Eat Move Think

Professional explorer Ray Zahab has crossed some of the most unforgiving environments on Earth. He ran across the Sahara in 111 days and traversed Baffin Island nine times, most of them at the height of winter. In conversation with Medcan CEO Shaun Francis, Zahab argues for the age-defying and stress-busting benefits of adventure travel. Like Shaun, Zahab is an advocate for the Japanese practice of “forest bathing” and argues that we can access similar perks by just getting outside and exploring nature. It’s an inspiring conversation with a 52-year-old explorer who is not letting the pandemic keep him down. In fact, he’s vowed to exit lockdown restrictions in the best shape of his life.  INSIGHTS It is one of Zahab’s most foundational beliefs that people underrate themselves. He argues that most anyone has the capacity to accomplish so-called impossible tasks. Zahab’s experience conforms to that edict. After all, he won the first ultramarathon he ever entered. “Many of us underestimate ourselves physically, mentally [and] emotionally at some point in our lives. And we're capable of so much more,” he says. (12:34 - 12:48)  Someone recently messaged Zahab asking how to start running: “I’m not a runner, but I would really love to do a run someday. I don't even own running shoes. What do I do?” Zahab said, “you get off the couch on day one, and you walk to your front door, and you put on whatever shoes you have any kind of shoe, you lace them up, then you take them off and you walk back to the couch. That's the end of day one. Day two, you put the shoes on, you walk down to the end of your laneway or the end of your block, turn around, you walk home. Day three, you walk to the running shoe store — you get what I'm saying? A marathon starts with the first step.”  (14:05) Running gets a bad rap. Everything’s all about how to avoid getting injured while running. But if you follow a proper mobility and running program — running is exceptionally good for you. “It’s a hell of a lot better for you than not doing it,” Zahab says. (18:08) Doubt has afflicted Zahab, same as anyone. At the start of his Sahara expedition, Zahab left the west coast of Senegal and passed the first days of the 100-day-plus journey mired in low self-confidence. “I thought, all right, there's no way I'm making that,” Zahab recalls. “There's just no way. These guys will make it and I will not. But I'll go as far as I can. And that's all I can do.” But somehow, he did it. (23:03 - 23:35) On ultramarathons, desert crossings or Arctic expeditions, Zahab does what the Fleetwood Mac song says: “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” In other words, take it one day at a time. “You get on day 60 [and you’ve] got 50 more days to go. 50. Like, forget it. The mind doesn't go there,” he says. “It's like, ‘okay, I'm going to get through tomorrow. And then tomorrow when we get in, we're gonna have something to eat.’ That's all I'm thinking about.” (27:03 - 27:36) Zahab believes in the Japanese concept of forest bathing – surrounding yourself with trees to reap the wellness benefits. “I've always felt [a close connection to nature when I’m running], to everything that's around me — that we are one connection,” he says. “We're one piece … and when I'm running, that is like a meditation for me.” (27:50 - 29:12, 29:34 - 30:44) Humans are capable of much more than they think they can achieve. Need proof? Think the COVID-19 vaccine. A shot that should have taken scientists 10 years to develop ended up getting into human arms in less than one. Ray believes in the human capacity for achievement. “I'm a big believer that you define what your goal is and work backward from there. There's always a plan. There's always a way.” Amen. (32:34 - 32:33) LINKS In the 2014 documentary film Running the Sahara, Zahab and two fellow ultramarathoners traversed Africa’s Sahara Desert on foot in 111 days.  Known as one of the “Goose People”, Zahab is a frequent product tester and representative for Canada Goose.  Testing endurance and will, the Marathon Des Sables is just one of the footraces Zahab has completed. Twice. Learn more about Zahab's adventures around the world by visiting his website.  Zahab is the founder of the non-profit organization Impossible2Possible that aims to push people to surpass their limits, and encourage youth to use adventurous experiences as a learning tool. He also creates once-in-a-lifetime expeditions and adventures through his company Kapik 1. Zahab recommends the book The Hidden Life of Trees, in which author Peter Wohlleben argues that the forest is a social network. It is available on Indigo and Amazon. Another one of Zahab's favourite reads is Chi Running: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, available on Amazon and Indigo.   Zahab documents his journey on the Trans Namibia Expedition in a compelling video. There, he and his team ran 60 kilometres a day in extreme heat.   To learn about the Japanese practice of forest bathing, go here.  Connect with Zahab on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @rayzahab.

