Focus:
On learning why we use the tools we use.
Repetition:
I will only gain wisdom by exploring the ‘why’ in my health journey.
Ketosis, Glycolysis, Lactic Acid, and Metabolic Healing
This week we are going to look at why the body switches fuels, what goes wrong in chronic illness, and why ketosis is a repair state and not just a diet.
I also want to clear up a big point of confusion. Ketosis is not acidosis, and most chronically ill people are not really “fat burners” or “glucose burners”; they are stuck in stress-driven lactic acid metabolism.
This week is foundational, and once you understand it, everything else in ARP will make more sense.
The Ancestral View of Metabolism
We were never designed to run on one fuel all the time. Our metabolism is meant to be flexible and seasonal, responding to our environment, stress, illness, and whatever food was available.
For our ancestors, food was not constant, carbs came with the seasons, illness, fasting, and scarcity were normal, and healing required the body to shift fuels. The modern world takes those signals away and gives us constant food, constant stress, artificial light, and chronic inflammation, and the body gets stuck in fuel states that no longer serve it.
The Four Metabolic States
The body uses four connected systems, and problems begin when one of them stays in charge for too long.
1. Glycolysis (Burning Glucose)
Glycolysis breaks down glucose for energy. It is fast and useful in short bursts, like sprinting, fighting or fleeing, sudden danger, short effort, and growth and reproduction when food was plentiful.
Glucose is broken down into pyruvate, and if our oxygen delivery, minerals, and mitochondria are healthy, the pyruvate goes into the mitochondria and is burned efficiently. Used briefly, this system serves us. Used constantly, it becomes inflammatory.
2. The Lactic Acid System (Stress Metabolism)
When glycolysis runs faster than the mitochondria can keep up, pyruvate is turned into lactate, or lactic acid, so glycolysis can keep going. This system is for survival: escaping danger, short periods without enough oxygen, acute infection, and short-term stress. It was never meant to be chronic.
Chronic Lactic Acid Dominance and Functional Acidosis
Most chronically ill people are stuck in lactic acid metabolism, and this creates functional acidosis. Functional acidosis does not always show up as abnormal blood pH. Instead, the tissues, muscles, fascia, nerves, and the spaces between cells become acidic.
It can look like fatigue, muscle pain or heaviness, air hunger, anxiety or panic, poor exercise tolerance, cold hands and feet, burning sensations, poor sleep, and chemical sensitivity.
This state shuts down the mitochondria, makes us lose more minerals, turns on stress hormones, favours pathogens, and keeps the nervous system in fight or flight. So many people believe they are “failing at ketosis” when really they are stuck in lactic acid dominance.
3. Glycogen (The Bridge)
Glycogen is glucose stored in the liver and muscles, and it keeps us steady between meals and while we sleep. Running out of glycogen is not dangerous; it is the signal to switch over to burning fat. In modern illness that switch often feels terrible, not because it is wrong, but because pathogens and stress hormones get in the way.
4. Ketosis (Burning Fat)
Ketosis happens when insulin is low enough for fat to be released and turned into ketones by the liver. Ketones are not just fuel; they are also messengers. Ketosis burns clean, needs less oxygen for the same energy, calms the neurons, lowers inflammation, makes the mitochondria more efficient, and signals the body to repair and balance the immune system. Ketosis is anti-stress metabolism.
Ketosis Is Not Acidosis
This is one of the most misunderstood topics in health today.
Lactic acidosis is driven by stress, it builds up, it causes harm when it is chronic, it goes with pain, panic, and inflammation, and it tells us the mitochondria are failing.
Ketosis is driven by repair; it is buffered and efficient, it calms the nervous system and inflammation, and it supports the mitochondria.
Ketones are weak acids that the body uses and buffers well. Lactic acid builds up when our systems are overwhelmed.
Why Ketosis Helps Chronic and Serious Illness
Most people coming into ARP have some mix of blood sugar swings, insulin problems, chronic inflammation, pathogens, low minerals, a dysregulated nervous system, and struggling mitochondria.
Ketosis addresses all of them at once. It lowers insulin, smooths out glucose swings, pulls the body out of lactic acid dominance, uses oxygen better, calms the immune system, and takes fuel away from pathogens.
This is why neurological, autoimmune, infectious, and degenerative conditions so often respond to ketosis. Not because ketosis is extreme, but because it restores a healing terrain.
How Pathogens Get in the Way
Pathogens do not just sit quietly in the body; they actively manipulate our metabolism. They raise inflammatory cytokines, which causes insulin resistance. They stir up cortisol and adrenaline, which raise blood sugar. They damage the mucosa, which releases sugars. They weaken the mitochondria, forcing lactic acid metabolism, and create low oxygen in the tissues, which favours fermentation. And they trigger cravings and panic when carbs drop.
All of this keeps us dependent on glucose and stuck in stress metabolism. If someone “cannot get into ketosis,” it is often because something inside them is fighting it.
Electrolytes, Minerals, and the Transition
When insulin drops, the kidneys release sodium. This is normal, but most of us are already low in minerals. Low sodium and minerals lead to dizziness, fatigue, palpitations, anxiety, more lactic acid, and adrenaline spikes.
Electrolytes are not optional in metabolic healing. They help our nerves fire, support blood volume, lower stress hormones, support the enzymes in our mitochondria, and improve oxygen delivery.
Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) and Buffering
Many chronically ill people do not buffer acids well. As metabolism shifts, organic acids rise, lactic acid may already be high, and making ketones can feel uncomfortable.
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda gives the body bicarbonate, which helps buffer acids, lowers the lactic acid burden, improves oxygen delivery, calms twitchy nerves and muscles, and helps the body handle the change.
It does not stop ketosis. It helps you move out of harmful acidosis.
Our ancestors got bicarbonate from mineral water, contact with soil, ash, and wild foods, and most of us get almost none of these today.
Bringing It Together
This week is not about forcing ketosis. It is about understanding our fuel states, recognising stress metabolism, taking away the pathogens’ advantage, supporting our minerals and buffering, and creating enough safety for our metabolism to become flexible again.
Healing does not happen through willpower. It happens when the inside of the body becomes an unfriendly place for disease and a welcoming place for repair.
Ketosis is one of the most powerful ancestral tools we have for doing exactly that.