Losing weight it felt like all the soft fat in my belly shed down to a firmer core, and then the skin shrunk taut around it, now some of that’s feeling soft again.

kontextmaschine:

Hm, okay, now that I’ve got iron addressed I tried to go down to 3 scoops creatine on waking and 2 before bed and that worked at first, but even not going out, past 7 as the 2 from last night wear off I’m too slumped

In retrospect it is flatly absurd that I figured that one out the day it started happening and had creatine on hand, so instead of years of crippling, maybe even life-threatening fatigue im just experiencing this as a magical weight loss program where I don’t have to do anything

Like, I was doing fine enough for myself in the world already that its particularly iffy how I appear to be like the human who won Covid, took two pretty serious shots at me but I frame-perfect parried them both

Also you’ve gotta understand, all this weight loss comes from the caloric drain of anaerobically supporting normal operations, I’m not dieting or pushing exercise, in fact I’ve basically abandoned any restraint in selecting food and been sitting around inside all week, and I still wake up thinner every day

So yeah the new skin on the belly where stretch marks vanished had been kind of rough and dry and red and itchy, but it’s all baby-smooth now

Sitting on the edge of the bed I find I can’t rest my hand atop the ledge of my belly anymore, it’s receded and the hand slips off

kontextmaschine:

kaziusklasterzoroaster:

kontextmaschine:

I really cannot emphasize enough how this works like a reverse feederism thing, every day I wake up and run my hands over my belly and appreciate how not big it’s getting.

“Ew you’re making it sound sexual"– bitch it’s definitely sexual, since the personality change left me bisexual, "a hot, fit male body” is a major turn-on and object of desire and I am experiencing a transformation where I am gradually, helplessly becoming a hot, fit male body.

please please please see a doctor, losing weight this fast and this easily is concerning. 

I mean don’t for a second think I understand this as just how things are, I have the explicit understanding that this is the effect of a complex and mysterious disease, but I might as well appreciate it

But yes, to those of you concerned, I have a fairly good understanding of how this is working and it’s looking like it’s going to come in good.

I know why I’m losing weight! It’s because [black box] Covid issues mean I can’t generate ATP from the blood sugar off the food I’ve eaten to power my body functions.

But I CAN still generate energy anaerobically. Normally that’s limited but the limit is the supply of creatine, which the body creates naturally and uses for this, but I can pump my levels above normal by taking creatine monohydrate, sold as a bodybuilding supplement. It gets metabolized in about 24 hours, but I can just take more the next day!

The way it works is by breaking down stored fat. When bodybuilders use it, it means they have more energy available for their very extremes of exertion – they do 15 reps of the superheavy weight instead of 10, but then leave the gym to go to Bible study or wevs!

Because I’m patching a hole with it im basically drawing on that extra energy 24/7 – my normal resting energy consumption is higher than I can sustain without it.

Which means that I am burning fat at a constant, PRODIGIOUS rate.

I pray you, however, keep this in mind:

This has actually been going on for 2 years already, as an aftereffect of each Covid infection, and I have had experience with how it progresses. It begins with such a deficit of energy I have to take a lot of creatine to support a lot of anaerobic generation each day, but gradually decreases until I don’t need it anymore

The first time this showed up i suddenly needed 8 scoops of creatine to anaerobically generate enough energy to even keep breathing regularly, the time that started this wave I needed 5, I was down to maybe 2 ½ until this last case took me up to 4

It gets easier every time, and judging how this has been going I’m very confident to say it’ll end up with me at a “yeah, I played soccer matches after college” physique

AND HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT?

Like I was faffing about and then the 2010s looked mean and I was like “gather about, kids, I have a sense how this goes” and then from astoundingly correct prediction or SOMETHING I suddenly transformed into my ideal self

FUCKED UP

I cant grab my tits anymore!

Like, there is no positioning or angle by which I can press my fingers into the fatty tissue overlaying my pecs and close them together such that the tips are closer together than the rest of the fingers

kaziusklasterzoroaster:

kontextmaschine:

I really cannot emphasize enough how this works like a reverse feederism thing, every day I wake up and run my hands over my belly and appreciate how not big it’s getting.

“Ew you’re making it sound sexual"– bitch it’s definitely sexual, since the personality change left me bisexual, "a hot, fit male body” is a major turn-on and object of desire and I am experiencing a transformation where I am gradually, helplessly becoming a hot, fit male body.

please please please see a doctor, losing weight this fast and this easily is concerning. 

