The Potassium Experiment

There it was, lurking in the middle of the night, waiting for the right moment. Imagine sleeping soundly, perhaps even dreaming of low carb cheesecake. Probably the most painful, excruciating calf cramp I EVER had. Within 1/1000 th of a second, I jumped out of bed, not knowing what to do with myself, since both stretching & relaxing my leg caused equally painful cramps again, so the only thing I could was limping around the room, while at the same time trying not to wake up the rest of the house.
With a long history in athletics, I've had my share of cramps, but seriously, these were on another level.

The last one was last week, and was so bad, I couldn't walk normally for about 4 days, and thanks to 400 rope jumps during a WOD, it came back again.
Ok, enough whining, let's get to where these cramps come from!

Muscle cramps can be caused by a few things:

• sudden intense exercise
• dehydration
• lack of potassium

For myself, I ruled out exercise (I was sleeping, after all) and dehydration, since I consume quite a large amount of water each day. Potassium seemed like the logical option. But why would you have a potassium deficiency on a low carb diet?

In the first part of the low carb diet, you glycogen supply will be depleted, and potassium binds with glycogen. Gone glycogen, gone potassium.

Also, if you have "carb up" days, this can cause potassium deficiency. The back and forth switching of high carb/low carb causes the same problem.

At this point it might be a good idea to look into what potassium does in our body. Duh, you might say, well, ok then.

Short version? Potassium is essential for muscle function (oh yes), nerve function, fluid balance in our body and most important, our heart. It also converts glucose into glucogen (hence the low carb issue again)

So where can you get your potassium from?

We all know banana is a good source, but on a low carb diet, that's the last thing you want to eat. Other sources are for example (random order):

• sweet potato
• yogurt
• avocado
• dates
• spinach

Another great resource can be found here. A quick glance sort of gives the impression that the higher carb foods are the ones with the higher potassium amount, but according to livestrong.com there are a few low carb options as well.

So much for the cramps, but whilst doing the research, I encountered another problem I was dealing with for a while already, that could also possibly be linked to potassium; knee pain.

For a while I've been dealing with sore knees, but blaming Crossfit for it, my body was simply adjusting to all the weightlifting. But again on livestrong.com, I found an article regarding this issue. Google a bit more, and you'll find lots of articles related to it as well. Reason why potassium deficiency could be related to joint pain, is that it is an electrolyte that aids in maintaining a strong skeletal structure and smooth muscular contractions.

Either way, I personally feel it's worth experimenting with.

Advised daily amount of potassium is 4700mg for adults.

I will start supplementing within the next few days with 250mg tablets, taking 1-2 tablets a day. Hopefully with positive results! Possible options to supplement with: 

Douglas Labs
Thorne Research
NOW Foods