The pandemic has affected mental wellness for everyone — and teenagers are having a particularly difficult time. Youth unemployment is up. Competitive sports are on hiatus. Adolescents are stuck in a cycle of solitude, screen time, social media and boredom — creating all sorts of mental health problems. Here, Dr. Jack Muskat, Medcan’s psychology team lead, talks with parenting expert and Toronto entrepreneur Erica Ehm about the problems facing teens — and how to help. Links   Ehm is the founder of YMC.ca, a website dedicated to sharing the perspectives of Canadian women with kids. She also founded Ehm & Co, an award-winning digital agency with expertise in the Canadian mom social space. To learn more about Erica Ehm, visit her personal website. Connect with Erica on Twitter and LinkedIn, and on the YMC.ca Facebook group. In a blog post on YMC.ca, Erica discusses the profound shift in women’s roles brought on by the pandemic. She delves into how mothers have had to carry a heavy weight and take on multiple roles since the lockdown.  A story that illustrates how difficult the pandemic has been on teens: Number of youth in hospital after suicide attempt tripled over 4-month period under COVID-19 Signs your child may need more support after the pandemic, from the American Academy of Pediatrics Medcan’s Child & Youth Assessment is designed to provide you and your family with tailored strategies to help your child reach their potential. You and your child will spend valuable time with a child psychologist, physician, exercise physiologist and dietitian to help you understand your child better. This assessment is also appropriate as a first step to explore specific health and wellness concerns. Learn more about Child & Youth Assessments at Medcan.  To book a therapy session with Dr. Jack Muskat or one of the psychologists on his team, go here.   Insights The pandemic has been tough for teens, as well as the parents of teens. Many moms and dads feel that their children have become uncommunicative, and hard to reach. Ehm agrees and provides some tips for what works for her. “One of the best pieces of advice I learned is to talk less, and listen,” Ehm says. Let’s say the parent asks the child, how are you feeling? Often, the child may not answer. But every once in a while, this geyser explodes. Once the child starts talking, validate their feelings, don’t try to solve their problems. “That must be so hard,” is a good response. “Wow, that must be so hard to deal with.” (6:00) Many kids have responded to boredom by spending more time on social media, observes Dr. Muskat. He wonders how a social media expert like Ehm sets boundaries for her kids on apps like Instagram or Snapchat. “How do we figure out what the right rules are?” Ehm’s first advice is, don’t boss them around — because as soon as you say “get off”, they want to get on more. Number two, she says, keep in mind that we're in a pandemic. Pre-COVID, social life meant school encounters, park hangs, sports teams and parties. With much of that gone now, Ehm says, social media represents an important connection to peers. “So my concern about social media is a little lower these days.” Finally, Ehm encourages conversations with your children about what’s happening on social media. “Can you believe that so and so did this?” The idea is to maintain open channels of communication, to grow their critical thinking skills, and to encourage them to realize the power that social media has over them. (10:30) Excellent spin on the parents’ job: “The number one job for parents,” Ehm says, “is to teach your kids to make the right choices when you're not around.” (13:35) Dr. Muskat asks, any advice for parents whose children went into the pandemic immersed in a competitive sport, who now want to give it up? “They’re in a bit of a funk, sitting at home, and now the world is going to open up again but they’ve lost this interest in their sport.” “The pandemic has changed a lot of people,” Ehm says. It’s natural for a kid’s interest to change. So don’t force your kid to do a particular activity. Listen to them. Let them take the lead. A parent cannot force a child into any activity and expect it to be productive. (17:15) The pandemic has not been all bad for the relationships between parents and children. Ehm and her team surveyed 700 moms across Canada about how things have gone in the pandemic. The survey turned up some silver linings. Almost 50% of moms said that they have better relationships with their teens, likely because their teens are not distracted by the lure of their friends. That said, the survey also turned up some troubling elements. Of the women who responded, only 7% describe their COVID state of mind as “doing well,” and 78% say their biggest struggle is worrying about their families’ mental and physical health. (22:40, 24:35)