I mean don’t for a second think I understand this as just how things are, I have the explicit understanding that this is the effect of a complex and mysterious disease, but I might as well appreciate it

I really cannot emphasize enough how this works like a reverse feederism thing, every day I wake up and run my hands over my belly and appreciate how not big it’s getting.

“Ew you’re making it sound sexual"– bitch it’s definitely sexual, since the personality change left me bisexual, "a hot, fit male body” is a major turn-on and object of desire and I am experiencing a transformation where I am gradually, helplessly becoming a hot, fit male body.

The fat is now just held taut under the skin, the only place it’s even grabbable anymore is like the inner thigh sitting down or the lower edge of the belly from 8 to 4 o'clock positions, and really 7:30 to 4:30

kaziusklasterzoroaster:

kontextmaschine:

As I lose weight every stage I reach I was once at on the way up. Well, in a little I’ll be before puberty, that’ll throw me. Only that was more gradual, so that every month I could feel essentially the same as last month where now I can run my hands over my body and between the feel of my body under my hand and the feel of my hand through my body it feels noticeably different not only day to day but from morning to night to next morning.

bruh, are you dying or something?

I have some Long Covid thing that disrupts my anaerobic generation of energy from blood sugar. Creatine is what enables anaerobic generation from fat stores, and I find by taking supplements (beyond the body’s natural production) to boost anaerobic I can get through the day at normal energy levels, but the cost is I’m burning fat rapidly.

This started with my second Covid case; onset of the issues was so sudden I went from normal to as if weighted by at least a 100lb weighted blanket in 30 mins, I ended up having to take 8 scoops of creatine a day to enable enough energy to return to normal, which gradually sloped off over months.

This is currently an “echo” brought on by my most recent case, I started with 3 scoops/day and requirements are decreasing, but on track for the same total duration as before.

I am a little concerned (which is intellectual, I don’t do visceral worry anymore) if this keeps recurring whether I’ll have enough in the tank to keep doing this: I’m still visibly overweight, but if this episode tapered on the same schedule as the first, then I immediately had another one that matched the second, I think I would then be at around “normal” weight.

If it happened immediately again I could probably tank it and come out marathoner-emaciated, but at that point I don’t think I could further repeat.

So, as is I’m still overweight but I’m starting to eat a more indulgent diet – sure, whole milk, throw another stick of butter in the sauce, I’ll lose weight anyway.

Of course who knows if it repeats again, or if further cases are even milder, maybe increasing anaerobic demands within the limits of natural creatine levels. I wouldn’t be shocked if that sort of thing (you were sick with something petty last October, and in consequence you now weigh a pound less than you would otherwise) was within the range of what the previously circulating human coronaviruses have been doing all along

As I lose weight every stage I reach I was once at on the way up. Well, in a little I’ll be before puberty, that’ll throw me. Only that was more gradual, so that every month I could feel essentially the same as last month where now I can run my hands over my body and between the feel of my body under my hand and the feel of my hand through my body it feels noticeably different not only day to day but from morning to night to next morning.

At this point I’m fine with just 2 scoops of creatine every day as long as I’m not swinging a sledgehammer or anything (previously I had been alternating 2- and 3-scoop days). So that is clearing up but it only seems to be doing so on the same slow schedule as the first case the energy stuff showed up with, though with lower “slope”, as this episode started 3 shots in the hole vs. the previous’ 8.

The underlying issue still seems to be a difficulty in aerobic energy generation, I do wonder what the relationship is to reports associating long covid to diabetes, but last time this worked fine and eventually cleared with no needles, only weight loss, so riding this one out

So as I lost weight first it went from feeling that I was fat to that I had fat, trapped between my skin and my body proper, now I’m noticing that at the edges of the belly that’s already tautening to the point that it feels like the skin and fat are together a gym mat-type layer of padding coating the body

As my belly shrinks the stretch marks have disappeared replaced by fresh skin at least on the segment of it I can see looking straight down such that it looks round, partially furred, pink and blemished in a way that reminds me of the top of my mom’s (late) dad’s head

The thing about my body is I’m coming at this from like the reverse of an anorexic body dysmorphia, I’m so used to my body existing in one configuration, weight loss that leaves me objectively overweight gets me like “so thin”

As I continue to lose weight my belly now doesn’t feel at all like a bowl full of jelly, it feels like a pod full of peas: discrete, somewhat firm masses under the surface

No, actually I got afflicted with a Long Covid effect that limits my ability to generate energy aerobically, from blood sugar, so instead I take creatine to buff up my ability to generate energy anaerobically, but that’s definitionally burning fat.