Category Archives: Barefoot

Day 37, No More Shoes, Healthier Feet

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I haven’t cried due to foot pain until today. The 4th toe on my right foot is reshaping and it is excruciatingly painful. I don’t recall dealing with this much pain since my shoulder surgery rehab in 2004, when the sadist therapists would manually stretch my arm all the way back over my head after having kept it in a sling for a few weeks, tearing tissues and making space. PTs are like carnies, I’ve decided. They start to get a little twisted hearing people scream all day.

Anyway, I have been applying more ball of the foot pressure when I walk to stimulate more arch development, and my 4th toe is beginning to have to activate. It appears that the 4th toe is like the ring finger: the weakest of the series. It is the most bent/deformed of all my toes, hence its needing the biggest structural change post-shoe.

That toe was the reason I stopped wearing shoes. It cried out to me that it was being squished sideways when I started walking more ball-heavy in my ballerina flats. I knew it needed more room, and I had ignored it for 32 years and let it grow cramped.

This is a really emotional process. I have to suffer the painful reshaping of my bones/joints, but I feel so compassionate in the process. I feel like I am finally caring for my feet, and not taking their work nor pain signals for granted. I feel like I am developing a relationship with my feet. We are getting to know one another and appreciate each other. I feel sorry for them. I tell them I’m sorry when they scream at me while restructuring. I think of all the other toes in the world who are not getting this loving attention and it makes me sad. We’ll get through this together, and in the end we’ll have 10 beautiful, functional toes, and sexy, gracefully curved arches.

Day 36: No more shoes

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I went hiking today with a date up a fairly steep incline. The trail was rocky but had enough mercifully rock-sparse dirt areas to be doable.

The last month has been so incredibly eye-opening, that I have already transitioned my 30-day-no-shoes foot experiment into a lifetime challenge. After just two weeks, I gave away all my shoes. I was that blown away by the results.

I will attempt to capture my myriad observations here now:
-I walk much more slowly now, and I barely land on the heel and use more of the ball of the foot to walk
-Due to walking more slowly/carefully and more on the balls of the feet, my legs spend more time under and behind me than in front of me
-I am developing hamstring strength just by walking differently. I have always had very poor hams vs. Quads strength. This is changing due to not heel-walking anymore.
-My stomach sticks out less and my butt sticks out less.
-My shin/calf muscles have totally changed. I wish I would have anticipated this and taken more before/after pictures. Perhaps I’ll take one soon and find some old full body pics of me to compare for you. My shin muscles are broader now. I used to feel just a single narrow muscle running up the front of the shin, it now feels like a full, thick sheath that could easily pick up all my toes :-)
-The bottom of my calves have filled in. I used to have very high looking calf muscles and little muscle development around the achilles. I have much more muscle lower to the heel now.
-I haven’t rolled an ankle at all since I started this. I must have rolled an ankle about twice a month prior to this experiment. Once, a couple weeks ago, I was walking on a parking lot curb and caught the edge with my foot. Instead of my ankle giving out painfully as it normally would, my entire left side fell toward the pavement as one unit, and I caught myself before falling. My head actually tilted at the same angle as my ankle. This is a really cool injury prevention feature. Nothing was hurt at all.
-The skin on my feet is getting tougher, but not calloused. It is still super-sensitive (a necessary foot function) but slightly more plasticized almost.
-the balls of my feet are still taking way too much pressure as my arches are still not strong enough to support my weight. They have fluid pockets that are manageable, like pre-blisters. I am pushing my arches slowly, but I have to back off a lot because my last two toes will start hurting. The last two toes are my weak link. I can’t put more pressure into the ball of my foot until they can support more weight.
-the skin on my second and third toes is wearing too thin in spots due to compensating for the last 2 deformed toes’ inability to distribute my weight. I sometimes bandage them and sometimes not.
-the skin under my pinky toes is breaking open as the toes become less curled/deformed and start to stretch out again to proper angle and length. New skin is growing in the gaps. The right pinky toe started activating first, about a week into the experiment. It felt like it was breaking, but after intense massage for 30 minutes it turned out all the connective tissue, knuckle joint, and muscles were just really groaning under the pressures of the change. The pain went away after one very intense massage session. I had to do the same with my left pinky toe about two weeks later when it started its untwisting process. About 30 minutes of intensely painful massage and it felt much better.
-My feet get cold quickly but adapt very quickly and do not “feel cold” often. Splashing in rain puddles feels AMAZING. I love rainy days now :-) On very cold mornings the feet will almost become numb and then after about 5-10 minutes they regain all their sensitivity and feel warm again. I am careful about not letting them feel numb.
-My feet are not catching fungus or other infections. In fact, my feet have never felt healthier fungus-wise. I’ve had a lot of issues with this as a life-long athlete, and this is the longest I have gone without worrying about my toes peeling etc. due to shoe issues (it got especially bad with my Vibrams, and no I will not buy socks so that I can wear shoes that make me feel barefoot. I’ve cut out the expensive and frankly ugly middlemen!)
-I’ve gotten about three standard reactions from strangers: (1) dispproving looks (as in: how irresponsible of her to have left her shoes at home/work, not planned well, etc.); (2) friendlier looks, like I’m not above you – I’m not trying to one-up you with my footwear. I become more approachable to a lot of people (3) mostly black people have been extremely vocal about it. Only black bus drivers have expelled me from muni (about 15-20% of the buses I’ve ridden, approximately) or commented about my lack of shoes. No other race has mentioned it outright. I believe this is because blacks are held to higher standards of dress to achieve the same success as whites. They have been oppressed more, and are more sensitive to rules and oppression. Those not in positions of power have either scolded me without listening or curiously questioned me about it and listened to my answer thoughtfully. I could write a book about the different reactions I have gotten and their deeper meanings.

