Could Someone Give me Advice on Balancing Electrolytes on Keto?

(Robert) #1

Hello there,

I am new to the ketogenic lifestyle and have been following the diet for about two months now. While I am seeing some positive changes and weight loss; I have started experiencing some issues with my energy levels and occasional muscle cramps. After doing a bit of research; I think I might be dealing with electrolyte imbalances.

I understand that on a ketogenic diet; our bodies excrete more water and; consequently; more electrolytes like sodium; potassium; and magnesium. I have tried to increase my intake of electrolytes through food and supplements; but I am not sure if I am doing it correctly or if I am missing something crucial.

Adding a bit of salt to my meals and drinking electrolyte-enhanced water.
Eating avocados and leafy greens regularly.
Taking a magnesium supplement daily.

Although; I am still not sure if this is enough or if there is a more balanced approach. Are there any specific brands or types of supplements you could recommend?:thinking:

Also, I have gone through this post; https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/potassium-how-much-and-how-exactly-mlops/ which definitely helped me out a lot.

How do you determine the right dosage for each electrolyte? Also; are there any particular signs or symptoms I should watch out for that might indicate an imbalance?:thinking:

Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.:innocent:

(Bob M) #2

I haven’t been able to figure it out. Seems like I can go a while without magnesium, but at some point, I’ll get cramps. The best supplement for me is some magnesium pills periodically and LMNT (sodium, potassium, + magnesium) at least sometimes. And I add salt to my morning coffee, and salt all my food.

(Joey) #3

@roberrrttt1 Along with @ctviggen’s comment above, I doubt anyone has ever quite figured out the “ideal” electrolyte dosage since (1) our individual needs are all different and (2) those individual needs change over time.

Having said that, muscle cramps are a pretty good indication that electrolytes are low … in particular, you likely need more magnesium than you’re getting.

Gross-out warning: The worst that can happen if you really overdo Mg is that you’ll have looser stools for a day or so. In fact, super high doses of over-the-counter Mg are what makes for a good colonoscopy prep. It won’t really harm you, but you’ll be running to the bathroom a lot. That’s way beyond what we’re talking about here.

Potassium, on the other hand, is an element that can be overdone, from what I understand. And so, if I were self-experimenting with getting the right electrolyte dosage to meet my current needs (again, these change over time based on all kinds of factors including hydration, exercise, temperature and humidity, season, diet, sleep…) I would focus on NaCl (table salt) and Mg (for me, that’s magnesium citrate powder) both of which I simply add to my daily water bottle.

Let us know how things turn out for you. :vulcan_salute:

BTW, Gatorade is essentially dissolved salt, magnesium, & potassium with added sweetener of one kind or another. Except for the sweetener - which does not quench thirst but is inclined to make you want to drink more of their product - those are the same electrolytes needed for proper re-hydration. Make your own, without the sweetener. :wink:

(Edith) #4

Do you know how much salt you are taking in each day? Especially in the early days of keto, your sodium need is much higher than you realize. This also depends upon your activity level and time of year, but you need approximately 5 grams of sodium a day which is about 2 teaspoons of salt. Sodium also helps keep the other electrolytes in balance.

If I don’t get enough salt, I get muscle cramps, my blood pressure drops a little too low (makes me feel a little woozy), and I am prone to heart palpitations. Cramps in my feet are usually the first sign.

#5

It’s very individual. I eat my one teaspoon of salt and that’s it while most people need more.
I have very rare, very subtle cramps (not real pain and it lasts for a few seconds once in a blue moon), I eat some magnesium then, once. While others have it way more badly without frequent supplements. I get little magnesium from my food on any diet and it actually was a problem on vegetarian keto. No problem with more carbs and the mentioned almost nothing when I eat much meat (not very much, maybe a pound a day). IDK why… But meat is useful for me anyway (in lowering plant carbs but maybe all the nutrients in it help more than my vegetarian options) so I will keep depending on it.

Sodium is the most important one so make sure you get enough. Even I will try to eat more somehow as I keep hearing about how great that is… So I will go a tad higher than natural to me. My tastes keep me at 1 teaspoon salt (I only sometimes track it but I always get that amount then) so I must eat a bit more separately and hope it won’t immediately reduce the salt content of my food. If I overdo sodium, it happens but that’s good, this way I can’t overdo it longer term. That felt awful when I did out of necessity, I quickly developed salt aversion and stopped adding salt to my food, the unavoidable amount was already much. But it seems it’s not a problem for most people.

(Cathy) #6

I am of the opinion that the advice to drink a ton of water is not really good.

Use a good quality salt (not super refined), take a magnesium supplement daily and eat foods high in potassium a few times a week and there should be no problem.

People tend to suffer from electrolyte imbalance in the initial stages of becoming ketogenic because of the natural diuretic nature of this way of eating. The best solution in my opinion is to consume broth (I like homemade chicken broth). Along with the above noted suggestions, all should be well.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

A temporary energy loss is to be expected during the adaptation to a ketogenic diet. The skeletal muscles are limping along on ketones, because their fat-metabolising pathways have been deactivated from mitochondrial damage and lack of use. It takes about six to eight weeks (in most people), but endurance returns to pre-keto levels, or higher.

As for cramps, start by keeping your sodium intake within the range of 4-6 g/day. This translates to a salt (sodium chloride) intake of 10-15 g/day, including sodium chloride already present in food. The U.S. government RDA is woefully, even dangerously low, so ignore it. The symptoms of low sodium intake include headache and constipation, the symptoms of excessive intake include diarrhoea or similar digestive problems. If salt starts tasting bad, you are definitely getting far too much.

