CASH GAP The economy of your body\ and why you run out of energy by lunchtime Valentin Rindunica CASH GAP A prequel to "Ego-Skeleton" Padova, Italy V.R. * * * Maybe this Valentin --- is you. But first you need to understand the mechanism. Understand the accounting. The gap between knowing and doing --- that's a separate problem. I wrote "Tax on Later" about it. I wrote it for the 2019 version of myself. For the Valentin who knew about neuroscience --- and yelled at his kids. Who explained chronic stress to clients --- and lived in it himself. The body's financial statement. For the person who does everything right --- and still ends up a dead battery by three in the afternoon. Not an academic treatise. Not a diet. Not another system of promises. This book --- is the result of those two years. For the next two years I read everything I could find. Mitochondria. The microbiome. Circadian rhythms. The neuroscience of stress. Not as a scientist --- as a marketer who needs to understand the mechanism in order to change behavior. My own --- and then, maybe, someone else's. * * * The same thing was happening to my body. Marathons. A proper diet. Good sleep. All of it produced energy --- but it burned off on stress, on the endless looping of thoughts, on chronic inflammation I never noticed. Gas on a red light. The engine roars --- the car stays put. I know this term from business. When a company is profitable, but there's no money in the account --- because it all went to operations. The money exists, the money is coming --- but right now the account is empty. I had a cash gap. I wasn't weak-willed. I wasn't lazy. I wasn't doing "something wrong." * * * And suddenly everything fell into place. I read it again. Checked the source. Read it again. And meanwhile, in reserve --- about 250 grams. That's how much ATP --- the molecular currency of life --- the human body produces every single day. My own body weight. In energy. Every single day. 40--70 kilograms. One night --- an ordinary working night, I was reworking a product listing for Amazon --- I stumbled on a number. * * * But behind it all, the same question kept looming. "What's wrong with me?" I blamed the workload. The store --- Larisa and I had opened Valmart Market, a Russian supermarket in Padova, and that's a different rhythm of life. My age. Italy. Anything at all. "What's wrong with me?" --- that question chased me all day. Every day. Not "a little tired." Drained. Like a phone at zero. When you look at a task --- and you can't start. When you want to focus --- and you can't. When you know you have to --- and you still don't. And meanwhile, by three in the afternoon I was a dead battery. I ran. I watched my diet. I didn't drink. I slept on schedule. I read about health. I knew the difference between omega-3 and omega-6. I knew about trans fats, the glycemic index, circadian rhythms. I explained it to clients. I wrote posts about it. 2019. Padova. I was doing everything right --- by any standard I preached myself. * * * And then I ran five marathons. And could barely get out of bed. I thought it was psychology. Patterns. Beliefs. Defense mechanisms. I wrote a whole book about it --- "Ego-Skeleton." Took it apart piece by piece. Explained the mechanics. I thought I knew the answer. I'm a marketer. A crisis specialist. For twenty-five years I've helped companies and people get out of situations where everything goes wrong. I study how decisions get made. Why people do what they don't want to --- and don't do what they want. I'm fifty years old. * * * In place of a preface WHERE THIS CAME FROM INTRODUCTION Why this book was written "Know thyself." --- The Oracle of Delphi You do everything right. You eat right. You go to the gym. You meditate in the morning. You drink two liters of water. You sleep the required eight hours. You follow fifteen health channels. You know the difference between omega-3 and omega-6. You can explain why trans fats are evil. And still, by three in the afternoon you feel like a dead battery. Still anxious. Still caving to sweets at eight in the evening. Still can't focus. Still wake up tired. Still putting off what matters. And you ask yourself that very question: > "What's wrong with me?" I know that question. I asked it of myself for years. As a person who has read hundreds of books about health. As the author of "Ego-Skeleton," in which I dissected the psychological patterns that keep us from living. As someone who went through all of it himself. But the deeper I dove into psychology, the more clearly I understood: something doesn't add up. Why do some people change their habits easily, while others stay stuck for years? Why do the same techniques work for some and are useless for others? Why is willpower sometimes there, and sometimes it's as if someone switched it off? The answer wasn't in the head. The answer was in the accounting. The discovery that changed everything One day I stumbled on a number that wouldn't let me sleep. Every day your body produces between 40 and 70 kilograms of ATP (adenosine triphosphate --- the molecular currency of life). Forty