That’s all I have energy for tonight, more to come…

Project Hippie Conversion declared completed

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For some of you, your worst fears are realized: After 6 years living in San Francisco and now the East Bay, your friend/relative Christina is now admitting she is a full-fledged hippie.

Trust me, I’ve been fighting the conversion pretty hard, even throwing off my new hippie belt with big pockets at a party after feeling utterly ridiculous wearing it. But it really was inevitable.

For the past 2.5 years, I’ve been growing out my hair. I love my new longer locks.

I stop to dance in random public places, just because I feel like it.

I stopped wearing metal-based deodorants in favor of salt-based deodorants. I still think I mostly smell ok, hence I do not identify as a “dirty hippie.”

I don’t wear sunscreen, lotions, makeup, shampoo or condition my hair.

I sold all my metal jewelry this week and I gave away all my titanium cookware and bought/swapped for cast iron. I won’t be wearing earrings anymore except the wood variety.

I walk around barefoot. I’ve been barefoot now for 25 days straight and it feels amazing, especially in the rain.

I even hugged a tree this year.

I smile at random strangers, talk to them, get rides from them in their cars to get into the city. I practice yoga every morning at 5:30am.

I buy 90% organic foods and don’t overeat anymore.

And, with the most hesitation, I started growing out all my body hair last week. I have never actually seen my own armpit hair in my whole entire life, nor my leg hairs fully grown out. This was the final and biggest personal change I’ve decided to make. It still disgusts me, but I want to experience that disgust fully and get over it. Sorry guys.

I gave away all my shoes and all my bikini bottoms. I’ll be sporting the 50’s style swimsuits from now on.

And I’ve never been more joyful, peaceful, and content. Life as a hippie is good. :-D

Experiments Galore, bwahaha

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Eye Experiment (20/20 no surgery): after failing to buy contact solution two days in a row now, I will be going another day without any contact lenses or glasses. I kind of like these happy errors, they seem to help my scientific process. My eyes adjusted well to no correction at all today. I actually started having 20/20 flashes again, which was exciting. So from here on out, I will try to do 2 days no correction, 2 days equal -1.25 correction, and 2-4 days no exercises and perhaps full correction (-1.25/-3.00) on one of those days.

A great benefit I’m already getting is more eyebrow lift in my left eye. I am starting to look more symmetrical in a mirror which helps my beauty as well :-D

Foot experiment:
I’m getting more prominent foot arches, now into my fourth week of wearing flat-soled shoes and pushing off the balls of my feet consciously. My left foot especially gets tired quickly but I feel the postural benefits all over. My belly sticks out less. It’s a muscle soreness in the arch near the metatarsals and not an aching pain feeling in the heel like I used to get when i’d walk incorrectly.

