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Tag: Weight Loss
How Do You Find All the Hidden Easter Eggs?
Better Abs . . . Better Golf Swing
Your golf swing improves when you have a stronger core. Let us help you out. Bacon and eggs for breakfast and EMSculpt Neo for 20-30 minutes at lunch. . .
Call us for your appointment today! EMSculpt Neo
(623) 584-7805
Dr. Nally’s Keto/Carnivore LiveStream Video Topics
I will be starting a twice weekly exclusive live-stream here for my amazing online followers and patient who are participating in the KetoClan Group on the following sixteen topics next week. Will be sharing the basics and my 22 years of clinical experience with each of these topics as it relates to health and weight management. These topics will take 10-30 minutes, then giving the remainder of the hour to you to ask questions.
The topics we will cover over the next 8 weeks are listed below:
1. Insulin
2. Monitoring Glucose – CGMs
3. Fat Adaptation
4. Things that make insulin go “bump in the night (or the day)” – (sweeteners, creamers, teas, Resveratrol, nuts, etc)
5. Protein
6. Basic Thyroid Function
7. Female Hormones
8. Male Hormones
9. Testing Ketones in Urine, Breath, Blood
10. Ketoacidosis
11. Medications and ketogenic diets (Metformin, DPP4s, GLP-1, SLT-2s, sulfonoureas, Berberine)
12. Stress – Cortisol & DHEA
13. Exercise – Cardiovascular and Resistance Exercise
14. Sleep
15. Food Cravings and the Subconscious Mind
16. Keto, Carnivore or Fasting – What should I be doing?
Not a member yet? Sign up here.
2022 Keto Awards
I’ve been told that many of you have nominated me. Thank you!!!
Every year Ketogenic.com hosts the Keto Awards with Metabolic Health Summit to highlight some of the best and brightest in our community.
There are five unique categories in which you can nominate and it would be an honor to me for you to add your vote:
Top Keto Educator
Top Keto Book
Top Keto Podcast
Top Keto Researcher
Making Positivity Louder
I’ll be sure to let you know who is selected.
Please take a minute to cast your vote for me.
Vote Here:
Why Am I Bloating On A Ketogenic Diet?
What is the cause of abdominal bloating when following a ketogenic or low-carbohydrate diet?
How Do You Use Exogenous Ketones (BHB)?
BHB stands for beta-hydroxybutyrate. This is one of three naturally occurring ketones formed in the body when metabolizing fat.
I’ve been asked what they are and how to use them quite a few times in the last week, so I thought I’d answer it here. . .
BHB can be used for a number of things:
1) to push you into a ketogenic state for 1-6 hours – I use them to jumpstart keto in people just starting a ketogenic diet (however, if BHB is being used while cheating on carbs at the same time, they often halt weight loss and in some cases can allow for weight gain).
2) I use it as a pre-workout drink for increased energy and stronger muscle contraction (I use them prior to sword fighting and it allows me more energy and endurance.)
3) For appetite suppression when the “munchies” try to kick in due to stress or anxiety.
4) To help enhance cognition in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
5) To improve mental clarity and focus in those with ADD/ADHD.
6) I also use them as a meal replacement while traveling.
7) I use them to help people who are morbidly obese experience a ketogenic state when they have never restricted carbohydrates before.
8) And, to prevent seizures when scuba diving with re-breather type equipment (bubble-less SCUBA).
You can find my exogenous ketones (BHB) at http://www.ketoliving.com
Obesity, Anxiety and The Divided Mind
In past posts, we’ve discussed how to effectively and efficiently lose weight and open the gates of the fat cells. We’ve talked about the keys to the back doors of the fat cells that must be opened to create effective lipolysis (releasing of fat from the fat cells) and weight reduction.
I want to focus, today, on another key found in the brain. The brain neuropeptides play a huge role in metabolic balance of the body and have direct relationships to anxiety, stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the last few years, research into the hormones of the brain (neuropeptides) and body demonstrates that the “autonomic nervous system” plays a very significant roll in losing weight.
The autonomic nervous system is the part of the nervous system responsible for “fight or flight responses.” If a bear rises up in front of you while you are strolling in the woods, and begins to chase you, the autonomic nervous system kicks in to speed up the heart rate, shunt blood to the muscles and turn down the processing of food in the gut while you run from or fight the bear. This autonomic nervous system is also the system that links emotions (like happiness, sadness, stress, anger, depression) between the conscious and subconscious mind and creates the attachments of these emotions to specific memories.
The Divided Mind and Disease
A disconnect or poor communication between our conscious mind and subconscious mind wreaks havoc in the balance between memory, emotion, cognitive function, endocrine glands and immune system. One example of this is the onset of panic attacks for no reason. Another example is chronic fatigue and many symptoms found in autoimmune diseases. This same autonomic nervous system, when malfunctioning, plays a significant roll in our ability to lose weight. The subconscious mind triggers the autonomic nervous system without the conscious mind’s involvement.
Thanks to the work of John E Sarno, MD, and Candace B. Pert, PhD, the link between our subconscious mind and the autonomic nervous system is much more clear. This opens the door to our understanding how the subconscious mind can have a profound effect on obesity.
This field of research requires one to understand a concept about the psyche initially outlined by Dr. Sigmund Freud and his colleague Dr. Josef Breuer (the Father of Psychoanalysis) in the 1880’s. Misconceptions regarding the basic drives of the human psyche aside, they identified through their clinical evaluations that the human psyche is made up of three parts, the subconscious (the id), conscious (the ego), and the super-conscious (the superego). They identified an essential concept that the subconscious is a more primitive and childish component of the mind functioning much more instinctually, and that the ego and super-ego house the intelligent, ethical, and moral consciousness. They also identified that a split or division can arise between these two partitions causing physiological conflict to arise (i.e. – onset of a panic attack for no reason).
It is important to understand, as Freud pointed out, that you cannot divide the mind into neat compartments suggested by these three divisions. The mind acts as a single unit. However, understanding the “id” and it’s instinctual functions being tied to the autonomic nervous system is central to understanding how subconscious can derail weight loss.
Freud and Breuer identified in their Studies on Hysteria that a simple subconscious idea or instinct could be strong enough to exert powerful physical responses without sufficient intensity to become conscious thought recognized by the individual. This means that a physiologic motor response in the body could be stimulated without being conscious of the reason for the stimulus. They, along with Jean-Martin Caharcot, Alfred Alder, Franz Alexander and Allan Walters, witnessed this multiple times clinically. They came to the conclusions that pain and other nervous functions could originate and could actually be created by the mind.
The Mind has the Power to Create Disease
Dr. Pert’s research over the last 40 years has been able to clearly identify a communication system between the brain, the endocrine system and the immune system. Dr. Pert’s research identified that memory and/or subconscious idea is directly tied to emotion through the brain hormones called neuropeptides that, when triggered, reproduce stored memory, emotion physical autonomic responses (like changes in heart rate, dry mouth, dilation or constriction of the pupils, sweating of the palms or trunk, chest pressure, etc) and even auto-immunity.
