Krebs Your Enthusiasm

If you remember anything from high school biology, it’s probably this one sentence, repeated like a mantra until it lost all meaning:

"The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell."

It’s a meme. It’s a cliché. But for a 53-year-old man trying to manage educational policy and compliance by day and complex RPG campaigns by night, it is the single most important reality of my life.

We talk a lot about "energy" in vague terms—feeling "tired" or "wired." But energy isn't a feeling; it's a physical currency.

As a Game Master (GM), I deal in resources. My players have "Hit Points", "Spell Slots", and an "Action Economy". When they run out, they stop functioning.

My body works the exact same way. And my clean keto lifestyle is not just about weight loss; it is a dedicated engineering project to upgrade my internal power plant so I don't run out of "Spell Slots" at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday.

Here is the nerdy, deep-dive science into why my cells—and my game—are running better than ever.

Part 1: The Currency (ATP)

Let’s strip away the abstraction. Your body runs on a molecule called ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate).

ATP is the literal coin of the realm. Every time your heart beats, every time you flex a muscle during calisthenics, and every time you improvise a line of dialogue for an NPC, you are "spending" ATP.

Your mitochondria are the generators that print this money. They take fuel (glucose or fatty acids/ketones) and oxygen, and through the magic of the Krebs Cycle, they churn out ATP.

The Problem: As we age, and especially as we live a high-sugar, high-stress lifestyle, these generators get rusty. They become inefficient. They print less money for the same amount of fuel.

This is the biological definition of "getting old" and "feeling tired."

Part 2: The "Dirty" Generator (Sugar & Damage)

For years, I was fueling my generators with glucose (carbs) and inflammatory oils.

The "Dirty Exhaust": Burning glucose for fuel is relatively inefficient. It creates a lot of "exhaust" in the form of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) or "free radicals".
The Damage: These free radicals bounce around inside the cell, damaging the mitochondria themselves. It’s like running a generator with bad ventilation; eventually, the smoke chokes the engine.
The Decline: Over decades of this "dirty burn," the number of functional mitochondria in your cells drops. You simply have fewer power plants online.

This is why, in my 40s, a 4-hour gaming session would leave me absolutely wiped out. I was running a high-demand application on a system with failing power supplies.

Part 3: The Upgrade (Mitochondrial Biogenesis)

This is the coolest part of the science behind my clean keto lifestyle.

My protocol—Ketosis + Intermittent Fasting—doesn't just clean the engine; it builds new ones.

1. Ketones: The "Clean" Fuel

As I discussed in "The Tale of Two Engines," I now run on ketones. Ketones are a "clean-burning" fuel. They generate significantly fewer free radicals (less exhaust) than glucose while producing more ATP per molecule of oxygen.

The Result: My existing engines run cooler and more efficiently.

2. Fasting: The "Upgrade" Signal (Biogenesis)

This is the game-changer. When I am deep in my 22-hour fast, my body senses an energy stress. It realizes it needs to become more efficient to survive.

PGC-1α Is a Master Regulator of Mitochondrial Lifecycle and ROS Stress Response

The Signal: This activates a pathway, via a protein called PGC-1α (alpha) that triggers Mitochondrial Biogenesis.
The Result: My cells literally grow new mitochondria. I am physically increasing the number of generators in my cells.

3. Mitophagy: The "Recycling" Program

Simultaneously, the fasting triggers Mitophagy (a form of autophagy). My body identifies the old, "rusty," damaged mitochondria that are spewing out free radicals and recycles them.

The Result: I am replacing old, broken engines with brand-new, high-efficiency models.

Part 4: The "GM" Application

So, what does cellular biology have to do with rolling dice on a Thursday night?

Everything.

GMing is cognitively expensive. It requires:

Memory: Tracking initiative, rules, and story threads.
Creativity: Improvising dialogue and scenarios.
Social Energy: Managing the table dynamic.
Math: Calculating probabilities and damage.

Before my clean keto journey, I would hit a cognitive wall about two hours in. The "brain fog" would roll in. I’d forget rules. I’d lose patience. I’d wrap the session up early because I was mentally spent.

Now? I am often GMing deep in a fasted state. My brain is flooded with clean ketones. My neurons are powered by a dense network of new, healthy mitochondria.

I don't hit the wall. I finish a 4-hour session with the same energy I started with. I am sharper, faster, and more present for my friends.

I realize I'm framing this in as nerdy a way possible, but I'm sure you can see how having this energy helps in all aspects of my life, from work and play to learning and relationships.

The Takeaway

We tend to think of "energy" as something we get from food (like a sugar rush).

I’ve learned that true energy is something you build.

By rejecting the inflammatory foods that damage my cells and embracing the fasting that repairs them, I haven't just lost weight. I have upgraded the hardware. Whether I'm in a compliance meeting or a dungeon crawl, I finally have the power plant to match the demand.

The Path is Too Deep

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