Fitness makes you a safer diver. However, not everyone is fit and healthy. Not everyone was fit and healthy when we started diving. I want to share what I’ve been through in the last 18 months, and listen to feedback, new ideas, and, honestly, encouragement.
This post is pretty long. I wanted to provide enough detail for you to understand what has happened. I’m not a medical professional, nor am I a trainer or dietician. There is no simple fix to poor health. It requires some effort and self-education. This is what is working for me. It may not be what works for you. Everyone is different, both mentally and physically. I’m still adjusting as I learn new things about how my body reacts.
I will tell you this much. It is totally worth it.
My Health When I Started Diving
When I got certified in June of 2024, this was my general health:
- 53 years old
- 378 pounds (171.4 kg), 68-inch waist (ick)
- early onset degenerative arthritis (runs in the family). Hips, knees, shoulders – all the major joints are impacted. I have a cousin who recently had a hip replaced. He’s in his 30’s.
- One artificial hip (at age 45), one surgery on a knee (at age 19), and five surgeries on a badly damaged wrist over 20 years.
- on 8 different prescriptions managing a variety of health issues
- Type 2 Diabetic (diagnosed just a few months before I got certified)
- sedentary lifestyle (work in IT)
- resigned to an early death and disappointed in not being able to do stuff
Diving Safely with Certain Health Conditions
Let’s be real about a couple of things. There are health conditions that prevent you from diving. Some don’t, but maybe should. Unless you’re taking a course or a dive operator requires it, you can dive anytime you want, and a medical form may not be required (depending on where you live). Be smart about it. Understand how your health impacts your safety in the water. Remember this above all – it’s not just about you and your safety. You could put others around you at risk if you’re diving in poor health or with a risky condition.
Diabetes
Being diabetic means your body isn’t controlling blood sugar levels on its own. When your blood sugar goes too low, you can pass out. Too high and you can go into a coma. If you’re underwater when that happens, you’re in trouble. DAN has an entire guide here – Guidelines for Diabetes and Recreational Diving. I recommend reading it even if you do not have diabetes. You never know who you might dive with next.
Health Conditions and Risk
In most cases, if you have a medical episode that involves any sort of loss of consciousness or seizure, the first thing that happens is that your regulator falls out of your mouth. Then, you drown.
That brings up two questions for anyone. One, should I dive at all? Two, if I do, how can I mitigate or eliminate the risk?
For my diabetes – it’s well controlled, I’m not insulin dependent, and at this point, I’m really close to being in remission. While I keep an eye on it, it’s not a significant concern.
I have a Garmin fenix 8, which is not only an excellent smartwatch but also helps to track my workouts and walking. It monitors pulse ox, can approximate VO2 max, which is an indicator of cardiovascular health, and continuously tracks my heart rate. Additionally, it functions as a recreational dive watch, capable of depths down to 40 m (130 feet).
For me (this is not true for everyone), the health benefits far outweigh the risks. I’ve talked about the risks in detail with my doctor. I’ve completed every single free class DAN offers on various diving-related health conditions, and I’ve also read a few peer-reviewed papers on the topics.
What I’ve Learned in the Last 18 Months
- The signals to your body that you’re not hungry (satiety responses) are destroyed in the obese. Even if you lose weight, you do NOT get them back, or at least, not completely. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/107/8/2254/6584424 discusses this in children, but other studies also mention it for adults.
- Diving is great for decompressing sore joints. I can exercise without hurting. In fact, it helped mitigate my hip pain for a long time in the months leading up to my hip replacement.
- Just because you’re ravenously hungry after a dive does NOT mean you can’t still lose weight if you’re smart about it. Don’t just stuff your face without considering what you’re eating and how much of it.
- Finding an activity you love will give you a reason to put in the work to improve your health, allowing you to do it more often. I was hooked the moment I saw a school of perch in a muddy lake schooling around my dive instructor’s hands.
