What a busy three day weekend! Saturday I went out to breakfast and was gone all afternoon, Sunday was kind of quiet except for dinner at a neighbor's.

Monday I went out to have my haircut, wound up taking a long lunch afterwards because I was where I needed to be for a work function, and wound up dancing for 2 hours!

Also wrote and recorded my latest podcast.

I could not have dreamed of getting so much done, having so much fun, and not being exhausted at the end of the day.

This stuff is working better than I hoped for.

I was very stupid today, drank an additional bunch of coffee and boy do I feel it now.

Hope it wears off soon; my tum is a bit miffed and I don't feel like eating anything.

Supposed to be a bad thing with adrenal issues, she said to her stupid self...

I'm really glad to read that this is working out for you.

I'm actually paying a friend to come over and help me with a bunch of prep cooking of stuff -- mass garlic butter, baked and chopped chicken, a few big 3x batches of Lipo C -- so that I will have everything I need to eat well and take my supps without it actually requiring much in the way of energy on my part. When I have it great. When I don't it just spirals downhill.

No matter what DH has got going, getting him to take the stuff (although I'm still fond of the DIY or, if not that, just adding a sunflower lecithin supplement) would probably help. Often has a degree of odd 'overtraining' exhaustion at first with high lecithin as it's replacing nerve sheaths but once that's done it would probably help with anything.

I've been planning (and failed so it's still a plan) to do a 10g per day (ascorbic; that's 30g per day lecithin for the DIY version) for a month trial. I'm trying to plan out a menu so maybe I can do it fully well.

PJ

I hear you... and I don't have a kid and additional health issues. If you could make this a steady thing it would be so great for you!

That great deal of effort just to stay in the same place is so discouraging. I know well that feeling that "the tank is empty."

No more coffee for a while. It definitely made me jangly last night and I have to come home and finish the podcast edits.

Woke up at three and back to sleep at five again but I'm blaming the coffee.

Did too much.

Busy weekend, then running around in below zero cold, too much coffee, and this afternoon I had to leave work early because I'd been staring at the same paragraph for 20 minutes.

Scratchy throat and achey, but came home, ate (skillet Reuben!), took a nap and feel somewhat better. But I had that "tank is empty" feeling and so I'm not doing anything else this evening.

Obviously, still no reserves built up.

Two screwups this week: doing waaaaaay too much, and ramping up my consumption to 5 packets a day without ramping up my order schedule.

No biggie in either case. I am determined to take it easy this weekend, and it helps that I have NO appointments, whether work or play, which will interfere with that. Stocked up the fridge yesterday, finished my podcast, downloaded a few cheap books (BookBub is awesome for that folks!) and intend to catch up on Sherlock.

I'll pace out my Lipo C and do more of the tablets; taking 7 grams with each meal is working for me so far. We'll check what, in Vitamin C circles, is known as bowel tolerance, shall we?

If I normally take 1 gram of Lipo C with high absorption, taking 7 grams of tablet C with 10-20% absorption would work about maybe the same? Can't hurt. I'm convinced of that... which is how I ramped up to 5 grams a day of Lipo C in the first place.

This is a long-term process. It's been going on at this level for two years, (and probably the groundwork was laid long before that) so I'm cool with any progress.

Must not forget the lecithin, either.

Just took a whopping spoonful washed down with a glass of my cold-brewed herbal tea -- easy peasy!

Dry gelatin now, that takes a bit of finesse. Good right before a meal so the food can help scrape off the clingy bits.

Yes. It was the coffee. Since giving it up, I sleep straight through.

And I found out how much tablet C gives me the first bit of gastric distress. Backing off a bit today.

Today, I'm not taking any Lipo C, because my only remaining packets are at work, and I'm working from home today. Those I've got left should get me through the next two days, when my shipment is supposed to arrive.

Big doses with a meal did not work as well as small doses spaced further out. As an experiment, I am taking one, 1g capsule, at half hour or so intervals, until I get some "indications" that I'm reaching the Whoa-Nellie stage.

Able to not push it to the point of diarrhea, so far. Glad to have the packets which do not have this problem.

But every long term strategy needs a Plan B.

Here's a fascinating tidbit.

I have worked my way up to taking 5 packets, of 1 gram each of Liposomal C, a day. (I have to take in more than my daily requirement if I'm going to fill those empty tanks. And I don't even know what my daily requirement is. Far more than the RDA, that's for certain.) This seemed to put me on the road to recovery. Until I started feeling so well I overdid things, of course.

But it's still a good plan.

After some experimenting to make my packets last after I miscalculated my ordering/shipping, I was up and busy with my work at home day. So I was taking 1 gram tablets of regular C, which has markedly less absorption; around 10-20%. Compared to the Liposomal, which is supposed to be 80-90%.

I found that when I take one tablet every half hour I avoid gastric upsets. So, from 9 AM to 9 PM I'll be doing that. That's 24 tablets, which at 20% absorption would work out to 4.8 grams today.

Which is my target dose and I'm pleased about that. But this is rarely going to work. It must remain an emergency procedure. It seems to work because I lasted most of my work day before I felt the "tires going flat" and needing that much more effort to finish any task.

Tomorrow will be a full day (work plus errands!) and so I'll take what I need to so I can get through it.

Hard to figure out how to do this, with tablets, on a normal basis, though. But put a baggie in your pocket and keep liquids handy, it's a much cheaper option. $42 a month based on prices from my local Rite Aid drugstore. Even cheaper mail-order!

And if this were my only option... I'd do it.

Well, it was a fun experiment. But tablets, no matter how frequently taken, do not seem to be an adequate substitute. I got worn out and unable to concentrate yesterday by mid-afternoon, and all I did, physically, was sit on the couch.

While today (fueled by Lipo C) I was running around taking pictures and jumping out of my chair to help people coming into the office and did groceries on my lunch hour and up and down the stairs over and over, here and at work. I'm more alert now than I was yesterday at this time.

I also had trouble getting to sleep, woke up too early and had trouble getting back to sleep. Fortunately, my new package came, so I'm back in business.

Funny thing; I wasn't triggering gastric upsets that say "you have reached your limit." Not... quite. So I was thinking I was getting enough. But it didn't feel that way.

That's because Lipo C bypasses the digestive system and goes right to the cells while the tablets don't.

I can FEEL how right you are!

Back in business yesterday evening, and I'm ordering ahead. I hope not to need to stay at this level very long, but whatever it takes. I have a demanding new job, my own obsessive hobby I'm trying to turn into a business, and oh yes, a LIFE that I'd like to enjoy.

Also, liposomal C has lecithin in it. Good, good fat. Builds neurotransmitters in the brain, good for the heart, and so forth. So that's a bonus.