Magnesium in meat


(Marius the butter craving dude) #1

Being having trouble with sleep lately, I also do intensive exercise on one or max 2 meals a day. The bad sleep and the muscle pain are a problem.
Did some reading and found out magnesium is essential. Yet I see that high magnesium foods are dark chocolate, nuts and avocado. What about meat; I do not like avocados and nuts give me red skin spots. Basically How can I obtain optimal magnesium levels on meat base diet without supplementation ?


(Scott) #2

I eat a fair amount of veggies which should be a good source but have been adding magnesium to my water bottle each time I fill it. It has really helped with leg cramps.


(MooBoom) #3

very interesting, can you elaborate? I’ve noticed a worsening in a similar condition myself, and I eat nuts everyday :thinking:


(Jay Patten) #4

I had this same problem. I was keto for well over a year before I started strength training, which caused a major issue with nocturnal leg cramps.

Yes, sodium, potassium and magnesium are key, however there are other micronutrients that play a role in cellular growth and activity.

My normal dosing of extra salt just wasn’t cutting it any more, so I began supplementing heavily with magnesium and potassium. Unfortunately, this didn’t work either and just upset my stomach. So I started researching cramps…

It turns out that nobody really knows for sure exactly why some people gets nocturnal leg cramps, so some experimentation was necessary.

After reading a lot about micronutrients, I started supplementing my diet with more cruciferous and green leafy vegetables. Guess what happened? The cramps 100% went away.

My theory is that once I started strength training my body began using up micronutrients that had otherwise been available to me when I didn’t work out.

So now I eat lots of brocolli, spinach, cauliflower, asparagus, etc. If I skip the veg, I pay for it later that night.

Beef is in fact a good source of micronutrients, but for me, beef alone won’t cut it. I need those extra vitamins and minerals from the veg.

Now if you are not wanting to eat veg, I would suggest eating organ meat for these micronutrients. I have not tried this personally, but in theory organ meats should provide the same micronutrients as the veg.


#5

I was getting some of those nocturnal foot/leg cramps the last couple of weeks, also. It seemed like I had plenty of foods in my diet that would have or should have helped that issue.
But then it hit me: I had gone OMAD for a while in there, and wasn’t eating the rounds of nuts and veg like I had previously. (Was almost carnivore.) I had decided to cut out nuts- just because I like them way too much, and that usually results in too many carbs.They don’t bother me, except when counting carbs.
Also had run out of my mag and potassium supplements. So it seems there were a few factors involved in the lowered amount of micronutrients.

Last week, I purchased my mag- glycinate and mag-citrate; potassium glycinate, iron complex, etc… Had some brussels sprouts and asparagus over the weekend. Feel like new! No foot/leg cramps whatsoever. In fact, after being on my feet for 10 hours, the feet didn’t even ache.

I’m heading back into the OMAD routine for a few days, so we’ll see how that micronutrient balancing act goes now with supplements.


(Carl Keller) #6

Maybe it’s a magnesium deficiency that’s keeping you awake at night… or maybe it’s stress?

Yesterday I watched a video that @Karim_Wassef posted in another thread. It features a man who had chronic sleep deprivation issues and used a rhythmic pattern exercise to fix his problem. I tried it and it seemed to help me relax pretty quickly but I rarely struggle to fall asleep since I went LCHF.


(Marius the butter craving dude) #7

This sleep issue is new for me. I Think it is because I am overdoing it with harsh training and Omad.
I bought today some cheep magnesium supplements, took 2 tablets of a total of 400 mg of magnesium in form of magnesium carbonate. Not sure if it is the best choice.
Also I was not attentive and the tablets are lemon flavored…with sweeteners and worst still it had starch (amidon) and malic acid.
I have read that there are different absorption values depending on the type of magnesium compound.