The coronavirus has mutated into numerous different substrains, including the three so-called “variants of concern”: B.1.1.7 from the U.K, B.1.351 first identified in South Africa and P.1, first found in Brazil. In this episode, Medcan’s chief medical officer, Dr. Peter Nord interviews Dr. Aisha Khatib, the clinical director of travel medicine, about how the VoCs are different from the original coronavirus. Are they more or less deadly? Do the variants make a third wave inevitable? How do the vaccines protect against the variants? Our experts translate all of it for general listeners in easy-to-understand terms.

Most of the conventional wisdom about late-onset Alzheimer’s disease is wrong, according to Prof. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima of the University of Texas at Austin. In this conversation with Medcan Chief Medical Officer Dr. Peter Nord, Gonzalez-Lima argues against the old hypothesis that amyloid plaques and tau tangles cause dementia in the aged. Instead, he says neurological problems arise due to the inhibition of an enzyme called cytochrome oxidase—which can be treated with infrared lasers and a substance called methylene blue.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat, Hooked) and Globe and Mail nutrition columnist Leslie Beck discuss snacking, processed food and addiction. What makes Oreos more habit-forming than nicotine? What prevented one well-meaning food company from limiting the amount of sugar in its products? Beck also explores Moss’s tips for how to control your snacking, and how the pandemic has affected the way we’re eating. (The second part of a two-part episode. Find the first part here.)   Insights Competition among the processed food companies can be a powerful disincentive for change. “Behind the scenes, this is an incredibly fierce industry,” Moss says. When Kraft attempted to reduce the amount of sugar in its products, competitors swooped in and filled the gap in the market, affecting Kraft’s bottom line. Even when companies try to do the right thing, Moss says, they’re nudged by other companies that have a hold on grocery stores and the agricultural system. (7:15)  Foods can be so addictive that even the General Counsel at Philip Morris, a company that used to make cigarettes and Oreos, had more control over his cigarette smoking than his Oreo consumption. “He could smoke a cigarette during a business meeting and then put his pack of cigarettes away, not touch it until the next business meeting the next day,” says Moss. “But he told me that he couldn't open a bag of Oreos for fear that he would go down half the bag.” (12:00) Michael Moss’s tips for fighting snacking cravings. “One of the lessons from cigarette, alcohol, drug experts, is that the cravings that hit us from those addictive substances come on so fast that you have to plan ahead,” he says. “And your approach to dealing with food can be your own approach. Nothing works for everybody. And so just to kind of give you an example, if you're somebody who gets a craving for cookies at 3:00 p.m., you probably need to be thinking about doing something else at 2:55 in order to prepare for and brace yourself and/or prevent that craving.” As for what that “something else” is, Moss suggests picking up the phone and calling a friend, while we suggest going for a walk around the block. (14:20) Links  For the Daily Beast, Moss picks five other food-related books he finds fascinating. Trust the New York Post to be blunt with their headline: “Why Sugar, Cheese and Fast Food Are More Addictive Than Heroin.” The NPR review of Moss’s book, Hooked, calls the book “smoothly written.” “I won’t be buying potato chips anytime soon,” says the reviewer. Here’s the link. Interview with Michael Moss, plus video, on Food Tank. For further links, including Michael Moss’s website and Twitter feed, check out the show notes for Episode 55 featuring part one of the Michael Moss / Leslie Beck conversation.

Snacking more during the pandemic? Ever wondered whether you’re addicted to food? The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Michael Moss, author of the new book, Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions as well as 2014’s Salt Sugar Fat, argues that the processed-food industry has  engineered their products to compel us to eat them—causing all sorts of health problems at the population level. Here, Moss is in conversation with guest host Leslie Beck, the Globe and Mail columnist and Medcan director of food and nutrition.

