cacao is full of magnesium, zinc, iron, stearic acid (hard waxy fat) and theobromine, which is a drug in the same family as caffeine, in fact when you drink coffee, the liver converts 12% of the caffeine into theobromine. it dilates the blood vessels and bronchi in the lungs, so i think it's probably better for exercise than caffeine. it does take longer to absorb though, about 3 hours, because it's very oily.

regular "cacao powder" is actually the waste product of solvent extraction of cacao butter, which is used with milk powder and sugar for white chocolate and then re-mixed with a smaller amount of the cacao powder and shitloads of sugar and powdered milk to make regular milk chocolate.

the best form of it is quite expensive, the raw, roasted beans, but second best is these beans powdered up and melted and pressed into little drops, at least that's the form of it i can get here in portugal that is just cacao. best to read the label carefully, you probably can find a similar product. it contains around 57% fat, iirc, and it's a great source of fats for a keto diet. once you get used to eating the raw chocolate you will never feel the same way again about even dark sweetened chocolate. sugar contaminates it!

btw, another one that is pretty good is maca, though i think that varies a lot. i had a powdered form of maca that seemed really good but a standardised extract i'm taking at the moment doesn't seem to do anything much at all.

oh, i ran out. right now i'm down to zero money and have enough food to get me through to monday, but i'm expecting to get some money by then.

gonna give the walking a bit of a break, i think i'm injuring my knees and the soles of my feet and the bones, and order my milk and chocolate for 2 weeks supply at once when i do get paid...

i really have been going a bit hard on the exercise here. whenever i tell people that i walked, like, 6km up the hill, a full 600m altitude, where there is this nice little place that you cook your own beef chunks on a giant skewer, they are shocked. i know, 6km doesn't sound very far but most of the path is like 20% grade.

i'm doing it because i'm poor, but i also want to be able to walk all the way to the very peak of this island, which is 1800m up, and about 25km from here.

when i was down on flat land, i used to often manage a 50km walk every day for days on end, but the slopes really raise the bar.