Memory, Emotion & Storage Controlled by Neuropeptides
Neuropeptides also participate in memory sorting, storage and recall . In his recent book, Beyond Order, the clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Jordon Peterson explains that the miracle of memory is not that we remember, the miracle of memory is that we forget and that we only remember what is necessary. The miracle of memory is that we only remember those things that are important and teach us meaning. Because we can forget, we don’t drag the horrible details of the past along with us. Our memories allow us to get free of the past. All you need is three sleepless nights in which you cannot dispense with the past and you would understand that life would be a literal hell if we cannot dispense with the day, the memory and the emotions of each day. We must renew ourselves in this cyclical unconsciousness we call sleep and resetting of the memory. It is during this time that memory, emotion and neurohormones are tied together.
Our memories are tied to emotions through neurochemical synapses created in the brain by the neuropeptides. Forgetting and remembering are very complex and sophisticated cognitive processes. Our subconscious reduces the memory, emotion and experience to it’s significance. The significance is then recorded as memory with it’s associated emotion, then our brain lets go of the details.
If you think about it, we boil our lives down to the “jest” of the story and then we remember only the significance of that story with attached emotion. This process saves us from being crushed by days, years and decades of the gory details of day to day experience.
Anxiety Provoking Memories are Experiences that Still Need Unpacking
If memories from 18 months or older are still bothering you, if they produce negative emotions, that is a sign that that memory has not been correctly or completely unpacked by the complex processes of the brain. It is essential that the brain unpack wisdom from the past that learning can occur and it can be applied to the future. This process occurs so that you don’t do the same stupid thing over and over again. Or, it is there so that you can repeat things that worked well. That is the purpose of memory. Not recollection, our memory is the extraction of wisdom for the lesson of life from vast experience.
If you have a memory that is still hurting you, making you anxious, causing, fear, guilt or shame, you have not undertaken the complex process of analyzing that memory, pulling out from it the moral, and dispensing with the details. This is why writing down these specific memories is so very important.
You must write the bad memory out. You must write out all of the details you remember and the emotions of that experience. It allows the mind to do the complex processing of identifying wisdom and social moral barriers of uncertainty, anxiety, threat, fear and panic that are bothering you. This is what therapy does when talking about and discussing the past.
If journaling and writing out the memory is not effective in resolving the anxiety or if you are unable to identify the memory causing the anxiety, you may want to consider hypnotherapy and directed meditation. This has been very effective with many of my patients having anxiety relating to childhood experiences improperly tied to strong emotions.
W. Dennis Parker does a wonderful job in his book, Spiritual Mind Management, elucidating how our subconscious mind inappropriately ties emotion to simple experiences and memory, and how these can cause anxiety. For those with resistant anxiety to journaling and therapy, hypnotherapy has been very effective.
Other Hormones associated with Anxiety and Obesity
Over the last two decades, I’ve found that two other hormones play a huge role in handling stress, anxiety, brain repair and play a very large role in sleep. Both of these hormones are derived directly from cholesterol. Low fat, vegan and vegetarian diets lead to low cholesterol availability and I commonly see low levels of the following hormones in both men and women.
The first of these is Pregnenolone. Pregnenolone is the precursor sex hormone derived from cholesterol in the blood stream. When serum pregnenolone level is lower than 50 mg/dL anxiety, insomnia, hair loss, poor recovery from exercise and difficulty with concentration become chronic. The cognitive cloudiness that occurs with low pregnenolone levels make the unpacking of traumatic experiences and the sorting of wisdom from day to day experience difficult due to poor sleep. I have been amazed that just the simple supplementation of pregnenolone nightly reverses anxiety, improves sleep, stops chronic migraine headaches, increases cognition and frequently allows people to “feel normal again.”
The second hormone is Progesterone. Interestingly progesterone is derived directly from pregnenolone. If large amounts of mental or physical stress are occurring, pregnenolone is used to make DHEA, Cortisol and Cortisone. Little is left to make progesterone which is necessary for further hair growth, sleep, focus, memory, the healing effects from stress and trauma in the brain. Progesterone often acts like a “brain steroid” healing both brain and spinal cord from stress and trauma.
Any evaluation for anxiety, insomnia, PTSD or stress must include screening both of these hormones, because without them, I’ve seen patients suffer for years with failure of the standard approaches.
One other molecule that has hormonal activities in the arena of anxiety and weight loss is that of methylated folic acid. Folic acid is converted into L-Methyl Folate within every cell of the body. This is accomplished by and enzyme called methytetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). About 60-65% of the patients I see in my office with insulin resistance, impaired fasting glucose or diabetes have a deficiency in one or both of the MTHFR genes leading to poor conversion of folic acid to the methylated form. This is detrimental as methylated folic acid is essential in using Vitamin B12 within every cell of the body.
Lack of effective MTHFR enzymes leads to neuropathy, anxiety, depression, obesity and in severe cases elevated homocysteine levels and schizophrenias. You can learn more about that by reading my blog article on Folic Acid here and a youtube video on it here.
The Search for Individual Meaning is The Deepest of Human Instincts
The human psyche is stabilized by the search for and the experience of individual meaning within life. The subconscious instinct for understanding our individual meaning is the deepest thing about us as humans. It is innate and is part of our survival instinct. What if the instinct understanding or experiencing meaning meaning goes wrong? Pathologizing or lying about that individual meaning causes one to become “lost.” Understanding that the instinct for meaning can be distorted or lied about is the most frightening thing upon this planet. If you pathologize that individual meaning with deceit, you will be in the hands of things you do not want to contemplate. If you have no theory of good and evil, if you’ve never been exposed to malevolence and someone malevolent touches you, you’re done for.
Being true to one’s self or truthful with your understanding of individual meaning helps to properly orient a person in the world, and find middle ground between complete chaos on one side of life and rigid totalitarianism on the other. Finding and living in that middle ground requires one to rely upon individual instincts founded in truth. If you want to live in harmony with yourself and your instincts, and live in a middle ground between a life of chaos and one of totalitarianism, don’t feed yourself or surround yourself with indigestible lies, half-truths and deceit. You certainly shouldn’t try to warp the world around you by intentionally sharing deceitful meaning.
Anxiety Arises from Naivete
The sheltered soul or naive person is raised with the mindset that “all people are innately good.” The thought or concept that people are “fundamentally good” is a complete misconception. Being “good” is very difficult. It is by no means the default position of the natural man and the subconscious mind. Entropy, catastrophe, tragedy, malevolence and death is the default position of human nature and the subconscious mind. Good struggles up against this continually.
The people who are most prone to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are usually naïve people who have been sheltered from malevolence – sheltered from those who are truly spiteful, hostile, vicious, malicious, malignant, vindictive, pernicious, vengeful, hateful, rancorous, and evil-minded. This is a well known clinical fact and can be found throughout the psychology literature. There is nothing about this fact that is questionable. The naïve world view is that you believe the world is fundamentally good – you believe that good behavior is rewarded with good in return – and you don’t really believe that there is any such thing as evil, and you encounter someone who is malevolent (and often you encounter this in yourself). That sheltering is general throughout our society. Death no longer occurs at home, it usually occurs in a hospital. People live in cities and are rarely exposed to the death of animals and the cycle of life seen 100 years ago in farm and ranch life.
