Dr. Andy Galpin

where I can answer the question we started off with, which is, why do you breathe?

And we talked about how it's oxygen and we need that.

Well, oxygen is not really a fuel for metabolism.

It's needed to go through aerobic metabolism, but the fuel is coming from your fat and carbohydrates.

I only need oxygen during aerobic metabolism, but I'm very effective at anaerobic, which means I can produce energy without the need of oxygen.

But to finish those processes,

I've got to have the oxygen around.

And so it's a little bit of a twist here.

This is also explaining why even if you're an anaerobic athlete, you still care deeply about your aerobic system because this is what allows you to recover, to completely metabolize your carbohydrates, to finish that process and restore yourself back to homeostasis.

The faster you can do that, the faster you can repeat your anaerobic processes, you can recover and

You can get back to training, get back to competition.

The more you practice, the better you get, the better you perform.

And so what's actually fully happening is this.

When you take a breath in and you inhale, you're bringing in, amongst other things, but primarily oxygen.

When you take a breath out, you're breathing out CO2.

The oxygen you bring in is primarily there to regulate metabolic processes.

But the CO2 you're exhaling is regulating your pH.

Now there's a handful of things your body will regulate almost anything else.

One of them is

is your pH.