Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield remax team presents real estate and more. Bay Area real estate is different than all of America. And why? What's up with buyers? What's on sellers'minds? How is the market and much, much more. Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Well, welcome to the real Estate and more show, and thank you for listening. We try to do better with our health, to live better, healthier and longer. And who else could be better at sharing what one can do to improve ourselves than our next guest, well known author, nutrition expert, exercise physiologist and longevity specialist Karen Owak, spelled o w Zero C. Welcome again to the show, Karen. It's good to see you.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for having me back.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: It's our pleasure, for sure. You always have such great things to share with us about our health. In fact, you have spent 20 years or more as a clinical exercise physiologist, having specialized in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation at the Palo Alto VA medical Center. As it is easy to see, you are very dedicated to the subject of nutrition, fitness and longevity, and you've discovered something just recently. What exactly inspired you into this career? And I think we've been over this once before, but I think our listeners need to hear what inspired you to be so interested in other people.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: Well, I started out knowing my destiny. I understood that my health history, I come from a family history with early onset heart disease and stroke, and I not only wanted to prevent that for myself, but learning that it's preventable and people can change their life and change their outcomes. And so that was one of the inspirations to go on that path.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: I know you mentioned your family before, and it's just motivated you to really undertake this really worthwhile endeavor. And now you have a concept that you have discovered, and you're actually partnering with another medical doctor. You're going to bring this out. And what is that subject again?
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Well, I'm focusing a lot of my attention on balance training because that is the foundation of longevity we think about.
Well, my focus is on movement and getting people to move. But if you don't have good balance, you're not going to be able to move very well. And so I really wanted to concentrate on that because I see that as the foundation of our longevity.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Well, I think that's another subject for another book. You already have one book out.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: What's that book called?
[00:03:00] Speaker C: That's called Athletes and Aprons, the nutrition Playbook to break 100.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: So you really are serious about bringing this longevity to all of us with your programs and what you feel and your writings and your teachings and such. Is everyone trying to break 100?
[00:03:17] Speaker C: Well, in my book, yeah.
Once we start thinking like that, it's going to motivate us to be healthy. I think there are a lot of people out there that say, oh, I'm already 70. How many more years do I have left? But if you start thinking positively and thinking, okay, I'm going to break 100, then you start living your life differently. And the book is about, well, first how people and why people age. And once you really understand that, then it's going to be a lot easier to make those changes.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Understand. Sounds like the playbook is starting to develop for another book from you. Are we going to be expecting this anytime soon?
[00:04:11] Speaker C: Well, it took me five years to finish that book.
And after I finished it, I said, that's the last one. The first and the last.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: To recap what we talked about last time, you feel that the real issue is the loss of muscle mass in seniors as we get older, as we grow older and become greater vintages. And that, that is really the key, not just being overweight like yours, Tiruli, but it's more about losing that muscle mass.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: Right. Right. And one of my things I say a lot is that the midlife muscle crisis is the number one health issue in our country today. And that's because we start losing muscle mass when we're in our thirty s and we start losing three to 8% of our muscle mass in those ten years between 30 and 40. And then it continues to accelerate. The loss continues to accelerate as you get older. Once you hit 50, you're losing it five to 10% per decade. So by the time you're in your sixty s, seventy s, you've lost a lot of muscle if you haven't been involved in any kind of intervention to prevent that loss.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Wow. And then you fall, you break something, and that's really a tough thing to overcome, I believe, as we get older. So now, what is this new discovery, balance training?
[00:05:48] Speaker C: Well, we need to focus on balance training. A lot of people think, well, I could stand on one leg for a whole minute. And I said, well, that's great. And actually, that's one of my assessments. I like to look at how well people could stand on one leg for however long they can. But that's not the only thing. When we look at balance training, there are seven key elements that are involved in a program, and one of those is joint mobility.
I don't know. Do you want me to name all seven?
