Wonderful article! It is pretty amazing to see your transformation and to hear about your journey. I really love that you talked about stress as an important factor in overall health and fitness. I think this often gets missed by mainstream fitness advice, but it can be so powerful. Meditating more and pausing throughout the day to show gratitude are currently things I'm trying to work into my daily habits.

I have also researched the whole barefoot vs. shoe topic, but came to a slightly different conclusion. Our ancestors never wore shoes, and their feet were stronger and they were more connected to the earth because of it. Our ancestors never had cement though. In my world, I love to walk barefoot in the dirt, in the woods, or on the sand as much as possible because I feel the energy from the earth and the land feels good against my feet. When walking on cement or other hard, man-made surfaces though, I usually wear pretty supportive footwear. I'm curious, do your feet ever hurt after spending time on cement, or have your feet grown accustomed to it?