Oxygen Archives - DocMuscles

A few years ago, my son and I were scuba diving the “Fish Bowl” just off the coast of the beautiful island of St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. This dive was 60-80 feet below the surface and was some of the most beautiful coral reef and aquatic life I have ever seen. The water was crystal clear with unlimited visibility and there were hundreds of schools of fish in this area.

As we dove into this amazingly beautiful depressed bowl-shaped area of coral that was about the size of a football field, more and more aquatic wildlife came into view.

We saw thousands of fish – the most colorful fish I’ve ever seen, hundreds of different species. We saw sting rays, barracuda, lobster, and some of the most beautiful coral I have ever witnessed. It was exhilarating, breathtaking and peaceful all at the same time.

However, as we swam over and around the ocean floor and through the coral caverns that lined it’s walls, I noticed something very unique. All of these species of aquatic life would swim, then rest. Many of them would rest for a period on the ocean floor or in a cove or cavern of the beautiful walls of coral reef.

Then, every few minutes, I’d catch the view of a group of reef sharks as they swam by. As they swam, they would watch us, and swim over or under our diving group. Yet, the sharks never stopped. They never rested or waited quietly on the ocean floor like the other aquatic predators we saw that day.

Majestic and fearsome creatures with the beautiful waving motion of their tails, sliding smoothly through the saltwater along the edges of the reef. These reef sharks and the other nurse and hammer head sharks we saw never stopped.

I learned a fascinating lesson that day. If a shark stops swimming, it dies.

The ocean may be its home . . .

And, the shark may be one of the most fearsome creatures under the deep blue . . .

But, without forward movement, the shark will drown. Sharks rely upon obligate ram ventilation of water passing through their mouths filtering oxygen as it is rammed against the gills.

If they stop swimming, they stop receiving oxygen. If they stop moving, they die.

It was a powerful life lesson.

You and I are much like the shark, we survive on a diet of protein, fat and movement.

You are a fearsome collection of appetites, powers, and instincts made for constant forward movement.

If you do not grow . . .

If you do not evolve, risk, or expand . . . Slowly but surely, you will die a spiritual or emotional death.

You may wish and pray it were otherwise. You can try to will yourself content with stagnation and starch . . .

You can try to force yourself to be satisfied. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Yet, as you know by now . . . it doesn’t take. It doesn’t work. Your hunger increases, and you start gasping for air.

You are the shark.

To whatever extent you have failed to move forward, that lack of momentum is drowning you in a deep blue sea of “what if’s,” “could have’s,” and “if only’s.”

You and I are not overwhelmed.

You are not suffering from too much. You and I suffer from TOO LITTLE.

Underwhelm frequently masquerades as overwhelm, and it stifles the life-giving apparatus.

You’re not over stretched. You’re not tapped out. You are profoundly under-utilized . . . bored, rotting & stymied.

The narrow walls of your life begin crushing your heart when you’re not moving. You know it’s true.

Even when everything within you wants to retreat . . .

Fin your tail, flair your vents and MOVE FORWARD.

Do not be afraid to play the bigger game, take the wild risk, make the bold move.

I gained four life lessons from this experience. These make more sense when viewed with this perspective:

Happiness is not the absence of problems; it is the ability to deal with them, swim at them head on.
Feeling sad after making a decision doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. You decide and you keep moving.
You’re not stressed out because you are doing too much. You are stressed because you are doing too little of the things that make you feel most alive, the thing that keeps the oxygen moving across your gills.
The lesson you struggle with will repeat itself until you face it and learn from it.

Be the shark you were meant to be, and, at last, watch your life begin.

Adam Nally, DO

@DocMuscles

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.