kontextmaschine:

You know how I said the thing was I was really dependent on blood sugar to avoid torpor but I had to factor in the energy to digest food when I topped up? I just had a Korean meal, all spicy cabbage and beef, and I am dying. No wonder those guys were so “COVID Zero”.

@argumate said: man that is just not how this works, not how anything works

Ok fair, I fear I might know just enough about this to get it pretty wrong, so in the interests of documentation let’s retreat a step

So when I originally felt the fatigue come on it was so strong I had trouble breathing, so I retreated to my bed, consciously inflated my lungs for a while, and fell asleep.

When I woke up I could, by emphatic breathing, work up enough energy to roll over, grab my phone, and think up and post maybe two sentences at a time.

Eventually with hyperventilation I was able to work up enough energy to stumble to the kitchen, eat some fries with sweet ketchup, and grab some candy.

I realized after the eating I had even more energy, which lasted longer than the breathing but did dissipate.

I realized “I can briefly boost energy by hyperoxygenating or raising blood sugar, but even both together don’t return me to normal” suggested some deficiency with aerobic energy production

I had some creatine monohydrate on hand. It’s a nutritional supplement, naturally produced by the body, that enables anaerobic energy generation from stored fat. This was the honest stuff the steroid gains behind the ‘98 Sosa-McGwire home run race got publicly attributed to – where steroids mean that for doing say 10 reps of a weight you’ll get the benefit of 20, creatine will help a guy who normally faltered at 16 or 17 reps tap reserves to actually do 20.

So I thought let’s try some of that, if aerobic generation isn’t working, to ramp up to compensate.

And that worked as hoped! But eventually it wears down, and gravity feels stronger and I move more roughly as my alignment and “helper” muscles falter and my breathing grows labored.

At first I needed around 20g/day, now I’m down to about 5g every 16 hours

Blood sugar also remains as a constraint, as my creatine “charge” runs down often I realize I just haven’t eaten too and with that addressed I go back from “feels like an hour to more creatine” to “feels like I had some maybe 3 hours ago”.

Sugary things – candy, soda, sugarcane juice – provide a rapid felt boost up but one that starts to dissipate in 10min. Dried pineapple and candied pecans aren’t quite as rapid but last longer; bread like from baguettes longer still.

This matches what I understand of simple sugars and their conversion from starch. Eating other food, including meats, vegetables, and spices, seems to incur an additional energy burden (as tangibly distinct from an energy shortfall!) and leaves me somewhat sluggish for 5-20 minutes after eating, with both more processing and less cooking adding to the effect