Often in those with PTSD, people who have been sheltered from these things, do something, or are required to do something, so morally reprehensible that it damages them psycho-physiologically. Until their psychological framework of good and evil changes, it is very difficult to recover. These people have no framework in which to conceptualize violent death, evil or the reprehensible act. They are unable to balance the conscious and subconscious memories and emotions attached to reprehensible emotional guilt, and it destroys them. This is very common among soldiers. It’s not always what they saw, it’s what they did or what they were a part of.
Telling and teaching people that humans are innately good (which has been part of our school system teaching for decades) and that evil doesn’t really exist makes them ripe picking for the malevolent and there is nothing about that which is positive. It leaves tremendous anxiety and psycho-physiological scars in the wake. This sheltered outlook is cowardice masquerading as virtue. We see it more and more in our society.
This is why a teenage boy or girl in a traditional Christian or Jewish school is wiser and happier than the 50 year old professor of philosophy in a secular college. The person who innately understand that good and evil exist within the world have a much easier time coping with and handling stress and trauma that will cross all of our paths.
What does anxiety, chronic stress and PTSD have to do with obesity and weight gain?
Signals in our environment from very stressful life experiences on a daily basis, chronic underlying stress, chronic anxiety, radiation exposure, infectious organisms (such as bacteria and viruses), xenobiotic chemicals, allergens, intestinal bacterial metabolites and food-derived bioactive substances (including phytochemicals), all have influence on messages received by our genes that then influences their expression. Gene expression can turn on and off neuropeptides. This can effect the autonomic nervous system turning the metabolism up or down. The expression of our genes in turn controls our health and disease outcomes. This is one of the reasons COVID-19 seems to effect some people more dramatically than others.
The hormonal counterbalance of blood sugar is regulated, in part, by the autonomic nervous system. Changes to this system increase or decrease cortisol & glucose production, thereby affecting production of insulin and other weight mediating hormones. Changes in neuropeptides from stress or anxiety can act just like eating a meal.
As blood sugar falls, the autonomic nervous system responds to balance the blood sugar. If this system is dysfunctional or under chronic stress, cortisol and adrenalin will cause higher blood sugars due to the stress response and can trigger increased hunger inappropriately.
This is why chronic stress, poor sleep, or even getting cut off while driving in traffic is the equivalent of eating a donut to your hormone responses. If you’re not exercising, theses hormones will cause weight gain without any change in your diet, and even with caloric restriction.
How Do You Combat Chronic Stress or Anxiety?
- Exercise – Because these hormones are released subconsciously, the only way to help control them is regular and consistent physical activity or exercise. Exercise, 20-40 minutes 3-6 days per week, is often the only way my patients have been able to combat the weight gain from chronic stress, anxiety and PTSD.
- Adequate Protein – Recent studies have demonstrated that hitting protein thresholds in men ( > 150 grams per day) and women ( > 90 grams per day) increased growth hormone and decrease insulin, helping to offset the negative effect of stress and anxiety. This is a key component of a ketogenic or carnivorous lifestyle.
- Sleep -Lack of sleep has been implicated in difficulty with weight loss and weight gain. Lack of sleep places the body into a state of chronic stress. This elevates cortisol, lowers testosterone, increases insulin (there’s that insulin problem, again) and increases the other inflammatory hormones. This perfect storm of stress, driven by lack of restful sleep, plays a big role in fat loss. My average patient needs at a minimum of 6-7 hours of restful sleep to maintain and lose weight. This is where untreated sleep disorders like sleep apnea play a big role. If you have sleep apnea, get it treated. What else can you do to help improve sleep?
- Remove the computer, iPad and cell phones from the room.
- Lower the room temperature. Men sleep better around 68-70 degrees F and women sleep better when the temperature is <70 degrees F.
- Close the blinds or shades to add or darken the room.
- Don’t study or watch TV in the same room you sleep in. Your body gets used to doing certain activities in certain rooms of the house. The bedroom should be reserved for sleep.
- Go to bed at the same time
- Get up at the same time.
- Journaling – Daily journaling of experiences is one of the most powerful keys to helping the brain sort powerful emotions related to anxiety and memory.
- Meditation – I’ve created a 23 minute relaxation/meditation audio file that you can listen to for 30 days to help change your subconscious script on weight loss. You can find it here.
- Some people need additional help through hypnosis. Talk to your doctor about a certified hypnotherapist near you. If you are a patient of Dr. Nally’s, he offers these services. Set an appointment today.
- Additional Resources – If this information is helpful, you may find additional interest in the following books:
- “Loving What Is ” by Byron Katie
- “Overcoming Worry and Fear” by Paul A Hauck
- “The Joys of Living” by Orison Swett Marden
What to Expect
It may take your body and body’s biorhythm 3-4 weeks to adjust to changes you make around exercise, journaling, protein & sleep habits. Be patient with yourself.
Knowing that these challenges plague people on and off throughout the year, and, seeing people get hung up on these issues, I’ve created the Ketogenic Lifestyle 101 Course. This program gets you jump-started into ketosis and gives you the tools to overcome the individual hurtles you will experience on your health journey.
High Fat? High Protein? Low Protein? What is really ketogenic?
The daily question that I get asked by my patients, and from those around the internet, relates to burning one’s own fat. “Don’t you have to limit the calories and limit fat you eat to burn your own body fat?”
It seems everyone has a differing opinion on this question and a few of them have two opinions (you know who you are). Very few of these opinions are grounded in the actual science of weight loss.
I hear coaches, trainers and even a number physicians argue, name call and rant about the need to cut calories to lose fat. Yet, most of my patients “cut their calories” 200-1000 per day without successful fat reduction. They may increase their exercise by 400-600 calories per day and still no weight loss. This is the same crazy ineffective instruction we’ve been given for the last 50 years.
To be honest, there is a percentage of those in the fitness and modeling worlds upon which this dogma is effective and that is because of normal insulin levels and significant exercise. However, for the other 85% of the world who work over 40-80 hours a week, have children and families, serve in our churches and occasionally have a social life, myself included, it doesn’t work. If we were all paid to exercise 2 hours a day and take “butt selfies” on Instagram, it might be easier.
Yes, you will probably lose 20 lbs. with calorie restriction, but your testosterone will drop by up to 50%, sex hormone binding globulin will double, and over time your basal metabolic rate will slow due to dramatic and often permeant reduction in thyroid function. This makes it nearly impossible to lose more than that 20 lbs, and then you will regain the weight once calorie levels return to normal within 18-24 months. (No one ever talks about that little problem, do they?)
For those of you that want to see success in weight loss, let’s outline a few essential principles that the trainers, keto-coaches and social media talking heads aren’t mentioning.
