Shoe Wear Patterns: What They Mean, Why It Matters, & How To Fix It

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If you look under your shoes, do you notice how the tread is worn more in some places than others? Specific patterns of shoe wear correspond to how our body applies force, weight, and rotational movement. This reveals how we move, and uneven wear can indicate problematic movement dynamics.

The clues in your shoes

Common shoe wear patterns include:

  • Diagonal wear on the outside of the heel: caused by foot angle, leg position, and instability, leading to joint stress.
  • Rotational wear at specific points: due to internal or external rotation, often originating from the hip, pelvis, or torso.
  • Wear above the big toe: caused by excessive toe lifting, often associated with a “lighter” or kicking leg.

Fixing movement issues to prevent wear involves correcting posture, improving balance, and adjusting how the legs land during walking/running.

Key fixes include:

  • Aligning the center of gravity properly to prevent leg overcompensation.
  • Ensuring feet land under the hips and not far in front.
  • Stabilizing the torso to avoid unnecessary rotation.
  • Engaging the glutes effectively to reduce hip flexor dominance and improve leg mechanics.
  • Maintaining even weight distribution on both legs to prevent excessive lifting or twisting.

Posture and walking mechanics are vital to reducing uneven wear, but meaningful, lasting change takes time and focused effort, to build new habits.

For more on all this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation

Take care!

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  • Generation M – by Dr. Jessica Shepherd

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    Menopause is something that very few people are adequately prepared for despite its predictability, and also something that very many people then neglect to take seriously enough.

    Dr. Shepherd encourages a more proactive approach throughout all stages of menopause and beyond; she discusses “the preseason, the main event, and the after-party” (perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause), which is important, because typically people take up an interest in perimenopause, are treating it like a marathon by menopause, and when it comes to postmenopause, it’s easy to think “well, that’s behind me now”, and it’s not, because untreated menopause will continue to have (mostly deleterious) cumulative effects until death.

    As for HRT, there’s a chapter on that of course, going into quite some detail. There is also plenty of attention given to popular concerns such as managing weight changes and libido changes, as well as oft-neglected topics such as brain changes, as well as things considered more cosmetic but that can have a big impact on mental health, such as skin and hair.

    The style throughout is pop-science; friendly without skimping on detail and including plenty of good science.

    Bottom line: if you’d like a fairly comprehensive overview of the changes that occur from perimenopause all the way to menopause and well beyond, then this is a great book for that.

    Click here to check out Generation M, and live well at every stage of life!

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  • Walnut, Apricot, & Sage Nut Roast

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s important to have at least one good nut roast recipe in your repertoire. It’s something that’s very good for making a good dish out of odds and ends that are in your house, and done well, it’s not only filling and nutritious, but a tasty treat too. Done badly, everyone knows the results can be unfortunate… Making this the perfect way to show off your skills!

    You will need

    • 1 cup walnuts
    • ½ cup almonds
    • ¼ cup whole mixed seeds (chia, pumpkin, & poppy are great)
    • ¼ cup ground flax (also called flax meal)
    • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
    • 1 large carrot, grated
    • 4 oz dried apricots, chopped
    • 3 oz mushrooms, chopped
    • 1 oz dried goji berries
    • ½ bulb garlic, crushed
    • 2 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
    • 2 tsp dried rosemary
    • 2 tsp dried thyme
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tsp yeast extract (even if you don’t like it; trust us; it will work) dissolved in ¼ cup hot water
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Preheat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃, and line a 2 lb loaf tin with baking paper.

    2) Heat some oil in a skillet over a moderate heat, and fry the onion for a few minutes until translucent. Add the garlic, carrot, and mushrooms, cooking for another 5 minutes, stirring well. Set aside to cool a little once done.

    3) Process the nuts in a food processor, pulsing until they are well-chopped but not so much that they turn into flour.

    4) Combine the nuts, vegetables, and all the other ingredients in a big bowl, and mix thoroughly. If it doesn’t have enough structural integrity to be thick and sticky and somewhat standing up by itself if you shape it, add more ground flax. If it is too dry, add a little water but be sparing.

    5) Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin, press down well (or else it will break upon removal), cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, and bake for a further 15 minutes, until firm and golden. When done, allow it to rest in the tin for a further 15 minutes, before turning it out.

    6) Serve, as part of a roast dinner (roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy, etc).

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • The Power of Self-Care – by Dr. Sunil Kumar

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, what this book is mostly not about: bubble baths and scented candles. We say “mostly”, because stress management is an important aspect given worthy treatment in this book, but there is more emphasis on evidence-based interventions and thus Dr. Kumar is readier to prescribe nature walks and meditation, than product-based pampering sessions.

