Potassium Supplements

The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) is the government’s advice on nutrition and is for food only throughout the day. The government provides a recommendation for potassium intake but doesn’t include potassium in its RDA. It recommends 400 to 4,700 mg of potassium from food throughout the day depending on age.

Some people digestive problems that limit how much they can eat and have to take a supplement of potassium to maintain a healthy potassium level. People who don’t have digestive problems shouldn’t use potassium supplements as a weight loss aid. There are a number of delicious and nutritious foods that are high in potassium and many other foods contain plenty. All of these potassium rich foods work great for losing weight. Why not starve your self, literally, and take potassium and other nutritional supplements? Starvation diets tell your body it’s in a famine environment. So whenever it’s fed, it will store some of the glucose of a meal as fat because it can’t be sure when it will be fed again. Many diets that work require eating 6 small meals a day.

By law, nutritional supplements of potassium cannot be sold in doses larger than 99mg (of elemental potassium). Large doses of potassium, especially when there isn’t a significant potassium deficiency can cause a heart attack, that’s why they’re sold in at most 99mg doses. Potassium citrate and potassium orotate are probably the best forms of potassium supplements.

Prescription potassium is usually potassium chloride. When prescribed by a doctor, potassium chloride is measured in mEq (milliequivalents). One mEq of potassium chloride = 75 milligrams of potassium chloride. Table salt substitutes (i.e. Salt Sense) are usually potassium chloride, and many end up getting too much potassium using salt substitutes, and run to the doctors complaining of heart palpitations.

Many people are sensitive to chloride and even more sensitive to chloride when bonded to sodium and may not even know they’re sensitive to chloride. Sodium chloride is table salt. According to the author of a government study,

“The blood pressure of some individuals is likely to be sensitive to the combination of sodium and chloride in table salt, but in others, blood pressure is probably sensitive to chloride even when it is not combined with sodium.”
Curtis Morris Jr. MD.

The form of potassium in fruits and vegetables is potassium citrate not potassium chloride which explains why fruits and vegetables lower blood pressure and why prescription potassium and table salt substitutes raise blood pressure for many.

(Many people assume salt and sodium are the same thing. Sodium is an element. Chloride is another element. When sodium is bonded to chloride it’s called sodium chloride a.k.a. salt or table salt. Potassium chloride is also a salt and there’s no sodium in potassium chloride. A salt is any metallic mineral bonded to any non metallic mineral. On the periodic table of elements, if you draw a line from boron (B, #5) to polonium (Po, #84), elements left of the line are metallic minerals, right of the line are non metallic minerals. Potassium (K, #19) and Sodium (Na, #11) are on the left side of the line and chloride (Cl, #17) is on the right side.)

Increased Need For Potassium

Heavy labor, weightlifting, extended labor, excessive sweating, alcohol, and food with caffeine (diuretic), like coffee and tea, increase the need for potassium. A drop in blood sugar strains adrenal glands and also causes potassium loss. Sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup, increases potassium needs.

Most weight lifters talk about getting enough protein to build muscle, and many buy protein powder to make protein milk shakes. All that protein is hard on the liver and kidneys. Equally important is that the body can’t build an ounce of muscle without potassium. The RDA for protein is about 50mg. The typical American diet of animal food contains 2-3 times more protein than the RDA for protein. Most people lifting weights eat a lot more than 150grams of protein each day just out of hunger, so there’s no real need for protein shakes. Make the shakes, forget the protein powder, add a banana.

Magnesium and Potassium

Magnesium is a component of over 300 hundred proteins made by the body. Magnesium is needed by cells to retain potassium, so a magnesium deficiency can cause a potassium deficiency. Taking a supplement of magnesium can lower potassium needs because more potassium is being retained and therefore a normal dose of potassium (if taking a nutritional or prescription potassium supplement) may or may not become too much potassium when a magnesium supplement is started.

Food in general doesn’t contain much magnesium - to agree all you have to do is use a food values book to try to create a day of meals you would actually eat that provides the RDA for magnesium.

Magnesium citrate and magnesium orotate are a couple of the best forms of magnesium, but it’s necessary to start at half a capsule (or tablet) every other day before bed - and that amount every other day may (or may not) be all the magnesium needed. Magnesium supplements can be overwhelming at first, putting some to sleep in 20 minutes and others in a sleep-walk like drowsiness if not lying down. As a matter of safety, obviously magnesium should not ever be taken before work. Another reason not to take magnesium before work is that magnesium stretches time - 8 hours of work will feel 12 hours of work. But this stretching of time is one of many reasons why magnesium is great for sleeping well. Magnesium before a movie will wreck a good movie, making it feel like the movie is dragging on and on. Magnesium should always be taken when in for the rest of the night or shortly before bed.

It’s impossible to become addicted to magnesium (or any nutrient) because more magnesium than the optimal for several days will cause deep fatigue. When this happens a three day break from magnesium is needed and then restarting at a lower amount. The first time or two taking magnesium may cause a sudden trip to the bathroom. The optimal amount of magnesium will increase endurance to a healthy level because magnesium is necessary for cells to make ATP (the body’s molecular batteries of energy). It seems silly to say any nutrient is the most important of all nutrients, but magnesium is necessary for absorption and use of several nutrients including thiamin, potassium, and zinc, which needed for absorption and use of B-vitamins and converting beta carotene to vitamin A.