First, insulin has to be kept at a baseline. The reason that 85% of people don’t, won’t and can’t see effective weight loss beyond 20-30 lbs long term (greater than 2 years) with calorie restriction is that 85% of the population has some degree of insulin resistance. It’s not a disease, it’s a syndrome associated with the effect of the standard American diet. I wrote a whole book about it called The Keto Cure. We know that insulin and catecholamines increase the rate by which fat is stored.
Second, glucacon is a counter active hormone to keep your blood sugar from bottoming out. The presence of glucagon stimulates fat burning. Intermittent fasting and ketogenic dietary intake allow blood sugar to drop below 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) causing glucagon release and stimulate increased release of free fatty acids from the fat cells.
Third, two hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine, are produced when blood sugar drops below 67 mg/dL (3.7 mmol/L). Exercise lowers blood sugar to this level and stimulates additional burning of fat by engaging the release of glucagon and epinephrine and norepinephrine. Exercise, also, has three other myokine hormonal effects making weight loss more successful when the diet is correctly balanced.
The fourth principle that is essential to understand relates to growth hormone. Growth hormone stimulates and preserves muscle tissue, has a suppressive effect on insulin. Growth hormone increases with exercise, sleep, intermittent fasting and when protein intake is at least greater than 90 grams per day in women and around 1 gram of protein per body weight in men. This is notably higher than previous calculations on protein that I have written about in the past. Recent research, also found here, here and here, demonstrates that increased protein above 90-100 grams per day enhances muscle growth and stabilization and further suppresses insulin production beyond what we previously understood.
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Contrary to what the media has been saying about protein sources, not all protein is absorbed in the same way. When it comes to absorption in the human gut and use by the human metabolism, protein sources differ in their effectiveness:
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- Egg protein utilization – 50%
- Meat protein utilization – 40%
- Cheese protein utilization 35-40%
- Whey protein utilization – 18%
- Vegetable protein utilization – 14%
Lastly, release of fat from the fat cell is mediated by natriuretic peptides and cGMP through the release of catecholamines, prostaglandins and nicotinic acid. Interestingly, the major positive regulators of human lipolysis are catecholamines and natriuretic peptides (NPs). Fatty acid release from fat cells triples when catecholamines and natriuretic peptides are released. Catecholamines are produced by exercise, stimulants and stress, and natriuretic peptides are stimulated by short change fatty acids (ketones).
For the science geeks in who follow my blog, I’ve included the following picture that summarizes the effects of these hormones on the fat cell. The figure below shows the major pathways by which insulin, thyroid, catecholamines, testosterone and sympathomimetics effect fatty acid release from adipose tissue.
The take home message from this information is this, effective long term weight loss cannot be achieved by calorie restriction. Effective weight loss (specifically fat loss and muscle gain) is most effectively achieved when carbohydrates are restricted, protein is optimized, and proper exercise adequately triggers the release of fat burning hormones.
Click HERE and get a copy of my ketogenic diet.
Get a copy of my diet and 13 learning modules with coaching and online assistance by becoming a member of Dr. Nally’s KetoClan.
I’d like to know, what combination has been most effective for you?
Have a great day!
Adam (eat your bacon) Nally, DO
Fork In The Road
I woke today seeing a large fork in the road of life. It was more prominent that other forks I’ve seen in my 50 years of navigating life’s highways.
Everyone eventually comes upon this fork. Yet, this morning, because of the crisis created in life, it loomed bigger and beckoned prompt decision.
The road separated to the left and to the right.
The road to the left was paved in the color of dole. People followed neatly in line. They donned their masks. They carried their subsidy checks in freshly hand sanitized hands. Neatly packaged rations of toilet paper, and chicken under their arms. The path was smooth, well-trodden, the evidence of thousands passing down this fork. The road sign pointing to the left said “Victim.”
The road to the right was not nearly as smooth. It was rocky, and in some areas, not well marked. A small sign, barely visible, hidden in the shadows of overgrowth pointed to the right and said “Victor.”
When you look back on your life, and you remember today and the decision before you at the fork in the road, will you have merely survived? Or will you have thrived?
Has the experience of the first few months of 2020 softened you or hardened you? Have you even noticed? Did you even see the signs at the fork in the road?
The road you chose is up to you and you alone.
When you feel stuck, when your life is stagnating, it takes courage to turn down a different path. It takes effort and resolve to break free and walk a different path. Traveling a different road gives you a new perspective, an interlude to the mundane, and forces you to be alert and to learn.
Stop waiting for the instructions. You already know what to do.
I know you want to hear it. I know you need to hear it. But, no one is going to tell you it’s finally “safe.” It will never be completely safe. That’s the whole point of life. Growth does not occur in restraints. When you’re not feeling safe, remember, you’re growing.
Many voices can be heard beckoning you down the well beaten path of ease. Sure, you could live out your life on the couch. It’s softer and safer there, quarantined upon your familiar couch.
Stop waiting for someone to re-train you, re-hire you or even reassure you. Reassurance is only momentary. Stop waiting for the next “expert” to change your life with an enlightened YouTube video. The herd will never be immunized. That’s why you were given you own immune system. Stop waiting for a vaccine, a magic pill, or the sound of “all clear.” It will never be all clear. Lean into the challenge.
Stop waiting for someone to re-open your life. No one is coming to save you. The sad but honest truth is no one really cares. So, stand up, step out, work a bit harder.
It’s up to you to protect, provide and steer your carriage down the road. Do not give up that greatest of all your gifts, your ability to chose. Yes, you must chose. If your ability to chose is taken, you’ll never see it again in your lifetime.
The road will never be the same, it never is. The road you chose today determines the level to which you just survive or thrive. Chose to thrive.
Let me help you thrive. My membership program and concierge program is designed just for that purpose.
Overcoming a Weight Loss Stall On a Ketogenic Diet
What do you do when you hit a weight loss stall while living a ketogenic lifestyle? Find out below. Dr. Nally goes into detail on the multiple causes of stalling while following a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic lifestyle. He dispels the myths around counting calories and macros. And, he discussed the basics of overcoming a stall.
Help Dr. Nally have time to make more great videos: https://www.patreon.com/docmuscles
The Shovel will Fail You in Obesity, Finances & Life
A few years ago, my family and I set out to build a pond.
I have always loved Koi and the serenity of a Koi pond in my own back yard was very enticing. I spent about a year planning my design and the location. I dreamed of a serene evening after a very long, hectic day seeing patients relaxing beside the pond. The sound of trickling water, the occasional splash from fish, the cool breeze passing over the mist from a water-fall would sooth my soul after a busy day in the office.
I envisioned the perfect area. An unused access path, previously worn by the previous owner with truck and trailer traffic, beside my now expanded patio. Twenty feet wide, thirty feet long and four feet deep. . . that seems just perfect.
I pulled out my shovel and set about digging. Eager to begin and filled with the energy of the final product, I set to digging. What could be so hard about digging my own pond? Think of the exercise I will be getting. Thoughts spurred me on.
