ex150ish Stable State: Ketosis Wow!

Weight loss schmeight loss. This just got interesting!

07/06/23 96.8

06/06/23 97.1

05/06/23 97

04/06/23 98.2

03/06/23 98.2

02/06/23 97.5

01/06/23 97.4

So I managed to stay in ketosis for nearly two weeks. Over this last week I think I saw some pretty definite actual weight loss, maybe around 0.6 kg?, presumably actually fat or muscle burning away.

But suddenly I'm not so interested in weight loss per se

I'm completely derailed and nerd-sniped by the feeling of ketosis itself.

I've got suddenly limitless energy.

This is almost how I used to feel, back when I would have described myself as well.

The feeling that I might suddenly get tired, or that before doing something I should make sure that I'm properly rested and prepared, that I've had on and off since I was about forty, is quite gone.

I feel like the famous Duracell Bunny. Nothing slows me down or tires me.

For ten years I've been a Spoonie. Now I have as many spoons as I like.

Conversation, walking, playing chess, cycling, none of this is remotely tiring any more. Once you do one thing, on to the next.

I remember that I'm extremely extroverted. When I finish talking to people I feel energized, and my first thought is that now I need more people to talk to.

Friends agree. I'm back to my old self, before it all went wrong.

But it feels thin, somehow.

I don't feel like I've got extra power in reserve. I could handle a long slow rowing outing in this state, I think, but I wouldn't want to do a Regatta.

I remember this feeling!

This "ketosis" is the post Boston Marathon, post cycle to Oxford feeling.

When you've burnt all your carbs and are running on the emergency back-up fat burning system. (doh!)

You can keep going indefinitely, but you can't go fast. To go fast you need to find sugar or glucose bars or something like that.

I was never a runner, but I think this is what runners call "The Wall".

What I would once have called 'physical exhaustion', is now better than my normal state.

And another funny thing:

On Monday I sat outside the pub playing chess with friends, and talking and drinking coffee all the while. Endless energy.

And then suddenly at around seven o'clock my brain stopped working.

I don't expect many readers to be chess players, but there's two different mental processes going on when you play chess.

There's the system-one, effortless pattern-recognition thing, where the good moves just jump out at you and you couldn't not see them if you tried. Like you can't not see when someone is angry. This is the bit that gets better with practice.

And there's the system-two, slow deliberate thinking where you imagine the consequences of your moves, and what your opponent might do in reply. Like trying to do a maths problem. You need to expend mental effort.

And system-two just stopped working.

So I'm still playing on pattern-recognition, and actually not playing badly, but the ability to think about what I was doing had just ceased to be.

Mental Exhaustion, but I didn't feel tired.

I gave up at that point, said goodbye to everyone, and cycled over to my office.

And I could cycle at speed, but I couldn't think straight.

Every time I had to cross the road or go on the road, I noticed that I wasn't doing it right. This is dangerous, there are cars! I'm too tired to do this right. I feel drunk.

But every time I'm cycling on a path, no cars around, I'm fine. Whizz!

Mental Exhaustion but not Physical Exhaustion.

I've never felt anything like that before. I didn't even really think of them as different things until I felt one without the other.

And that state lasted a whole day.

The following evening, I suddenly felt my mind come back.

I was playing chess again. The first game was a write-off. I just couldn't think at all, and had resigned myself to an evening of getting slaughtered by patzers, and then the next game suddenly I'm sharp again and playing properly.

Back to Infinite Bounce!

This is Weird.

I want to be wary of jumping to conclusions here, but thoughts about running on two different types of fuel, and being able to run out of one without running out of the other immediately suggest themselves here.

And maybe more importantly from my point of view, is this decade of tiredness I've had because my usual glucose-burning metabolism is broken, but the emergency-back up system is still working fine?