It’s been cold this winter and as I was lighting a fire in the fireplace, a thought crossed my mind.
Why is it that only one match seems to start a forest fire, but it takes the whole box to start a campfire?
So, thinking back to my Boy Scout days, I began walking through the process of what it takes to get a good warm fire going. As a Boy Scout while camping in the snow, we used to have contests to see who could, using a single match, start the fastest camp fire. (We would use our most “MacGyver-like” skills). It occurred to me that the same timeless principles that allow one to ignite a fire with a single match are the same principles necessary for “fat burning.”
Maintaining ketosis is much like starting a campfire. There are some basic principles you need to understand. First, too much fuel keeps the fire from starting and too much carbohydrate or too much protein keeps the body from shifting into ketosis. Starting a campfire with a single match requires very fine thin strands of tinder to get started. If the peices are too big, the fire is smothered and cannot get started. It is the same with ketosis. Too much carbohydrate or protein smothers ketosis. You can get a copy of my ketogenic diet through registration on my membership site, by seeing me a patient face to face in the office or through a Tele-Medicine visit.
Second, oxygen is essential. For a fire to start, the flame needs a very small piece of fuel (wood or dryer lint) and large amounts of oxygen to burn. In ketosis, you have to provide the fat. If you’ve removed the carbohydrates and moderated the protein, but not provided enough fat to ignite the ketones, the body thinks it is starving, produces stress and shifts into making it’s own form of glucose for fuel through the process of glyconeogenesis (see my articles on why chicken salad makes you fat, and why your oatmeal is killing your libido).
Third, campfires often don’t have enough heat to get started. You have to get the temperature up before the wood can catch fire. This can be done in the camp fire by making a “cabin” the tinder can sit on and then building the “cabin” around the tinder as the fire builds and the heat increases. The increased heat and oxygen from under the tinder allows the larger pieces of wood to ignite and stay lit. In a ketogenic diet, the use of real food is similar to the cabin. Providing real food sources, instead of processed shakes and bars, allows for all the natural vitamins and minerals to let the ketosis start and ramp the metabolism up. Providing the correct vitamins also allows for the metabolism to have the ability to ramp up ketosis. I designed the KetoEssentials Vitamin specifically for this reason.
So, there you have it, the Paradoxical Effect of Fire and of Fat.
- Don’t use too much fuel: Start with tinder for the fire – Limit the carbohydrates and moderate your protein (see how to balance protein here) to get into ketosis
- Provide for increased oxygen for a fire – Provide adequate fat for ketosis
- Provide a setting where the heat can build for a fire – Provide real food and appropriate vitamin sources for optimized metabolism in a ketogenic lifestyle.
You can see today’s Periscope discussion on this topic below:
as well as the fat that is found in our food is found in the form of triglycerides. Each triglyceride molecule is made of a “glyceride” (glycerol backbone) and three fatty acids (hence the “tri”) that look like tails. Some of the fat in our adipose cells come from the food we eat, but interestingly, the rest comes from carbohydrates
before they can be taken up into the fat cells. The reconstitution of the fatty acids with glycerol is called esterification. Interestingly, the process of lipolysis and esterification is going on continuously, and a ceaseless stream of free fatty acids are flowing in and out of the fat cells. However, the flow of fatty acids in and out of the fat cells depends upon the level of glucose and insulin available. As glucose is burned for fuel (oxidized) in the liver or the fat cell, it produces glycerol phosphate. Glycerol phosphate provides the molecule necessary to bind the glycerol back to the free fatty acids. As carbohydrates are being used as fuel, it stimulates increased triglyceride formation both in the fat cell and in the liver, and the insulin produced by the pancreas stimulates the lipoprotein lipase molecule to increased uptake of the fatty acids into the fat cells (3).