Minutes later, chest heaving, face glistening with sweat, I stared in dismay at the ground. All I had to show for my wild digging was a small 1/2 inch dent in the dusty Arizona top soil.
Sonoran Clay
Over time, calcium-carbonate, along with other minerals, accumulates and dissolves into the topsoil of the very arid regions of Arizona Sonoran Desert. It forms a two to three-foot layer of soil called “caliche.” Periodic rains carry the calcium as far as three feet down into the soil, then the water rapidly evaporates in the blistering Arizona heat. This often forms two to three feet of soil that is “literally” harder than concrete.
With tremendous zeal, a great deal of sweat and a round of painful blisters, I broke my third shovel on this impenetrable ground. I realized this was much more difficult than I thought. I pulled out the back-hoe attachment for my small farm tractor. After a few hours and few gallons of diesel fuel later, still very little progress occurred.
Multiple weekends and evenings of digging in the Arizona caliche left me with three broken shovels, a ruptured hydrolic line in my tractor, anger that my expensive back-hoe attachment didn’t work, and only a small dent in the ground near my patio. Even the brute force from the tractor would not budge the clay. I wondered if dynamite would be effective? (My wife would have none of this idea).
With my exuberance quashed, I concluded that this would require much more measured exhuming.
Escape From the Prison
We often imagine, with great delight, the removal or destruction of that which enslaves or imprisons us. We dream that just a little sweat, exertion of a few shovel scoops of dirt and the foundation to our prison of obesity, addiction, debt, and depression are exposed. A few extra scoops and we imagine freedom from that prison cell.
If only I had a jack hammer and a bigger, more powerful scoop, I imagine . . . I could make short work of these manacles that bind me.
But, our manacles and prison cells do not so easily give way.
The failings of our sharpened spades and powerful back-hoes form a new, even stronger fetter – the belief that our prison cell is unbreakable, that our challenge is just too great. These failings usually leave a person cured of any further desire to break free. It quashs the dream and solidifying the depression of stagnation.
The in-fecundity of my shovel, no matter the strength and effort put behind it, was not cause to quit. It was life’s lesson that prisons and shackles often only need a simple tool.
Enter the pick-axe. During this process my wife said, “Honey, why don’t you use the pick in the garage?”
“If my shovel and the back-hoe didn’t work, there was no way I was going to break through this clay with a pick axe.” That was absurd, I thought.
Yet when I humbled myself to try, it was simple. The pick-axe was unpretentious. This simple tool allowed for an almost effortless stroke to a small area of weakness in the caliche. A large flake of soil would pop free with each stroke. The process was repeated.
Scale by scale, the dragon’s flank was exposed. Careful work of the pick-axe began to loosen layer after layer, section after section, pellicle after pellicle. Yes, it was slow work. But, each swing was a small victory.
At each little victory, my heart would leap, the dream would become ever clearer.
Working this magic again and again until finally the specter was weakened enough to pull out the shovel. And, further work, allowed for bringing back the powerful back-hoe, in gratifying scoops.
The excavation that I thought would take two months took me fourteen. But, it was gratifying.
I learned a powerful lesson. Wherever life has pinned you, fettered you or barred you in, put down the shovel, and pick up the pick-axe. Second, if you really listen, your spouse may point out the tool you really need. Don’t be afraid to chip away at it a piece at a time.
Finances
Stop waiting for the sharper shovel or the bigger back-hoe to dig yourself out of your harrowing debt, mega mortgage, or your income dwarfing spending. The jackpot or financial windfall won’t come. While others await the jackpot, put down your shovel and shoulder your pick-axe.
- Pick one small debt and begin to pick at it by applying just a little extra each month until it is gone.
- Cancel your extra cable, sell the motorcycle and payoff the 21% interest credit card.
- If you must, pick up a side-hustle for extra to sharpen the pick.
Once you’ve lifted one flake, chip away at the next. Making progress will make it easier to continue. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, just keep at it.
Marriage
You long for resolution of the apathy, progressive resentment and mutual stalemate that permeates your relationship. You look in vain for the bigger shovel that will uncover the treasure that years of apathy have buried. You long to uncover your dreams and needs that have been covered and hardened under the clay of resentment. The shovel and the back-hoe won’t help you here.
Drop the shovel. Shoulder your pick-axe.
- Kiss your wife every time you leave, even if it’s just for a ten minutes to run to the convenience store.
- Hold her for five seconds longer every time you hug.
- Find a gift you can give her once a week, just because.
- Put down your phone and look her in the eyes when she talks to you and listen. Really listen and the flakes of hard clay will unveil the beauty of her soul.
- Find a way to praise her every day, even if it is through a simple text.
Health
You long to rid yourself of your addiction to sugar, bread, stress, and sleep deprivation. You’ve tried to scoop them out of your life. You even hired a trainer with some muscle to force you to change. You’ve tried in vain to save yourself from yourself.
Trying to use the shovel here is like trying to use the shovel on steel forged walls of your life’s prison fortress. Forget the shovel. Shoulder your pick-axe.
- Start with one meal and make some substitutions. My dietary plan can help you with this.
- Go to bed an hour earlier. Really, you’ll be surprised that the focus you have will more than compensate for the hour of lost time in the evening.
- Add a quality vitamin to your morning routine.
- Take ten minutes and do 20 push-ups and 20 sit-ups, then take a 10-minute walk.
- Simply remove the “white stuff” from your meals. You will be amazed at the results.
- Put down your phone for 30 minutes and read that book you’ve been meaning to read, instead of surfing Facebook.
Grand-standing with your back-hoe doesn’t help you. Just swing the pick-axe once or twice. Simple daily picking with the sharp point weakens the hardest of ground and the prison walls in our lives. It takes time, so be patient.
Find the weak point, apply the pick. Day by day, little by little you will be free.
I’ve been there. I’m with you. Keep me posted on your journey.
If you’re looking for a program that teaches you how to do this, check out my membership site.
Ketogenic Weight Loss Class
I’ve opened up my ketogenic weight loss class to the public. Come and join us if you are struggling to lose weight. Many people are struggling to understand how a ketogenic diet works, or finding confusion with all of the different “experts” teaching people to live a ketogenic lifestyle.
Come join me this Friday, and lets put you on a course for success.
Bacon Grease – The Healthy Essential Oil
Bacon Grease Is the Healthy Oil
Is bacon grease really healthy? People in my office stress out about getting all the healthy fats and the right amino acids. I am asked all the time, which protein powder they should be taking? Do I prefer fish oil or krill oil? My answer to this is simple.
“Bacon grease.”
I know, I can see it on your face now. . . the blank stare of disbelief.
Yes, I said “bacon grease.”
If you are following a low carbohydrate or ketogenic diet, bacon grease is your essential oil. Let me explain why:
Bacon Contains All The Essential Amino Acids
Bacon, and the grease it creates, contains all the essential amino acids. Yes, even the coveted branched chain amino acids (BCAAs). Go ahead, have 3-5 slices for breakfast, but keep the grease and re-use it to cook with. Because your saving yourself from having to buy expensive protein powders and less tasty versions of these essential muscle building blocks.