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Absolutely. Let's go at it.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: So joint mobility, and that's really important. People don't think about my shoulders being tight. How does that affect my balance? Well, the thing is, we see so much of the rounded shoulders, the forward head posture. And when your shoulders and your head start migrating forward, your center of gravity is going to shift, and then you're going to be at a higher risk of falling if you don't know how to recover. Also, sensory function. We get our balance from three sensory systems, our eyes, our ears, as well as our sensory motor system. Then we have muscle strength. That's a real important part of the balance, as we talked about, and then muscle power. Do you know the difference between muscle power and muscle strength?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Not really.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: So muscle power is being able to contract your muscles very quickly and powerfully. So it's very different from, okay, so you're strong enough to walk across the street, but what if a car is coming and it's going to hit you? You need to bolt out of the way, and that requires muscle power. So a very important part of the balance training also static balance. We have static balance. Being able to balance when you're standing in one place, and then dynamic balance, that's another part, and that's a little different, too. That's being able to recover and being able to stay balanced after movement, and then we have gain enhancement. I always look at someone and how they walk because that will also affect their balance.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Wow. So if somebody can stand on their one leg for 60 seconds, is that a good thing, or is this pretty much what we're talking about as a preliminary test, or is it other criteria that you use as you go forward?
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Well, I look at it as it tells me a lot about their stability, about their muscle strength, as well as any kind of muscle imbalances. A lot of people are weaker on one side than the other, and that will also put you at risk for a fall.
But if you can balance on one leg, that's great. But that's not all of it, because most of the time when you're standing in one place, you are moving another body part. So you're moving your arms like you're trying to reach for something in the top cabinet, and that's going to affect your balance. And if you're not able to recover and stand in the one place, that's part of the static balance training.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Wow. It sounds like there's a lot to it.
[00:09:23] Speaker C: There is.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: We were out last night. It was our grown up son's birthday. We were go carting and I was just going back 30 years to when I did motorsport racing, and I was realizing that my muscle strength, or is it power power? My muscle power is not exactly what it was 30, 40 years ago. And I think that's just probably because we're not practicing some of the techniques that you're heavy into now.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: Well, that's really true.
When I test people's balance, especially their single leg balance, what they always say is, what happened to my balance?
And it's a shock to them that they can't, because usually I'll ask, well, how do you feel? Do you feel pretty stable on your feet? And they say, oh, they feel very good about their balance. And then once I test them, they say, oh, my gosh, what happened? And the thing is, we just talked about the muscle strength and how you start to lose muscle as you get older, and it's a gradual thing, so you don't really notice it, that your muscles are diminishing. And so all of a sudden, at 65, maybe you tried to stand on one leg and think, oh, my gosh, I am at a high risk of falling.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: So how do you test for your actual balance training and what should be done? How do you actually do that, Karen?
[00:10:55] Speaker C: So I do do the single leg balance. I like to kind of get a good idea. I look at people as they walk, I look at their gait, also their muscle strength. So testing how well they could sit down and stand up, some people are, if you have something cooking on the stove, you're sitting down, all of a sudden you need to bolt up. Also muscle power, you have to stand up really quickly and then walk over to the stove, and that takes strength. So I look at how well they can sit and stand, also looking at how fast they could walk.
A slow Gait is a real predictor of having a fall because it usually indicates that they're not very active. So they're pretty immobile and they're pretty sedentary. If their gait is so slow, and usually their stride is very short, and their feet, there's not much flexibility in the ankles, so you'll see shuffling, too, which is also going to put them at a risk for a fall.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Every time that I see you, you come into the studio, we talk or whatever, I notice myself trying to sit up straight. And that's not to put light on what your endeavor is, because your endeavor is a very serious, and it's a very good one for people that are on the, what did you call it? The back nine.
[00:12:28] Speaker C: The back nine. The back nine of life.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: What is the back nine of life?
[00:12:32] Speaker C: So the back nine of life, that's the age when you hit 50 and then beyond. So you have the front nine, which is zero to 49 and then 50 and beyond. That's the back nine. And a lot of people think of the back nine of life as well. Things are going to start slowing down and declining, but that's only if that's the choice they make, because it doesn't have to be that way. And falls are not a natural part of life. People think, oh yeah, I fell, I'm getting older.
