and more interesting people like Karen, topics of the day like longevity and of course, real estate. Listen to archive real estate and more
[email protected]. Slant radio the real estate and more show is podcast on demand, on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes and major podcast directories. As well. I'm your host, Michael Hatfield. We'll be right back with our next special guest. Stay tuned.