    As is made clear in the subtitle “Transforming Heart Health with Lifestyle Medicine”, the focus is on heart health throughout, but as 10almonds readers know, “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain” is a truism that indeed holds true here too.

    Dr. Kumar also gives nutritional tweaks to optimize heart health, and includes a selection of heart-healthy recipes, too. And exercise? Yes, customizable exercise plans, even. And a plan for getting sleep into order if perchance it has got a bit out of hand (most people get less sleep than necessary for maintenance of good health), and he even delves into “social prescribing”, that is to say, making sure that one’s social connectedness does not get neglected—without letting it, conversely, take over too much of one’s life (done badly, social connectedness can be a big source of unmanaged stress).

    Perhaps the most value of this book comes from its 10-week self-care plan (again, with a focus on heart health), basically taking the reader by the hand for long enough that, after those 10 weeks, habits should be quite well-ingrained.

    A strong idea throughout is that the things we take up should be sustainable, because well, a heart is for life, not just for a weekend retreat.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your heart health in a way that feels like self-care rather than an undue amount of work, then this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out The Power Of Self-Care, and transform your heart health with lifestyle medicine!

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    Questions and Answers at 10almonds

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    How to get to sleep at night as fast and as naturally as possible? Thank you!

    We’ll definitely write more on that! You might like these articles we wrote already, meanwhile:

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  • 5 Ways To Beat Cancer (And Other Diseases)

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    A Systematic Approach To Healthy Eating

    Dr. William Li, known for ways to beat cancer and other diseases, in front of a blue background.

    This is Dr. William Li. He’s a physician, cancer researcher, and educator. He also founded the Angiogenesis Foundation back in 1994.

    We recently reviewed one of his books, “Eat To Beat Disease”.

    He has another book that we haven’t reviewed at time of writing, “Eat To Beat Your Diet“, which you might like to check out.

    What does he want us to know?

    He wants us to know how to eat to beat cancer and other diseases, by means of five specific angles:

    Angiogenesis

    This is about replacing blood vessels, which of course happens all the time, but it becomes a problem when it is feeding a cancer in the process.

    Here, based on Dr. Li’s work, is what can be done about it:

    A List of Anti-Angiogenic Foods for a Cancer-Fighting Diet

    Regeneration

    Generally speaking, we want to replace healthy cells early, because if we wait until they get damaged, then that damage will be copied forwards. As well as intermittent fasting, there are other things we can do to promote this—even, Dr. Li’s research shows, for stem cells:

    Doctor’s Tip: Regeneration (stem cells)—one of your body’s five defense systems

    Microbiome health

    Healthy gut, healthy rest of the body. We’ve written about this before:

    Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

    DNA protection

    DNA gets unravelled and damaged with age, the telomere caps get shorter, and mistakes get copied forward. So there more we can protect our DNA, the longer we can live healthily. There are many ways to do this, but Dr. Li was one of the first to bring to light the DNA-protecting benefits of kiwi fruit:

    Kiwi: A Darling for DNA

    Immunity

    Paradoxically, what’s good for your immune system (making it stronger) also helps to protect against autoimmune diseases (for most people, for the most part).

    In short: it’s good to have an immune system that’s powerful not just in its counterattacks, but also in its discerning nature. There are dietary and other lifestyle approaches to both, and they’re mostly the same things:

    Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    and thus see also:

    Keep Inflammation At Bay

    Want to know more?

    You might enjoy his blog or podcast, and here’s his TED talk:

    !

    Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later

    Enjoy!

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  • Reclaiming Body Trust – by Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Authored by a therapist and a dietician, this book draws from both of their extensive professional clinical experiences, to explore how we can (often early in our lives) be led into disordered thinking when it comes to food and our bodies, and how we can “take back that which has been stolen from us”.

    More prosaically: the presented goal here is for us to each figure out where we are with our own body, and how we might build our relationship with same going forwards, in the way that will work the best for us.

    The style is relaxed and conversational, while taking care to cover topics that are often tricky with no less seriousness. Chapter headings such as “Your coping is rooted in wisdom”, “What does grief have to do with it?” and “Allowing for pleasure and satisfaction” give an idea of the flavors at hand here.

    Bottom line: if you think your relationship with food and your body could be better, not only are you probably right, but also, this book can help.

    Click here to check out Reclaiming Body Trust, and regain more than you probably realized you had lost.

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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