It's not a normal part of aging. So you really need to pay attention to that and make changes so that you don't have that fall because it's life changing.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: You know what's interesting? I keep going back to what Clint Eastwood said, don't let the old man in. Don't let that mindset come into your way of thinking. Do something about it. And I think that I personally are the one that's going to have to do something about working on the gate, the balance and doing the things that you say.
We are listening to our amazing guest, Miss Karen Owok on the real estate and more show. I'm your host, Michael Hatfield. Note that you can discover more information about balance training by going to karen owak.com. That's Karen owok.com.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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[00:15:03] Speaker B: Now, welcome back to our show.
Are there any other key elements that come to mind for an effective balance training? Karen, what comes to mind first? Okay, so you test the person and then you say, this is what we're going to do to apply to help you. And I know how dedicated and passionate you are about what you do.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: Well, in order to have a good outcome, you need to have a really tailored exercise prescription. In order to have a good exercise prescription, you need to have a really thorough functional assessment, because until I assess somebody, do I know what I need to zero in on? So those things are very important. The functional assessment, then the customized exercise prescription, and then the follow up. But consistency is the key when it comes to developing your balance and becoming more functional.
We don't want to just live a long time, right? We want to live a very healthy, functional, independent life. We don't want to end up in a nursing home and being dependent on people to push us around and get us around. We want to do that ourselves, and that is very doable. And if we take control of that and we take steps to intervene, how.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Does an on again, off again Dieter put a person at a higher risk of falling?
[00:16:42] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
And I've worked with a lot of people that are chronic dieters. The losing the weight, gaining it back. Losing, losing, and gaining. So whenever you lose weight, what, 25% of that weight you lose is muscle mass. And when you lose that muscle mass and then you gain the weight back, you're gaining fat back. So your percentage of fat is greater than it was at the beginning, because now you've got less muscle, your same weight again, but now less muscle and more. And you do it again. Every time you go on another diet, then you keep continuing to lose that muscle mass. So that percentage of muscle mass really starts to diminish. One of the questions I often ask is, have you been on any special diets? And usually comes out, yeah, I've been dieting for the last 2030 years, and I gain it back and lose it. And so that's an indicator to me that, yes, this person, if they haven't been training, doing anything to get themselves stronger, then they're at a risk for fall. And usually the assessment will indicate that.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: We talked a little bit earlier about the warning signs that someone is a high fall risk. Can we elaborate on those a little bit? Let's just talk a little bit more about that and then give the folks a little bit of encouragement of how that you can get around that.
[00:18:12] Speaker C: Well, you'll start some trips, people start tripping. And usually what I hear, oh, yeah, I tripped because I always ask my patients every week when I talk to them, like, did you have any falls or near falls? And then it starts kind of well, yeah, I tripped on something that was just. Well, that's very important, too. And that's a warning sign.
Trips, being able and falls, balance training is going to help you from being, falling down on the ground to having a near fall. So being able to recover from a fall. So also the shuffling of the feet, that means that they're not walking very well. And when you shuffle, you catch more friction on the ground, and you're going to fall forward, and that's going to put you at risk. If they are very frail, they're very, not very active. That's definitely a warning sign.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: So you're saying get up and move. Just get up and move and take walks and do what you're supposed to do and look out for those parking blocks, right?
[00:19:21] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh, yes. And one of my friends, I just talked to him last week, and he's very active. Golfer, fly fisherman, travels the world. I never know where in the world he's going to be. And he said he tore his Achilles tendon.
He tripped on one of those parking blocks, and now he's laid up for quite a while because those take a long time to heal. And so that has changed his life completely. He likes to drive his cars, but it was his right foot, so he can't drive either. So he's totally dependent now. And that one fall has changed his life completely.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a lady in our office, a longtime real estate broker, really great agent.
She's very active. I see her on the trail, on the path all the time, doing her walks in the morning with her friends, and she took a trip back east, and next thing we hear is that she fell and broke her hip. And so now she's trying to recover from that. It's just awful.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: 95% of hip fractures are from falls.