Nabeela Ixtabalan is Walmart Canada’s new executive vice president of people and corporate affairs—and when she introduced herself to the company’s 90,000 associates she identified as a “recovering workaholic.” That’s an apt label for someone who was running a multi-million dollar business in her 20s (then as an executive at Starbucks) while at the same time parenting her first child and putting herself through grad school. But the pressure she put on herself provoked debilitating panic attacks. In this episode, she speaks with host Shaun Francis, CEO of Medcan, about her “baseline”—the set of self-care strategies she now uses to maintain her own mental wellness. She also talks about the way Walmart Canada is leading a national movement to more thoughtfully manage employee wellness. It’s a fascinating episode sure to appeal to anyone seeking pointers on how to manage the demands of work, home and self-care. For Nabeela Ixtabalan’s “baseline” and more check out www.eatmovethinkpodcast.com.   Links: Some recent blog posts by Ixtabalan “Know Your Baseline” — a more fulsome description of her baseline and the concept in practice. Confessions of a Recovering Workaholic  How Nabeela Ixtabalan Focuses on Well-Being with Her Team   Guest Bio   Nabeela Ixtabalan is EVP, Chief People and Corporate Affairs Officer of Walmart Canada. She leads human resources and corporate affairs for 90,000 associates and over 400 stores across the country. She holds almost 20 years of leadership and business development experience with top recognized brands including Walmart, IKEA, and Starbucks Coffee in the US, Canada and Europe. Nabeela previously held the position as Head of Digital Transformation for Ingka, leading IKEA’s digital and retail transformation globally. She is Board Director of the Future Skills Centre and Miracle Foundation.    Nabeela Ixtabalan grew up in Houston Texas, as a first generation American to immigrant parents from Lebanon. In high school she began working as a barista at Starbucks and was promoted there from store manager to district manager to talent acquisition manager—while at the same time earning her bachelor of science degree in supply chain management and marketing from Indiana University. She also has a Master’s of Science in organizational behaviour, design and management from the University of Texas at Dallas. She is a certified life coach and six-sigma green belt.

Rapid antigen tests are cheap, easy and deliver results in just minutes. And their mass distribution is being touted by experts as something that will be crucial to helping society return to normalcy. In this episode we interview two of their pioneers. With her pilot program in Halifax bars and restaurants, infectious disease specialist Dr. Lisa Barrett was among the first in Canada to deploy pop-up testing on a mass scale. And author Joshua Gans spearheaded the thinking behind Canada’s largest rapid testing pilot, led by the Creative Destruction Lab, where Joshua is the chief economist. By exploring the perspectives of these pioneers, guest host Dr. Peter Nord investigates an important new COVID-19 containment tool. Links, references and highlights: A Globe and Mail story on Dr. Lisa Barrett’s rapid testing trial in Halifax bars and restaurants The Creative Destruction Lab’s Rapid Screening Consortium One of the most popular rapid antigen tests is the Abbott Panbio. Learn more about it. A New York Times story on Canadian rapid-testing efforts is here. Plugging the Gap is Joshua Gans’ newsletter covers the pandemic as an information problem that needs information solutions. Joshua Gans’ just-released book is The Pandemic Information Solution: Overcoming the Brutal Economics of Covid-19. Follow @joshgans on Twitter. Follow Dr. Lisa Barrett on Twitter @LisaBarrettID

Behavioural scientist turned dating coach Logan Ury knows how to sustain lasting and happy relationships. And now she’s written a book with her findings: How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love. In this interview with Medcan psychology team lead Dr. Jack Muskat, Ury helps listeners understand their romantic tendencies. She also provides research-based tips on how we all can find and nurture connections with loved ones.

Soon, all adults will have the opportunity to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Medical Advisory Services Team at Medcan compiled the top questions they’ve been hearing from corporations and clients. Here, host and CEO Shaun Francis takes them up with chief medical officer Dr. Peter Nord. The result is a timely and informative episode featuring easy-to-understand answers to your most pressing vaccine-related questions. For complete show notes and a full episode transcript go to www.eatmovethinkpodcast.com. Link: https://www.eatmovethinkpodcast.com/podcast/ep51-vaccine-update