More beautiful feet too, yay!!

My life is getting exponentially more awesome. Life is but a dream — a really freakin persistent dream.

Eyes and Feet Experiments

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I have two ongoing body experiments right now that I wanted to journal about, lest I forget my progress.

Feet Re-Sculpturing

I am currently 2.5 weeks into changing the way I walk, so that my “flat feet” develop the proper arch support to carry my big-ass frame.

Things I’m starting to realize: I typically put most of my weight in my heels when I walk, then let the rest of my foot sort of slap down. I figured this out by wearing flat ballerina-type shoes for a few days in a row while doing a ton of walking:  my heels began aching and I began dreading each step.

Then, I remembered my father’s voice from childhood: “Stop stomping around the house.” “Walk more quietly.” We had a trailer house and footsteps in one end of the house could be easily vibrated through to the other end. I had no idea what he meant at the time. I thought it felt weird to step softly or tiptoe around, so I basically ignored his rather good advice.

My feet always felt and looked “flat” growing up. My feet would burn and fatigue quickly during activities where my foot was confined to a straight forward position, like ice skating or roller skating or skiing, or if I had to do basketball shuffle drills for any length of time where you stay on the balls of the feet. But no one understood the issue properly enough to address it with me I suppose.

My feet are large (size 11), so this may account for me getting “lazy” about using them.

A side effect of not properly rolling forward onto the front pads of the feet was that my posture had to adjust accordingly to keep me centered. My butt sticks out farther back, my stomach pushes forward more, and my shoulders are more forward. As a result of my slightly forward shoulder posture, my shoulders became more unstable, likely leading to my shoulder ligament tear my junior year of high school, and subsequent 2 shoulder surgeries. I tried to “fix” my posture in college by sitting up straighter, which just ended up in me looking awkward to people, like I was trying too hard to sit up straight. I needed to sit up straight from the ground-up.

Also, I sustained many injuries to my ankles, especially in basketball games. This can be explained by the fact that my feet would flop down, and they lost their innate ability to “paw” the ground front/back and side-to-side. As a result, if I caught an edge of anything, my atrophied feet muscles were of no help, so the next joint up got the brunt of the force: the ankles.

My experiment, which basically involves:

  • Wearing flat-soled shoes
  • Walking “softly”, rolling completely onto the balls of the feet
  • Keeping the toes and heels pointing forward, preventing foot eversion in my case
  • Keeping the feet hips-width apart (two fists’ width) rather than my tendency to walk like a supermodel, one foot in front of the other, as I was taught to by television at a young age

…is teaching me that I haven’t been using my lower calf muscles at all to walk. My lower calves BURNED for about the first 2 weeks of my experiment. Granted, I spent the first 2 days walking entirely on my balls of the feet and barely touching the heels at all, to see if that was better. I decided that, no, the heels need to land very softly.

What I notice when I walk more correctly, is that I feel taller, lighter, and like more work is being done by my feet and calves to walk. Much more energy out of the lower legs. Finally TODAY, the lower legs have adapted to the work and do not feel as sore anymore. And my belly comes in slightly.

AND…I am developing a little arch in my feet already! I took a picture tonight. I will have to find some old pictures of my bare feet from childhood, if possible, for comparison, then I will post them. I know I have pictures of my flat footed footprints after walking at the beach and it looks like bigfoot has stomped through there, rather than that cute little arched footprint most people should have.

So far, so successful.

Eye Experiments

Today I decided to utilize the -1.25 contact lenses I have for my left eye, for my right eye only (currently -3.00). If I don’t wear a left contact lens, then both of my eyes are roughly at the same -1.25 level of blurriness. This feels much better to me than wearing the -1.25 correction in both eyes. I feel like my “good” eye was just taking over for the weaker eye when it was adjusted to 20/20, so with them both at the same level of sight, I expect I can progress faster with my focus and relaxation exercises, which I started doing on the MUNI. It’s only Day 1, so more progress to come, I hope. My left eyelid is slightly lazier, I suspect because it has had to compensate more in its life. I’m hoping that by “fixing” my vision, that I will also improve my appearance by both eyelids and eyebrows raising similarly.