Bacon Is A Great Source of Choline
Bacon grease is a great source of choline, an essential nutrient for stabilizing cell membranes and making the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is one of the neurotransmitters absent in memory disorders and muscle disease. Fascinatingly, choline helps in the prevention of fatty liver disease, a disease caused by the standard American diet that often progresses to non-alcoholic liver disease.
Choline has also been shown in a number of studies to help ward off Alzheimer’s Disease.
Bacon Grease Contains All The B-Vitamins
Bacon fat is a superb source of all of the necessary B vitamins. It is also a superb source of Vitamin D, phosphorus, magnesium and iron. In fact all of the fat soluble vitamins – any vitamin that sounds like a letter of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, etc.- are found in animal fat.
Bacon Grease Suppresses Appetite
Long-Chain fatty acids are satiating. Bacon grease is a great source of the longer chain fatty acids and has a wonderful effect on suppressing your appetite. That’s why Dr. Nally talks about it so often. Bacon is the duct tape of the culinary world, and acts to suppress the cravings for the pie that might arise 30-60 minutes later.
Bacon Brings Happiness
When have you ever felt a frown after eating bacon? That’s my point . . . you just smiled when that thought crossed your mind. Seriously, don’t deny it . . .
Put a piece of bacon in your mouth, and it doesn’t really matter who the president is, what Kim Kardashian recently posted, or that you’re late for work . . . seriously. Bacon in your mouth reminds you how good life really is. If I die while eating a plate of bacon, my life will be complete.
My wife fries eggs in bacon grease for breakfast when she cooks. I tell you . . . it’s edible love.
Bacon Stimulates the Heart
Bacon grease also contains a significant amount of medium chain triglycerides (caproic, caprylic, capric, and lauric acids). These medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) are all the rage in helping to maintain a ketogenic diet. MCTs convert rapidly into ketones after absorption into the liver from the gut. Rapid conversion of fat into ketones stimulate more effective contraction of the heart. When the heart contracts more effectively, it releases atrial-naturitic peptide (ANP), that opens the “back door” in the fat cell allowing for more efficient fat burning and maintenance of ketosis.
Bacon Smells So Good
Many people us essential oils for the aromatic effect they produce on mood and anxiety. Next time you cook bacon, check your mood. Never has there been an aroma that is so inviting and calming. Very few other aromas actually bring people to a dinner table. And for you men out there, bacon grease improves your manhood. Increased presence of ketones, and the appetite suppressing effect of bacon grease helps to stabilize testosterone and leucine. This improves muscle development, enhances libedo, and prevents the progressive decline in testosterone leading to the “girly-man” status that occurs with so many men eating the standard American diet.
Let me leave you with one last question. When is the last time you saw left-over bacon?
Exactly – the same time you saw leprechauns riding unicorns down your street after a rain storm.
So, cook that bacon . . . and save the grease. Use it to cook your eggs or bake with it. You’ll thank me later.
The Conundrum of Cholesterol & Ketones
Watch as Dr. Nally discusses how eating more fat actually lowers your cholesterol and your risk for heart disease. Is a ketogenic lifestyle more effective than cholesterol medication? Find out as we discuss this an many fascinating cholesterol questions from Dr. Nally’s Periscope watchers from around the world. He also answers questions about his KetoEssentials Multi-Vitamin, Exogenous Ketones, and Pork Rinds (his favorite are the Pork Clouds brand).
So, mix up a bowel of fluff and grab a spoon while you listen and lower your cholesterol.
Hypertension . . . Does Fat Raise Your Blood Pressure?
Watch as we discuss how a ketogenic diet lowers your blood pressure . . . yes, fat drops blood pressure to normal ranges. We talk about the four mechanisms causing blood pressure to rise and how ketosis improves those mechanisms. . . pull up some pork rinds (Pork Clouds are my favorite) and guacamole and enjoy . . .
Type II Diabetes Mellitus through the Lens of Insulin Resistance
Watch as we discuss Type II Diabetes from the perspective of insulin resistance and how using a ketogenic diet/lifestyle as well as exogenous ketones, KetoEssentials Multivitamin and supplements like berberine play a role in improving your health.
Grab your bacon, butter and pecans, . . . pull up a chair, and enjoy!!
11 Proteins That Spike Insulin
This week on Episode #50 of KetoTalk.com we talked about those proteins highest in arginine and lysine with the greatest potential for spiking your insulin and kicking you out of ketosis. Here is a Graphic to give you a little help:
Before Ketosis, After Ketosis
Look at what you can do when you understand how to follow a ketogenic/low-carbohydrate diet. Learn more by clicking above and taking my free weight loss mini-course.
Why Be In Ketosis? Part VIII – Testosterone!!
Why should you consider using a ketogenic lifestyle? There are many reasons. This is part 8 of a 25 part series and this one focuses on how ketosis improves testosterone in men and estrogen in women.
Watch and enjoy!!
Why Be In Ketosis? Part VII – cGMP (Making Fat Burning Efficient)
Many people ask me, “Dr. Nally, why should I always be in ketosis even if I burn fat and lose weight without restricting carbohydrates as much as you do?”
The answer is fat burning efficiency. Shifting into ketosis changes your ability to burn fat, and do it efficiently by turning on cGMP in the adipocyte. I explain how below:
Enjoy!! You can click the link below to ramp up your ketosis through the use of exogenous ketones at DynamicKetones.com. Yes, I make a profit from the sale of exogenous ketones, but I just gave you the magic bullet for opening up the adipocyte for FREE!
Merry Christmas!
Why Be In Ketosis? Part V – The Yin & Yang of Glucose (Amylin)
What is the Yin & Yang of glucose control? It is Glucagon & Amylin. We talked about glucagon in an earlier post. Today we’ll balance the world of blood sugar with Amylin talk. Don’t go getting hypoglycemic with all the excitement . . . !!
Podcast #32: Hereditary Angioedema, Lower Blood Ketones, Statins, Healthy Keto Lifestyle
Listen to KetoTalk Podcast #32 where we talk about hereditary angio-edema, adequate ketone ranges, statin use while in ketosis and healthy keto questions. You can listen in by going to KetoTalk.com or you can listen in on iTunes.
“About 40 percent of my older patient population who take statins while eating ketogenic experience some form of myalgia they didn’t have before. And there’s an amplified side effect profile: muscle ache, joint pain, generalized fatigue, liver enzyme elevation, and cloudy headed.” — Dr. Adam Nally
Ketogenic BioHacking Workshop – Online
How does a ketogenic diet work?
How can it help my metabolism?
What actually occurs in your metabolism when you become a fat burning machine?
How does functioning off of ketones aid and improve disease?
Join Dr.Nally online, via Webex, and learn how to optimize your body and your metabolism.
Ketogenic BioHacking with Dr. Adam Nally
Date: Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Time: 6:00 pm, Mountain Time (Arizona, GMT-07:00)
Session Number: 801 629 053
Registration password: Ketones
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To register for this training session click here:
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PLEASE NOTE: Registration for this even must be done on a computer. Once registered, the WebEx Workshop can be viewed on a computer, iPhone or iPad with.