What About Leptin and Overeating

Leptin is a hormone that informs the brain when enough has been eaten. When the brain receives less than a normal amount leptin, it causes hunger. When it receives a higher amount of leptin it turns hunger off. Lack of sleep lowers leptin level. Getting at least 7 hours of sleep a night is needed to keep leptin levels normal. Insomniacs should read the 4 paragraphs before this paragraph.

A 2004 study of 1,024 found that in persons sleeping less than 8 hours, increased BMI was proportional to decreased sleep. The researchers also found that shorter sleep times were associated with increased circulating ghrelin and decreased leptin, a hormonal pattern that is consistent with decreased energy expenditure and increased appetite and obesity.

A genetic error interrupts the leptin information to the brain leaving the conscious brain always hungry. The only time hunger subsides is when the stomach is stuffed.

Sugar and Losing Weight

It’s important to know that the blood stream can hold only 2 teaspoons worth of sugar. A bottle/can of soda on average contains 8 or more teaspoons of sugar. When more sugar is eaten than the blood can handle, the sugar is moved to fat cells and turned into saturated fat, especially fat cells closest to the stomach. When all the fat cells have all the sugar they can hold (which occurs during a sugar surge) and yet there’s more sugar to deal with, insulin signals the body to create more fat cells.

A healthy weight loss diet includes avoiding food products that are made by removing the fat content (”No Fat!”). The fat removed is replaced with carbohydrate substances. According to a PBS Frontline report, weight increase of Americans mirrors the removal of fat from food products, “During the low-fat era of the ’90s, Americans got fatter than ever. By 2001, one third of our population was obese.”

But the rise in obesity (and diabetes) also mirrors food manufacturers’ switch from adding cane sugar to food products to two other forms of sugar called corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup.

Ingredients are listed in descending order of amount, so a product with some form of sugar as the second ingredient has more sugar than a product with sugar as the fourth ingredient, although some products have one form of sugar as the second ingredient and another form of sugar as the fourth ingredient. Even if all obvious sweets (cookies, candy, etc.) are avoided, a significant amount of weight gain comes from unknowingly (or knowingly) eating food products that contain plenty of sugar. Most pasta sauces (in the U.S.) contain plenty of sugar, but pasta sauce is not usually thought of as a sweet. Pasta sauce isn’t a sweet, but manufacturers add so much sugar to pasta sauce that sugar is one of the first seven ingredients in almost all pasta sauces. There is only one solution for this problem; read at least the first 7 ingredients of all food labels and avoid food products that have any form of sugar within these first seven ingredients.

Diet Extremes And Losing Weight

A healthy weight loss diet and diet extremes are opposites. Fat and carbohydrates are necessary nutrients, but there are good fats and bad fats and good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. Diets that avoid or are very low in carbohydrates may help lose weight for several weeks, but when the weight stops coming off the low carbohydrate diet has to continue to keep the lost weight off. Avoiding both fat and carbohydrates and eating mostly protein causes deaths all the time. Very high protein diets cause a build up of nitrogen.

Sweets And Xylitol

While xylitol has a chemical sounding name, it is not regulated by the FDA because it is a food. For humans, xylitol is the best sugar there is. It is absorbed slowly, does not raise blood sugar, helps with ear infections, is just as sweet as table sugar (sucrose), naturally found in the fiber of many fruits and vegetables, commercially derived from corn and birch trees, does not cause dental cavities, and has a net effect of zero calories. If you want your cake and healthy weight loss too, substitute xylitol for sugar when making your own cake (or cookies, or cupcakes, or pies).

Xylitol is DANGEROUS for DOGS, causing seizures and dangerously low blood sugar within 30 minutes. If you decide to use xylitol and have a dog or visiting dog, do not feed the dog food made with xylitol, and keep others from feeding the dog food made with xylitol. You can buy containers of xylitol powder from health food stores and through online shopping search engines.

Too Many Fat Cells - The Hard Truth

When you lose weight, in general, fat cells don’t die off, they become skinnier fat cells. With more fat cells than normal, the only way to get to a normal weight is to have skinnier fat cells than normal. An overweight person has to work to get fat cells skinny because they have so many fat cells. A person who was never overweight doesn’t have a high number of fat cells and therefore doesn’t have to work as much to keep their fat cells at their normal size.

Liposuction

There are a lot of unqualified people with a “certification” (four hour class) for performing liposuction. Prevent a disaster, use a dermatologic surgeon trained and experienced in liposuction with references before having any liposuction surgery.

KIDS

A 6-year-old and his 4-year-old brother are upstairs in their bedroom.

“You know what?” the 6-year-old says, “I think it’s about time we start cussing.” The 4-year-old agrees nodding his head and listens closely.

The six-year-old continues, “When we go downstairs for breakfast, I’m going to say “hell” and you say “ass”. “OK!” the 4-year-old says with enthusiasm.

Their no nonsense mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 6-year-old what he wants for breakfast.

“Aw hell Mom, I guess I’ll have Cheerios.” WHACK! He gets it upside the head and runs upstairs crying and screaming with his mother in hot pursuit. His mother locks him in his room and shouts, “You can just stay there until lunch!”

She comes downstairs, looks at the 4-year-old, and asks angrily, “And what do YOU want for breakfast?!!”

“I don’t know,” he blubbers, “but you can bet your ass it won’t be Cheerios.”