They really can change your life. I've seen so many that they don't really recover very well. And typically, if they're not in very good condition when it happens, it's very hard to get recover. So it's much better to do prehab than rehab. So the prehab would be all the interventions and all the training before you have that fall, and you never know when it's going to happen. And these cookie cutter programs, like I said, I'm looking at all these different facets of their physicality that the exercise prescription has to address all those, because you could be very strong, you have good muscle strength, but your flexibility may be poor. So the exercise prescription has to accommodate all those different factions, and you're only as strong as your weakest link. So that's something to remember, too.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Now, you mentioned a little bit earlier, you said these diets on again, off again. You had a term for yoyo diet. Yoyo diet. She says, what can a person do to get that weight off? Because that's definitely a factor of how your balance is going to be. What do you recommend as a good diet for a person to get on? Stay on. That is actually doable.
[00:22:08] Speaker C: No dieting.
That's what I recommend. First, get the diet out of your head. Because when you think of diet, do you think of, it's something you go on and you can't wait to get off and you want an eating plan that's going to start and there's no real end. It's just something you follow for the rest of your life. There's no starting on Monday and quitting by Friday kind of thing. So first, really focus on more plant based foods and the muscles. Like plant based protein, you do need more protein as you get older.
Not overdone, but you need more. So every meal or snack, think about adding some protein. Plant protein is best because that's what the muscles like. When you eat a lot of meat for protein, the muscles become very inflamed. You're in this inflammatory environment, and that's going to cause it's not going to induce muscle growth. So more plant based protein, less processed food. Eat like your grandma's. Ah, a lot of homegrown vegetables or organic vegetables and things that don't come in a box or drive through.
So think about going. Just eating more natural foods, more fiber is always the best thing.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: So if a person comes to you, you'll actually develop a plan of how to improve their balance. Because at the very beginning, you said that balance is a predictor of longevity.
So you develop a plan for people if they come to you and they know, Michael, do this, Michael, do that, and it's all laid out for you. And then you go about that and hopefully the results will be shown.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: And the results are pretty quick. And we all like instant gratification. And that's something. If you're consistent with the training, you'll see results very quickly.
And so that's motivation in itself. You want to stick with it and continue.
Balance is not one of those things. Balance training is not something that you start and just say, okay, I've got it, I'm there, I'm done. It's something that you have to continue because your muscle, like we talked about, the muscles start to continue. To decline and diminish. So you have to keep fighting to stay above that.
The Japanese, this is really interesting because the Japanese did a study and they looked at over 1400 men and women, 67 years old and older. And it was the first study that actually examined single leg balance and overall brain health. And they found that those people that couldn't stand on one leg for at least 20 seconds, they saw more microbleads and small vessel disease in the brain, lower scores on cognitive tests and ischemic strokes. So everything is very connected, your balance with your movement, with the brain, all of it.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Wow. So if you were to leave our audience today with some real conclusive thoughts to think about, what would they be?
[00:25:47] Speaker C: KAREN well, I would say I want everyone to start thinking about balance, about what they're doing to enhance their balance.
And by improving, when you improve your balance and how it's going to change your life, is it going to increase your functionality? Is it going to increase your independence? Is it increase your level of happiness? Because so many people, this is the sad thing. They don't always go out because they're afraid they're going to fall. They kind of stay where they are and they don't want to rock the boat because they're afraid of falling. And that's sad. But not only frail people fall, people that like sports and are challenging themselves with pickleball. I see a lot of accidents with pickleball. My husband came home all skinned up. He had fallen on the pickleball care center.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: There he goes.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: Yeah, balance training is for life. It's for sport. It's for living a long and independent life.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Well, we're sure grateful to have you on the task because I can tell you're very passionate about it. I say stay active and don't let the old man in. A wonderful thing for people in the back nine to know that there's someone that actually is working towards helping people to enjoy the later stages in their life. Karen, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show again.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Karen Owak buy her book athletes with aprons, the Nutrition Playbook 2100. Live longer, live better. Thank you for being on the show. Karen. You've been listening to the real estate and more show interesting people, topics of the day like balance training and longevity. And of course, we talk about real estate. You can listen to archived real estate and more shows at Michael hatfieldhomes.com Slash Radio. The real estate and more show is now podcast on all major podcast directories as well. We'll be right back with our next special guest. Stay tuned.