- Processed foods are evil. Full stop. Minimize them as much as you can.
- If your doctor won’t have a conversation with you on your health and just dictates to you, find a new one. This was a game changer for me and probably saved my life.
- Be proactive, knowledgeable, and vocal about your own health, especially with medical professionals. It matters and will change things. They’re tired of saying the same good advice and no one listens. If you talk to them, do some stuff and have good results, even if it’s different than exactly what they said, they’ll appreciate it and work with you more.
- Calories ALWAYS count. What you eat matters too. The two statements are not mutually exclusive as some diet pushers would have you believe.
- Don’t diet. Change your habits.
What I Have Accomplished
- I lost 82 pounds (36.3 kg). I’m at 296 pounds right now (134 kg).
- My waist is down 20 inches (48 inches now).
- My doctor calls me his favorite patient.
- I’ve dropped 5 of those prescriptions and cut the dose of 1 of the remaining ones in 1/2. My doctor and I created a plan a year ago, as my health improved, to cut all of them, and we’re following it. I think I can eliminate the other three within the following year.
- I just had the other hip replaced, but my recovery has been excellent. Even though I’m ten years older, it’s been easier than the first one because my health is so much better.
- PFO (patent foramen ovale) is a small flap-like opening between the upper chambers (atria) of the heart that fails to close naturally after birth. Around 25% of the population has it. PFO raises the risk of DCS (decompression sickness) in divers. I had an echocardiogram that checked for it. The report states, “No evidence of patent foramen ovale.” This is excellent news and removes one risk factor for me when I dive.
- I feel better.
- My mental health and attitude is FAR ahead of where it was.
- I’ve completed a laundry list of dive training and hope to start on Divemaster and some Technical Diving in the coming year.
How I Did It – Attitude
Be honest with yourself. If you say, “I’d rather be dead than give up…” then just leave the conversation. You’re not helping yourself, you’re not helping others, and you may just cause harm to someone who is struggling and decides they like that attitude. Your attitude matters. If you feel a need to argue this point, you’re just validating its accuracy.
I know – I struggled with that myself for a long time. There is NOTHING in my life so important that I’d rather be dead. There are some people so important to me that I would sacrifice my life/health to keep them safe, but not material things. Even diving, as much as it’s a massive part of my life, will go away at some point. I’ve compiled a list of health developments that I know would prompt me to stop.
If you have friends who try to get you to stray from healthy habits, primarily if they treat it like a game, they’re not your friends. This is where the dive community in my area has been spectacular. My 116 dives so far have been with about 35 different dive buddies. I have a core group that I dive with most of the time, but it’s a big group. To the last person, they are supportive of my eating changes and habits. I cannot say that for everyone in my life.
I succeeded because of my attitude shift and the support and friendship I found within the dive community around me. I’ve already thanked two of my most frequent dive buddies, Carl and Nathan. They’re the reason I dive year-round instead of quitting for a few months when some people think it’s too cold.
How I Did It – Exercise and Activity
- Movement is your friend.
- After certification, I practiced buoyancy and emergency skills a couple of times a week at a local dive shop’s pool. I was surprised to see my weight drop, which set everything else in motion.
- Find a workout plan for the gym that suits your needs. I started by walking on an indoor track or in the pool (which reduces stress on joints). I couldn’t do anything else. After losing some more weight, I was able to add on more exercise Here’s my current workout:
- 15 minutes walking warmup or maybe on the NuStep (they use it in physical therapy for the hips).
- Strength Training using the Push/Pull/Core method. It works for me.
- Focus on exercises that improve flexibility and range of motion. For example, the back extensions and torso twists have been beneficial to me.
- Track your workouts. I use the app “Hevy” on my Android phone, as well as the features on my Garmin watch. A notebook would work.
- If I don’t lift on a day, I walk longer on the track or in the pool (up to 60 minutes).
- Pool time. I walk in the pool, swim, and do some range-of-motion exercises for my hips/legs in the water.