to seventy kilograms. That's roughly your own body weight. In energy. Every day. And yet at any given moment you store... about 250 grams. It's like earning a million a day and keeping a hundred rubles in the account. Every molecule of ATP "lives" one or two minutes, then gets recycled. In a single day one molecule runs through this cycle thousands of times. And here's what matters: unlike money, ATP can't be set aside "for a rainy day." Either you produce enough right now --- or your systems start shutting down. Guess which one shuts down first? The one responsible for willpower. Your body --- is a business Picture your body as a company. Mitochondria --- are the power plants. There are trillions of them in your body, and they produce energy. ATP --- is the corporate currency, the only means of payment every department accepts. Your brain --- is the most expensive department. It takes up 2% of your body mass but consumes 20-25% of all your energy. In children that figure reaches 66%. Sixty-six percent of the entire budget --- on a single organ. Now picture that you --- are the CEO (chief executive officer) of this company. Every decision you make, every thought, every emotion --- is a bill to be paid. Every stress --- is an expense. Every inflammation --- is a leak in the budget. And here's the problem: you're running a company without seeing the books. You don't know how much you spend on anxiety. You don't know how much you burn looping thoughts at three in the morning. You don't know that your gut --- is the HR department (from the English "Human Resources"), deciding which "employees" (bacteria) will work for you, and which --- against you. This book --- is your financial statement. Why "eating right" isn't enough Here's the paradox that tormented me for years. Marina, 45, a nutritionist. A perfect diet by every rule. Chronic depression. The answer? A vitamin D deficiency (she lives at northern latitudes) and low omega-3 levels (she avoided fatty food, believing it harmful). Tryptophan --- the amino acid serotonin is made from --- simply couldn't convert efficiently into the "happiness hormone" without the right cofactors. Her "psychological" problem was a deficiency of two substances. * * * Marina wrote to me a month and a half later. She started taking vitamin D and added fatty fish three times a week. She changed nothing else. > "I was sure I had depression. That I needed a therapist. > That I was just that way --- gloomy." A month and a half later she wrote: "I woke up on Sunday and wanted to go for a walk. On my own. Without effort. I'd already forgotten what it feels like --- to want something." Her "psychiatric" problem turned out to be a deficiency of two molecules. This doesn't mean therapy isn't necessary. It means that without the right biochemistry --- it works at half strength. * * * Alexei, 38, an IT manager. Ran five marathons, watches his diet, doesn't drink. But feels tired all the time. All his tests are normal. The answer? Chronic stress at work plus rumination (the endless looping of thoughts) in the evenings. His mitochondria were "burning fuel on a red light" --- the right diet was being offset by the wrong thoughts. He was doing everything right with food. And everything wrong with his head. Pavel, 29, a programmer. Sleeps eight hours but wakes up wrecked. The answer? A habit of ordering pizza at 11:00 p.m. after work. His gastrointestinal tract was working the "night shift," his glymphatic system (the brain's cleaning system) was blocked, his inflammatory markers were elevated. Eight hours of sleep does not equal quality sleep. The timing of your meals determines the quality of your recovery. The central metaphor of this book Picture this: you're stopped at a red light. The problem in front of you --- is the red light. It doesn't change. You can't move. But instead of waiting --- you floor the gas. Full throttle. The engine roars. The tachometer needle is in the red zone. Fuel is burning. But the car stays put. This is your nervous system in a state of chronic stress. You're burning energy. You're draining resources. You're wearing out the engine. But you're going nowhere. And then you wonder why you have no strength. What you'll find in this book This book --- is a map of your inner economy. In Part 1 we'll break down the energy foundation: what ATP is, how mitochondria work, where your energy leaks away. In Part 2 we'll descend into your "second brain" --- the gut. You'll learn that 90-95% of serotonin is produced there, not in the head. That the 38 trillion bacteria inside you affect your mood, your anxiety, and even what you want to eat. In Part 3 we'll break down fuels and poisons: which foods give energy, and which ones steal it. Why ultra-processed food --- isn't just "empty calories," but an information virus for your cells. In Part 4 we'll meet the chief thief of your energy --- chronic stress. You'll understand how the HPA axis works (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress system), why cortisol turns from friend to enemy, and how thoughts literally burn your fuel. In Part 5

…