Okay I actually suspect I’m in my 11th Covid case now. Woke up today doing a remarkable attempt of all-ways emptying my digestive tract, more critically the creatine dose I was taking is now quite inadequate – the postexertionary fatigue symptom is still young enough to get empowered and I was carrying a high revolving balance on it anyway. So topsoil’s done for the year, gonna sow some grass seed to grow in the fall rain to anchor it and resume next year.

My creatine dose is nominally 5’ scoops heading for 4’ but to fill the hole from all the pitching-induced muscle growth/postexertionary symptoms I’m actually taking 10’/day right now, so I might get through “Normie Side of Overweight” and on to “Overweight Side of Normie” fairly soon.

I think that’ll fade totally within 3 weeks at most once I’m done.

The aerobic energy issues have been gradually resolving all along; they got stronger with new Covid cases but diminishingly so and that seems tapped out now.

In a year and a half I expect them to be totally cleared up, in the interim I need to burn less fat to compensate every day.

Based on past progression I expect by then I’ll be a bit muscle-twinky but not like, gaunt. If I want to retain more fat, I can just stop the creatine entirely at 3’ or even 4’ scoops and I’ll manage until the aerobic fully recovers, especially if I’m not doing physical labor.

For every 2 days of topsoil work I do I need to start taking a scoop of creatine at 9 PM for four whole weeks to supply energy for the muscle growth that ensues

(The issue is really that the energy demand continues even as I sleep so I can’t just let the creatine run down to nothing overnight and then gas up for the next day)

I want to make clear creatine is not something that makes exercise more rewarding in terms of muscle built from a given workout. Testosterone like I’m experiencing does that, as do the anabolic steroids that emulate it.

Creatine’s use in a strength-building context is in allowing you to do more exercise – that weight you struggle to lift, or number of reps you poop out short of, you can get with supplementary creatine helping deliver more energy to your muscles than the body’s aerobic energy production and anaerobic generation from naturally produced creatine alone.

And more exercise builds muscle faster than less.

My current creatine use is not for muscle-building purposes and my current muscle-building frenzy is not caused by it, they each relate to different Long Covid symptoms that I got in the luckiest possible combination.

That said, creatine can absolutely be a productive part of a muscle-building exercise program – that’s why I had some sitting around to begin with – and there is tons of bro science out there on the internet that can explain how.

Okay, yeah, the thing was my old orange scoop was some kinda fractional imperial measure close to but somewhat larger than the creatine-bin scoops that do 5g, so going from 5 to 5’ (I’ve measured with the old scoops for a while, so I’ll mark these ones as distinct) scoops was itself a step down already.

So all my weight loss predictions are kinda denominated in that, so it’ll take a while to reestablish my scale, but I expect the “overweight side of average” phase to start before the end of the month.

Okay I’ve been taking 4 scoops of creatine on waking at noon but then that’s really not enough and I have to take another by 6, but then by 10 I’m even more tired on 4 10-hour-old scoops and one four- than I had been on five scoops on waking before?

Like the one thing I’m thinking maybe it’s that I’m using a new scoop that’s easier to level off? So I’m not getting overage? And in fact maybe the previous scoop which didn’t come from a jar was just bigger than 1 standard creatine scoop all along?

I dunno. I’ll try again in two weeks, I’m getting real tired of thinking I’m about to hit 4 but then not

Okay, uh, accidentally went down a creatine scoop a day early cause I guess I had “it’s gonna be 4” in my head measuring it out and missed the “…after this one”, but that works, I went from only weakly noticing it when it was time for a new one to “yeah I feel it in my limbs but it’s not going to make getting up that hard”

I was going to go down months ago but that day I got another echo that pushed it back up over one scoop, and before I’d fully worked that off another one that did it maybe half a scoop.

Which means that if my back-of-envelope calculations are correct and no more delays, I’ve had 40% of the total weight loss from when I first went down to 5 scoops already, which: believeable!

The significance of finally passing through the level I had been mentally modeling myself as last month was that I no longer registering myself as line, getting thinner in terms of that body I’ve always had

From here on, especially with all the muscle gain lately, I’ve just never had this body in my life, it’s like a second puberty.

No, though thinking back I’m finding it hard to remember one time under it that I did fiercely rapid movement that would leave some lactic soreness under normal conditions, I might be unconsciously shifting my energy use to new constraints or something

Ok, think I’ll be ready to go down to 4 scoops creatine/day either at the midpoint or end of this month. I was at 4 two cases ago but echoes took me up to 6 and then on the day I was about to go back to 4, back to the top of 5. So nice to regain my place, and since the echoes seem to get weaker each time (except case 7, which was the hardest since 3) I don’t expect another would cost me even a full scoop now.

No, it is not. My issue in particular is long covid effects interrupting the conversion of blood sugar to ATP energy and rendering it inefficient or otherwise unable to meet full muscle demand even at rest.