Once you are approved by the host, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the session.
To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link here.
Calculating Protein Needs for Your Ideal Body Weight
Too much protein, too little protein? How do you know how much protein to eat? This has become a very confusion question for many of my patients in recent years. There a a large amount of “mis-information” in the ketogenic world about the effect of protein of gaining and losing fat.
For the person exercising 5-6 days a week, 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight is the formula that works quite well. However, for the average Joe or Mary who doesn’t work out for an hour a day 5 days a week, I’ve provided the calculation below. This calculation is a baseline starting point. It is the basic amount of needed protein to maintain muscle on a ketogenic or carnivorous diet:
Ideal Body Weight (IBW) is based on your height:
Males: Protein in g/day of IBW = 50 g (for the first 5 feet of height) + 2.3 g for each inch over 5 feet. Then multiply the number you found by 1.2 (multiplier for sedentary male). [This lets you calculate the average male needs that are approximately 1.2 g of protein per kg of ideal body weight (IBW) per day.]
Males: Protein in g/day of IBW = 50 g (for the first 5 feet of height) + 2.3 g for each inch over 5 feet. Then multiply the number you found by 1.2 (multiplier for sedentary male). [This lets you calculate the average male needs that are approximately 1.2 g of protein per kg of ideal body weight (IBW) per day.]
Females: Protein in kg/day of IBW = 45.5 g (for the first 5 feet of height) + 2.3 g for each inch over 5 feet. (This lets you calculate the average female needs 1.0 g per kg of ideal body weight per day.)
Example:
A 6 foot male’s protein calculation for IBW would be 50 g of protein (for the first 5 feet )+ 27.6 g (2.3 g x 12 inches) = 77.6 g x 1.2 = 93.2 g.
A 5 foot 4 inch females protein calculation for IBW would be 45.5 g (for the first 5 feet) + 9.2 g (2.3 g x 4 inches) = 54.7 g.
If you are exercising more than 60 minutes 5 days per week then the values above should be multiplied by 1.4 grams per kg for females and 1.6 grams per kg for males.
Heavy Exerciser Protein Calculation Example:
6 foot male’s base protein needs: 77.6 g per day (IBW calculated number before using the multiplier).
77.6 g x 1.6 = 124.5 g max
5′ 4″ female’s base protein needs: 54.7. g per day
54.7 g x 1.4 = 76.6 grams per day max
If you eat three times per day, then simply divide your protein needed for you IBW by 3 to get the maximum protein you need per meal.
I hope that helps.
KetoDynamic BioHacking Workshop
Come join us on August 4th at 7pm for an evening of fun filled learning about health, diet and how ketones play a role in a healthy lifestyle. Get a chance to talk with Dr. Nally and try out a sample of exogenous ketones.
You can register for the event here.
KetoTalk: Episode 27 -Mailbox Blitz, Low Energy, Headache, Stomach-Ache, Breast-Feeding While On Keto
Listen in today as Jimmy and Adam blaze through a bunch of listener questions in Episode 27 of KetoTalk with Jimmy and the Doc!
KEY QUOTE: “Children are born in ketosis, so ketones are perfect for babies. The level of fat in breast-milk is essential for them to maintain their health and their growth.” — Dr. Adam Nally
Here’s are the 12 questions Jimmy and Adam answered in this special Keto Talk Mailbox Blitz extended podcast today:
– Testimonial from someone who learned his lesson why it’s important to stay ketogenic all the time
– Three-decade study confirms saturated fats are bad for health
– Is increased testosterone from a ketogenic diet a bad thing for women?
– Why am I still struggling with low energy and low ketones after months of being in ketosis?
– Can being in nutritional ketosis above 1.0 mmol cause painful headaches?
– Do artificial sweeteners and stevia raise insulin?
– Is my ketogenic diet causing me to cramp up before and during my half marathon racing?
– Is MCT oil a better fat to use on a ketogenic diet than other fats like coconut oil, cream, or butter?
– Why do I have a constant stomachache while I’m on a ketogenic diet?
– Do you have to be in ketosis to burn fat?
– Does being in ketosis lead to daily spotting and extended periods?
– Are ketones in my baby’s breastmilk safe for her to consume? And why did my milk supply drop when I went keto?
– What is the impact of the supplement creatine on ketones, blood sugar, and insulin levels?
– Can I ease into ketosis as a way to avoid the dreaded “keto flu?”
KEY QUOTE: “If you’re not feeling energy after that adaptation period of 2-4 weeks at the very most, then you’re doing something wrong. Let that be your wakeup call to change something.” — Jimmy Moore
Listen in here at KetoTalk.com or you can download the episode for free on iTunes.
Why Ketosis is the Best Gift A Father Can Get for Father's Day
I’m sitting here at my home-office desk, on this beautifully hot 118° Arizona afternoon, eating this luscious piece of ketogenic Key-Lime & Blue-Berry Cheese Cake that my wife made for Father’s Day . . . pondering all the reasons ketosis has been a blessing in my life, specifically as a father. As I sit, reason after reason popped into my mind.
“Hmmm, I should share these . . . Why aren’t you sharing them?” I mused. So, with the the sweet tart of blue-berry on my palate and with a wipe of whipped cream from the corner of my lip, my fingers begin to click away on the keyboard.
What makes a person a father?
Testosterone –
Well, first, . . . Testosterone. I know. Leave it to a man to start with testosterone, but in the big picture, a man really isn’t a man if he doesn’t have a little extra testosterone, right? I mean, it was during the 5th week of embryonic development that my Y chromosome began signaling the differentiation of male fetal growth in-utero. And like every male, that same hormone testosterone continues to differentiate me from the human female counterpart throughout life.
Low testosterone has become a significant issue. 20-30% of the men in my practice suffer from some degree of suppression in testosterone when they first present in my office. In fact, you can’t watch late night TV any longer without being asked the question about low testosterone (Low ‘T’).
We know that the primary nutrient shown to affect testosterone to the greatest extent is fat. Studies reveal that diets low in fat are associated with lower testosterone compared to diets high in fat (1, 2). That begs the question, has 50 years of low fat diets made us less manly?
When did this become acceptable? And, does our diet of low fat have anything to do with it? I actually think it plays a role.
Testosterone is essential in providing energy, muscle mass & growth and actually keeping the waistline down. Adequate testosterone is one of the key components allowing the man to fill the father’s rolls of protector and provider, and if your diet doesn’t help stimulate its production, your less inclined to perform well in areas requiring its presence. That means that the bacon and eggs you crave in the morning lends toward your manliness, and the bagel and orange juice may be a little feminizing.
Fathers Need Muscles –
Second, father’s need muscles for all sorts of important things. It’s often Dad who carries the child on his shoulders, or lifts you above his head. It takes muscles for that.
We talked about the importance of testosterone in muscle development. That that’s not all. Many fathers can provide for their families specifically because of their ability to use that muscle. That’s not saying women can’t use muscle, too. I’m saying that a number of jobs that make our country function that require fitness, strength and muscle, like police, firefighters, construction, life-guards & delivery drivers. These jobs require muscle.
