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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   2003 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for February 12, 2025

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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@Magusoflight, you asked me to shoot you an update if I figured out what's up with my sports/sleep issue I posted about a month ago if I have any progress.

I don't think I fully figured it out yet because I still have to restart my proper exercise routine, but I had a couple of promising weeks. The first lead I wanted to hone in on was potassium deficiency because it's the simplest thing to do and I realized I don't have a enough potassium in my diet (tracking micronutrients via Macrofactor). My main side was rice and sometimes I cooked some sort of pasta. I rarely cooked potatoes. I did three things:

  • For half of my meals I replaced rice side with potatoes.
  • Added drinking 2-3 glasses of orange juice per day.
  • Replaced pineapple as my main dessert after dinner with 1 banana. Not everyday, maybe 3-4 times a week.

Early results for now:

  • My sleep is deeper. Usually I need earplugs to make sure cats do not wake me up in the middle of the night and now I just don't need them. Most of the days I close my eyes and then open them in the morning.
  • Much simpler for me to wake up. Seems like I don't even need coffee to feel like a human, I feel fine as soon as I open my eyes. Previously I needed like 1-2 hours to feel like a human being.

I'll keep you updated - planning to restart my workout routine this weekend and test whether increased potassium still holds up.

P.S. Thank you for everyone's suggestions on my last post!

Out of curiosity I asked deepthink about your situation and it also suggested electrolyte imbalance, although with about ten other things to investigate. Maybe that's a better medical advice LLM than Claude.

Claude Sonnet also hypothesized electrolytes, FWIW. I guess real human advice of “ Just drinking vague electrolytes is not enough, you have to consciously track micronutrients and it seems like you lack potassium specifically” was more impactful.

Glad your getting better sleep. It could still be a bunch of things, as getting better sleep is just a virtuous feedback cycle on its own.

I'm still going going to count this a win for the Wisdom of the Motte over Claude. Maybe we still have a purpose.

I'm also still baffled by the minuscule amounts of potassium in typical sports drinks and daily multivitamins. People think they are fully covered by supplementation, but the most popular sports drinks and daily multivitamins cover like 2% of adequate intake per serving. It's not even like potassium is expensive.

Thanks for your update! Glad to hear your making some progress

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