Taking the creatine I am able to produce enough energy to fill the hole by breaking down stored fat, otherwise I would experience strong fatigue.

Creatine gives the ability to break down fat for energy, it does not cause it. A normal healthy person even on this much creatine would preferentially power her muscles from converting blood sugar.

If she did exercise that took her beyond the limits of what she could generate that way – reps of a heavy weight, say – then creatine-mediated generation would matter, and by taking creatine she could do more exercise and burn more fat (and build more muscle) there, but even then nowhere near my current level. And she would have to do that exercise.

If on the other hand she attempted to drop her aerobic energy generation to my level by severe restriction of sugar and carbs (which the body processes to sugar on an intermediate timeframe) she would experience hunger, macronutrient shortages, and other negative effects I don’t – I’ve had no problem with low blood sugar symptoms like lightheaded dizziness, for example.

If you do any exercise that involves going as hard as you can for as long or as many times as you can (“oh gosh, this is as many reps of this many plates I can do right now” counts) creatine can make it even more productive but it’s not a miracle powder, it just lines up with my one weird-ass plague symptom in the exact right way (at first I wasn’t even interested in the weight loss, I just appreciated that it could get me out from a fatigue so deep I had to manually breath in order to fully cycle the air in my lungs)

fatsexybitch:

kontextmaschine:

There is one specific symptom it is useful for: difficulties in processing blood sugar into ATP energy, where it helps by replacing with energy derived from breaking down stored fat. Over my (9 now, I think) cases I’ve encountered other fatigue symptoms, including one that was really an iron deficiency and one I suspect was “post-exertional malaise”, the creatine did nothing for them.

Creatine is pretty safe though, your body makes some naturally all the time, if you took a bucketload on the reg it might gratuitously let you burn too much fat doing exercise and then starve in a famine.

I would say it’s worth trying once – take say 4 scoops, it’ll take effect within 20 minutes, if that clears it up yay, take it every day and it’ll burn fat to keep you on until the symptom clears, if it makes you feel a bit better but not totally try some more until you find your level, if that’s not it sorry but maybe suggest it to other people with fatigue.

Honestly when I first read about you using creatine for fatigue I was like “such a dude bro solution, doubt it will work” but then I read some articles on long covid and CFS that showed the energy limitations are heavily tied to a lack of anaerobic energy production and was like “weird”

But it’s one of the most studied supplements on the market and a proven safety record even in really high doses, and long-term high dose usage over years hasn’t shown any negative impacts.

So I decided to try it. I’ve got Fibro and (likely) long covid, and started off w really low doses (like 1/3 the ‘recommended’ dose on the package) and started upping weekly and had great results.

I don’t need my lunchtime nap anymore, and I’ve still got energy at the end of the workday for little chores around the house. I haven’t had a bad brain fog day for nearly 3 months. I usually spend weekends working for 20-30 mins on chores and resting for about the same time. Now I can work for a few hours before a short 20-30min rest, and I don’t suffer the rebound (PEM) in the following day.

I’m still only taking ~4 scoops per day so I’m not seeing any weight loss or gain, but i was pre-diabetic when I started (managing w diet and exercise) and now my blood sugar is way more stable with no food or exercise changes, just a slight increase in baseline activity. I have noticed some reduction in my largest fat deposits, but I think I’m probably losing fat/gaining muscle equally.

I ran out on Tuesday this week and didn’t have time to go to the store, and the difference in fatigue and reduction in endurance was immediate, but no other difference. I haven’t noticed any side effects or w/d symptoms, so I’d rate it safe for self experimentation, fwiw. (Obviously, I am NOT a Dr and YMMV)

Mostly, I’m a little peeved you solved chronic fatigue with bodybuilders powder.

The one thing I’m concerned about is that insofar as it DOES give you more energy that DOES come from breaking down fat, and it took a while for me to first notice my reserves being depleted but that is a finite resource.

In my case this one Covid symptom is receding at a rate such that if I keep this treatment up I expect to end up stylishly slim, but for a chronic, permanent thing I couldn’t maintain it indefinitely, I’d become emaciated.

(I’m also not sure I can store new fat until it fully clears, scheduled a year or so on, I suspect my blood sugar’s just getting converted to nonsense molecules and pissed out, if that’s different for you maybe it’s more sustainable? This seems like exactly the thing a nutritionist might be helpful for.)

Since I left the dojo and came to Portland with all its good food and beer I’ve gotten soft in literal ways. And hey, it’s biking weather now and we’ve got a weight set in the basement so no excuses. Biked down GNC to pick up some protein and creatine.

Jesus christ, I forgot what a difference creatine makes. After my first day’s dose I could suddenly climb the Alameda ridge without stopping or even dropping into too low a gear (I mean, not that supersteep one way street, jfc), and I don’t decide to give up partway through sets.

My goal is to every day do 3 sets each of 3 different lifts, at least a third of the old dojo exercises, and climb the ridge at least once, twice on weekends.