Our salt intake is the most easily manipulated, because the importance of salt in the diet has been known for several thousand years, and so society is set up to make getting enough salt an easy task. The advantage to sodium intake in the sweet spot is that it helps the body regulate calcium, magnesium, and potassium, as well.

Getting your salt intake right may well obviate the need to supplement your intake of the other three minerals, but it may not. Magnesium and potassium, especially the former, are implicated in muscle cramps. So if regulating salt does not do away with the cramping, try a magnesium supplement (be careful, since too much at once can cause major diarrhoea) or bathing in Epsom salts (since magnesium can also be absorbed through the skin). Note also that there is a magnesium atom at the heart of every molecule of chlorophyll.

Be cautious with supplementing potassium, since both hypokalaemia (too little) and hyperkalaemia (too much) have been known to be fatal. Dr. Stephen Phinney, one of the premier researchers into the ketogenic diet, recommends using a “lo salt” salt substitute that is half sodium chloride and half potassium chloride. Using that as your table salt will likely take care of any potassium deficiency in a safe manner.

#8

How bad the diuretic effect of keto gets you is individual, most people are pretty much under, or near dehydrated half (or all) the time and were long before keto. All you can do is play with it. I drink a True Nutrition electrolyte drink every morning when I wake up. Same breakdown as LMNT, half the price, and tastes better. Also how active you are, whether all plays a HUGE role there. Today it was 106 out (actual) and I spent most of the day outside, I drank a LOT! But I usually shoot for a gallon a day normally.

#9

I’ve always heard this about potassium too, but I don’t think it’s easy to overdose when on the Keto diet.

My doctor constantly told me potassium supplementation was unnecessary because we get more than we need through our diets. So I put it to a test:

I spent 6 weeks when I first was starting Keto and I tediously but faithfully tracked every speck of food that went into my mouth, and every single supplement, (since a couple had small amounts of potassium like my multi vitamin.) I was eating healthy Keto, and even included a lot of avocados and spinach. At the end of the 6 weeks my average potassium from everything was less than 800mg per day! I only had 3 days where it was around 1500mg. It never went higher. RDA is 3500mg. There is no way I can get close to overdosing on potassium. I can’t imagine how much spinach or avocados one must eat in a single day to even get near an OD range.

If we are supposed to get 2500-3500mg potassium per day, we are not getting anywhere near it from our diet. So can you see how a measily 100mg potassium supplement is like throwing a thimble of water onto a campfire? It does nothing really. (They limit potassium supplements to 99mg.)

If you look at a potassium chart for foods, you’ll see the highest potassium foods are bananas, cantaloupe, figs, mangos, etc. all foods not Keto friendly anyway. Bananas contain over 400mg per banana, so I guess if you ate 6-8 every day you could start to get to the OD range when combined with everything else. Otherwise I just don’t understand the stringent limitations on potassium. I understand too high is definitely life threatening, but as with all things the medical field overcorrects to the opposite extreme, so much so we are all walking around potassium deficient.

So for me, I needed a way to get closer to the RDA, not exact but at the very least ensure I was getting 1500-2000mg every day. That’s why I chose to use Dr Berg’s electrolytes. His was the only one that contained 1,000mg potassium. I’ve used it for over 2 straight years.

(KM) #10

I think the struggle is between how hard it is to get enough, but on the other hand how easy it can be to overdose if not depending on food alone, if you are, as people looking to supplement often are, only considering the bottom limit. I have a kilogram of potassium chloride in the closet - if I were just cheerfully assuming the more the better, a 5000 mg overdose would be pretty easy to do

(Central Florida Bob ) #11

FWIW, my travels down this road have centered mostly on magnesium and more potassium. I’ve never particularly craved plain old salt flavoring on my foods, but lately have found I like it more.

After having days with heart palpitations enough to be scary, I found that the magnesium really seems to keep those in check. Either that or it’s just coincidence, that whenever the weird sensations happened and I increased my magnesium the weird sensations haven’t come back.

I take the Magnesium Lycinate Glycinate, 100 mg caplets, two at around mid day and three after dinner. The bottle recommends four per day, while I’ve been taking five since the last time I noticed having the palpitations more in a few months than I thought was normal. That switch was in early April. At one point, I tried a different brand that just said Magnesium Glycinate instead of Lycinate Glycinate and the replacement gave me “the Big D” (explosive diarrhea) Every Single Day until I bought a replacement bottle of the Lycinate Glycinate.

In addition, usually once a day, sometimes twice, I mix 1/4 teaspoon of Real Salt with 1/4 teaspoon of potassium chloride. I’ve done the second glass more often while doing a 36 hour fast than eating my typical TMAD.

I don’t remember the last time I had a muscle cramp (usually in bed) but maybe once in the last month?

And by the way, to @Just_Juju, when I read this:

I have to bow to you in respect and even envy. I’m somewhat of an OCD freak for playing with numbers and I’ve never done anything of that level.

#12

Yeah it was tedious. But … I did use Carb Manager and I created individual “foods” for each vitamin I take so their labeled amounts would be accurate in their database, Then I created a “recipe” for AM vitamins and PM vitamins to add what ones I took and how much. While the upfront was an all-day project to set up, it made it easier for me to track the vitamins since I take the same things each morning and night for over two years.

The most tedious was making sure I had accurate entries for everything I ate. I had to manually create a lot to do it. I got pretty close with most of it because I’m OCD that way too :rofl: so I’m sure my final ballpark average numbers weren’t too far off.