We now know that ketones, the primary fuel in a ketogenic diet, restrain muscle breakdown by decreasing leucine oxidation and preserving muscle mass (3). So, yes, visiting the donut shop actually does make you less manly by allowing the more rapid degradation of your muscles.
“Wasn’t it my muscles that first got your attention when we met and got this whole father thing started in the first place, honey?” I asked my wife in the kitchen.
“What?! No . . .” she responded.
“Oh, . . . never mind.”
Energy –
Whether you have great muscles or not, you need energy for the muscles you have to fill your role as a father. Work requires energy. As fat is increasingly used as fuel instead of sugar, the liver breaks it down and produces ketone bodies, or ketones. The liver itself, doesn’t use the ketones, so they are taken up by the muscles and brain for fuel. Increased energy, mental clarity and suppression of inflammation are the key findings that are noticed while using fat as your primary fuel. What father couldn’t us a little more of that?
In fact, several studies report that fathers have the biggest impact on the overall fitness and on the overall weight of their children. It was found that the father’s, not the mother’s, total and percentage body fat was the best predictor of whether or not the couple’s daughters gained weight as they got older (4). All the more reason to keep your waistline under control, Dad.
Another fascinating study showed fathers’ (again, not the mothers’) body mass index is directly related to a child’s activity level (5).
Energy and muscle is essential for “rough housing” and there is science to prove that “rough housing” makes your kids awesome! Psychologist Anthony Pellegrini, in the book The Art of Roughhousing, has found that the amount of roughhousing children engage in predicts their achievement in first grade better than their kindergarten test scores do. What is it about rough and tumble play that makes kids smarter? Well, a couple things.
Roughhousing makes your kids more resilient and resilience is a key in developing children’s intelligence. Resilient kids tend to see failure more as a challenge to overcome rather than an event that defines them. Intellectual resilience that comes from energetic fathers helps ensure your children bounce back from bad grades and gives them the grit to keep trying until they’ve mastered a topic.
Intelligence for You and Your Family –
Neuroscientists studying animal and human brains have found that bouts of rough-and-tumble play increase the brain’s level of a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF helps increase neuron growth in the parts of the brain responsible for memory, logic, social intelligence and higher learning–skills necessary for academic success. We,also, now know that the brain that uses fat, or ketones, as it’s primary fuel recovers from injury and makes BDNF more effectively (6,7).
That rib-eye with steak butter your kids gave you for dinner is actually making you and them smarter and more resilient.
Overall Happiness –
The Harvard Grant Study completed in 1934, the longest longitudinal study ever done on the lives of men, found that a man’s father influenced his life in multiple ways exclusive to his relationship with his mother. Loving fathers imparted to their sons:
- Enhanced capacity to play
- Greater enjoyment of vacations
- Increased likelihood of being able to use humor as a healthy coping mechanism
- Better adjustment to, and contentment with, life after retirement
- Less anxiety and fewer physical and mental symptoms under stress in young adulthood
It should be noted that “it was not the men with poor mothering but the ones with poor fathering who were significantly more likely to have poor marriages over their lifetimes.” Men who lacked a positive relationship with their fathers were also “much more likely to call themselves pessimists and to report having trouble letting others get close” (8).
You, as a father, matter. And, being in ketosis makes you an even better father! Seriously.
When all is said and done, a man’s relationship with his father very significantly predicted his overall life satisfaction at age 75 — “a variable not even suggestively associated with the maternal relationship” (8).
So, back to my key-lime blue-berry cheese cake, my wife just made me a better husband and father. Thanks, Dear!!
References:
- Hamalainen, E., H. Aldercreutz, P. Puska, and P. Pietinen. Diet and serum sex hormones in healthy men. J. Steroid Biochem. 20:459-464, 1984.
- Reed, M.J., R.W. Cheng, M. Simmonds, W. Richmond, and V.H.T. James. Dietary Lipids: an additional regulator of plasma levels of sex hormone binding globulin. J. Clin. Endocrin. Metab. 64:1083-1085, 1987.
- Nair KS, Welle SL, Halliday D, Cambell RG. Effect of β-hydroxybutyrate on whole-body leucine kinetics and fractional mixed skeletal muscle protein synthesis in humans. J Clin Invest. 1988;82:198–205.
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Figueroa-Colon R, Arani RB, Goran MI, Weinsier RL. Paternal body fat is a longitudinal predictor of changes in body fat in premenarcheal girls. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Mar;71(3):829-34.
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Finn, Kevin et al. Factors associated with physical activity in preschool children. J of Ped., Vol 140, Issue 1, 81-85
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Vizuete AF1, de Souza DF, Guerra MC, Batassini C, Dutra MF, Bernardi C, Costa AP, Gonçalves CA. Brain changes in BDNF and S100B induced by ketogenic diets in Wistar rats. Life Sci. 2013 May 20;92(17-19):923-8.
- Masino SA, Rho JM. Mechanisms of Ketogenic Diet Action. Jasper’s Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies [Internet]. 4th edition. Bethesda (MD): National Center for Biotechnology Information (US); 2012.
- Valliant GE. Triumphs of Excellence: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study. 1934
KetoTalk Podcast #21
Listen to Dr. Nally & Jimmy Moore as they answer the following questions in KetoTalk Podcast #21.
- How can I get back started on keto again?
- Do I need to quit keto once I hit my weight loss goal?
- Is flax and flaxseed oil okay on a ketogenic diet?
- What to do when you are sleepy on a low-carb ketogenic diet?
- I know that some people lose fat on a low fat diet. When people lose fat on a low-fat diet are they they also in a state of ketosis?
Get the answers to these questions and much more when you listen to KetoTalk.com or download the podcast for free on iTunes.
KetoTalk From the Caribbean Sea
Dr. Nally recently spoke about Low-Carbohydrate/Ketogenic Diets on the 2016 Low Carb Cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. While there, he and Jimmy Moore recorded another episode of KetoTalk with Jimmy and the Doc.
Listen in to KetoTalk Episode 20: A LIVE Q&A Session From The 2016 Low-Carb Cruise
Here’s what Jimmy and Dr. Nally talked about in Episode 20:
– We are in front of a LIVE audience of Ketonians
– How long will you experience hair loss when you go ketogenic?
– What role does resistant starch have on the keto diet?
– Is eating high-fat with high-carb harming my boyfriend?
– How does intermittent fasting help with keto?
– Whether to count total vs. net carbohydrates
– Whether you need to cycle carbs when building muscle
– What the best way to test your ketones is
– How to test blood ketones on a budget
– What the difference is between an NMR and basic lipid panel
– The dramatic changes in your cholesterol when going keto
– How long should you be on keto before running blood tests?
– Whether you should cut fat lower on keto to speed up weight loss
– Is having a lower body temperature a bad thing when eating keto?
You can listen at the iTunes page here, or download it for free to your favorite iTunes player.