I wore high heels to work for 2 weeks straight — here's what it did to my body

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The INSIDER Summary:

• I was challenged to wear heels to work for two weeks straight.
• My feet hurt, of course — but the most notorious side effect was that I moved around and exercised a lot less.  
• Podiatrist Dr. Hillary Brenner told INSIDER the healthier way to wear heels. 
• The key word: Moderation

When my editor asked me to wear heels to work for two straight weeks, I was not thrilled. 

It's not that I don't like heels. It's just that I spend a lot of time on my feet. I stand on the crowded subway train during my 45-minute commute to the office (and then again when I go back home). I stand at my desk at work, too — it's done wonders for my stubborn hip pain. My feet already feel a little sore at the end of a workweek wearing sneakers. I worried heels would open up whole new dimensions of pain in my lower extremities.

But on a recent, unseasonably cold Monday, I pulled on a pair of heeled boots, preemptively apologized to all those tiny bones in my toes, and set out for the train station.

Two weeks (and a few cheat days) later, I discovered that temporary foot pain was the least of my worries.

Wearing heels in the long term can come with risks. 

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Even if you've gotten used to walking in them, heels throw off your whole skeleton, according to Dr. Hillary Brenner, DPM, a podiatric surgeon practicing in New York City.

"When you wear heels, that throws off the alignment in your foot, that then goes to your ankles, your knees, your hips, your back — your whole skeletal alignment is off, adding extra stress onto the joints, which in turn can cause arthritis over the years," she told INSIDER. "That's the overall picture."

Brenner said wearing heels can also cause more acute problems, like stress fractures and neuromas. (A neuroma happens when a nerve in the foot gets sandwiched too tightly between bones, growing enlarged and causing pain.) And while heels don't actually cause bunions or hammertoes, they can easily make them worse. 

The shoes seemed to make me more sedentary overall, too.

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The worst part of my heel-wearing experiment wasn't that my feet hurt more than usual. It was that I moved way less than usual.  

I love taking walks at lunchtime or post-dinner to stretch my legs after a day of not moving much. I hate going to the gym, but I do it once or twice a week anyway because there's overwhelming scientific evidence to say that I should. What I mean is that I make an effort to move around a lot.

But wearing heels sapped me of any excess energy that might have been used on a walk or workout. Suddenly I found myself sitting on a stool at my desk, instead of standing like I normally do. I also found myself parked on the couch from the moment I got home to the moment I crawled into bed. By the end of two weeks, I felt stiff. 

Brenner confirmed that this secondary effect of wearing heels is quite real. 

"You become more sedentary because you don't want to have to get up and suffer the pain," she said. "If you're wearing a certain shoe that's not comfortable, you might not want to go that extra mile to get that good walk in. You could be late to work because you can't walk as fast in heels." (Don't laugh — that last part actually happened to me.)

If you still want to wear heels, there's a healthier way to do it. 

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Next time you're at the shoe store, Brenner says you should look for heels no higher than 2.5 inches. Make sure the shoes also have good arch support and wide toe boxes (pointy-toed designs that compress the bones in your feet are not ideal). And when you can, opt for a wedge or platform-style heel, rather than a stiletto.

And even if your current heels don't meet those criteria, you can still wear them in a healthy way. The secret is to prep yourself with some calf stretching (here's a great tutorial) and then wear the shoes in moderation.

"If you want to go crazy and wear your 4-inch stilettos, [use] moderation," Brenner said. "Only wear them for a maximum of three hours." (That's standing time only — you can pause your internal timer when you're in a chair.)

Technically, I didn't complete my challenge. 

I will admit that I caved and wore flat shoes to work one day of each week. Really, that's a testament to heels and their efficiency in inflicting pain. I don't have any foot or joint health issues and I still couldn't wear the shoes for five straight days. 

I will still break out a pair of heels for special occasions. I've always loved test driving three or four extra inches of height for an evening.  Next time I'll just keep an eye on the clock — and relish in the fact that I won't have to put them on again come Monday morning. 

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