- Find a gym that has a hot tub. It helps with avoiding soreness and stiffness post workout.
- If in doubt, invest in consulting a certified trainer to discuss your goals, limitations, and optimal approach. If, as I did, you find most trainers to be lacking, consider consulting a physical therapist instead. I’m in PT at least twice a year for something, so I started asking them about other exercises, and it helped.
How I Did It – Food
- I track everything I eat. It helps and is vital. I’ve used LoseIt in the past, but I’m currently using MyFitnessPal due to device compatibility and interaction with other apps.
- Please refrain from visiting your favorite restaurant or indulging in your favorite cuisine for at least three months, unless it’s made from scratch at home. Completely. Whine all you want; if you don’t do this, you will likely fail.
- Eat out less or not at all. If you need a quick lunch or dinner, try planning and taking it with you.
- Keep some healthy snacks and quick meals in the freezer or fridge to have on hand when life gets chaotic.
- Make sure you get enough fiber and protein. It’s an easy-to-overlook thing in many diet plans, especially fiber. Great Value (from Walmart).
- I started doing meal prep. As I filtered out the processed items, I began to feel better. I’m a bit of an ingredient snob at home now.
- Educated myself on my health/fitness. I’ve studied various exercise plans, the impact of food on the human body, and alternatives to foods I dislike that provide the nutrients I need, among other topics.
- Excessive carbohydrates are not your friend, especially if they come from processed foods. It’s not just about calories, but also about the other things they do to your body.
- Learn about inflammation and body impact.
How I Did It – Diving
- Educated myself on dive safety. This whole thing about improving my health would be stupid if I ended up sick or dead because I did something dumb like diving to 190 feet on air, getting narc’d, and then surfacing with no stops (and yes, that happened in the area in the last year – not by anyone I know).
- Practiced dive safety, so it’s automatic.
- Dive every chance I get. I managed 116 dives in 15 months. I dove in all 12 calendar months, and my busiest months were the coldest ones, which surprised me. It burns more calories per hour than running does, and that doesn’t count the calories from the activities associated with diving, such as prepping gear, loading gear, setting up, and cleaning up. It helps living near several large lakes.
- Being outside matters. I stayed inside a lot because I don’t tolerate heat well. That changes when I can hop in the water to cool down. The Vitamin D from sun exposure matters, and it’s better than what you can get from a supplement. One of my dive buddies and I had a conversation a few months ago about how diving helped our mental health. We notice when we miss a weekend.
How I Did It – Dive Days
All of my diving so far has been in local lakes (Table Rock, Bull Shoals, and Beaver Lake) in Arkansas. It’s common to spend all day Saturday and part of Sunday at one of them.
- Get plenty of sleep the night before. It’s not just about dive safety. It’s also about your body not demanding energy and driving you to unhealthy food choices.
- I take plenty of hydrating liquids, including water, BodyArmor, Powerade, and Hot Chocolate in the winter.
- I plan my snacks: David Protein bars, cheese, meat, fruit, nuts.
- No matter how challenging it is, when we grab a meal at a local restaurant before returning home at the end of the day, I force myself not to overdo it. I frequently take the to-go container and cut the entrée in half to take home before I even start eating, or separate it on the plate.
- Did I mention hydration? I’ve found that if I hydrate extensively, I tend not to be as hungry.
Observations From Others
My wife and my mom (who lives with us) both have noticed the increase in my activity level. It’s not just the trips to the gym and the lake. I’m not as likely to sit the entire evening – I get up and look for stuff to do. I don’t tire as quickly.
My wife and I stopped to see a movie on a trip a few weeks ago. We had to walk from the parking garage two blocks to the theater and then climb two flights of stairs to reach the entrance. When we got to the top of the steps, my wife (a very brisk walker) turned around and stared at me for a moment with a slightly confused look. “You kept up. You’re not breathing heavy.”
“Yeah, I’m not.”
