SOLUTION FOR ONE CAUSE OF WEIGHT GAIN FROM EATING BETWEEN MEALS
One common reason for weight gain is a low blood sugar level between meals, causing low blood sugar symptoms between meals, which are relieved by eating between meals. A healthy weight loss diet doesn’t cause a drop in blood sugar between meals and doesn’t cause nutritional deficiencies. Healthy weight loss diets have plenty of potassium to prevent low blood sugar symptoms between meals, which prevents hunger between meals and overeating to ensure weight loss. (Another common cause of over eating is a low level of the hormone leptin caused by not getting enough sleep - see page 2)
Potassium Is A Necessary Mineral For Keeping Weight Off
The fuel all cells of the body run on is the sugar glucose. During digestion of a meal, sugars and starch (fiber+sugar) are broken down into the simplest sugar, glucose. As glucose is being extracted from a meal, most of it is delivered to the cells, some of the glucose is stored in the liver in a concentrated form called glycogen. In order to keep a steady flow of glucose to the cells between meals, glycogen is turned back into glucose. Potassium is necessary for the liver to turn glucose into glycogen.
Nutrition Almanac, Kirschmann, 4th ed.,1996Low Blood Sugar and Potassium
Glucose in the blood is called blood sugar. Towards the end of digestion of a meal, blood sugar level starts to fall because there’s less food in the stomach supplying glucose. The pancreas detects the lower blood sugar level and releases glucagon. Glucagon signals the liver to start turning glycogen back into glucose and release the glucose into the blood stream. Blood sugar will rise to a normal level for a short while, then fall again, more glucagon is released, then more glycogen is turned into glucose, and this continues until the next meal when glucose from the meal and potassium replenish glycogen stores.
If there’s not enough potassium in the diet, the liver can’t store enough glycogen to keep blood sugar level normal between meals. Without glycogen supplying glucose, blood sugar level falls, starving cells of glucose. Brain cells low on glucose function slowly, or not at all, causing the irrational and emotional symptoms of a drop in blood sugar. The only way to relieve the symptoms before they become worse is to raise blood sugar by eating without waiting until the next meal.
All healthy weight loss diets include high potassium food to maintain a normal blood sugar level to prevent overeating and to maintain muscle tone. Potassium is absolutely necessary for maintaining blood sugar level between meals.
Low Blood Sugar Symptoms
Low blood sugar symptoms include fatigue, drowsiness, absentmindedness, confusion, sweating, inability to concentrate, clumsiness, nervousness, loss of memory, irritability, irrationality, and even anger for petty or irrational reasons. When any of these symptoms occur, what else to do but eat again?
Most people can recognize low blood sugar symptoms when their blood sugar falls. Many with a problem with blood sugar dropping between meals prevent symptoms from getting worse by eating as soon as they feel restless or uneasy, which of course causes weight gain. Some avoid the symptoms all together by keeping a cache of candy handy and eating candy all day long. Obviously this causes weight gain.
Remember that fatigue after a meal can also be caused by not drinking enough water. During digestion, the body pulls a lot of water to the stomach for digestion. If already low on water, the temporary loss of more water for digestion causes mild dehydration, which causes fatigue. Fatigue after a meal can also be caused by nutritional deficiencies.
High Potassium Food
The high potassium content of fruits and vegetables is the main reason why healthy weight loss diets include fruits and vegetables. Good weight loss programs are pretty expensive. If you stop using one of these programs, make certain you keep up on the potassium rich foods. You may find you don’t need a weight loss program after all. Starvation diets that are too low in potassium cause loss of muscle, causing an odd or emaciated weight loss look.
Unfortunately, many foods high in potassium are unknowingly avoided by many trying to cut calories. In maintaining a healthy weight, calories should never be avoided at the expense of potassium rich food.
There are two common foods very high in potassium - bananas and orange juice. A medium size banana has 400-500mg of potassium. An 8 ounce glass of orange juice (made from only oranges) has 450mg of potassium. Orange drink is not orange juice. Some store brands of orange juice made with only oranges don’t taste as good as name brand orange juice. Adding a little water and shaking will improve the taste.
The easiest site to use for finding the amount of potassium or most any other nutrient in a food, is the .gov link below. Use the “Keywords” field and the gray “submit” button to start.
Food Values (.gov)Other Rich Sources Of Potassium:
1/2 cup of Raisin Bran 370mg1/2 cup of raisins 550mg
8oz of grapefruit juice - 400mg
8oz of grape juice - 325mg
8oz of pineapple juice - 325mg
8oz of apricot nectar - 285mg
8oz of cider - 295mg
8oz of tangerine juice - 270mg
Other Food Values Data Bases
Nutritional Food Values (”W” list more useful) (.gov)Nutritional Values of Food Database (.gov, .pdf)
Top 40 Sources of Potassium (.gov)
Recipes (.gov)
Eating at least 2-3 high potassium foods each day (e.g. two bananas or one banana and a glass of orange juice) will provide the body with enough potassium for the liver to make enough glycogen to prevent running out of glycogen between meals. Can you get too much potassium from eating too many rich sources of potassium? That point would probably start at more than three or four high potassium foods each day. A healthy weight loss diet does not mean more and more potassium will increase weight loss. So long as the liver doesn’t run out of glycogen, whether the liver is “half full” or “full” with glycogen makes no difference in losing weight.
Potassium Deficiency
Other potassium deficiency symptoms (other than low blood sugar between meals) include (not in any particular order) deep fatigue (no drive to do things you want to do), light sources appearing much brighter than normal, thirst not quenched with a couple glasses of water, cotton mouth, fatigue changing to hyperactivity (or vice versa), memory problems, absentmindedness, unable to remember common names, rushing without reason (just like a magnesium deficiency), warmer than usual skin temperature, repeated yawning without reason (happens only occasionally), leg muscles burn or are unusually weak (easily noticed when walking up stairs), arm muscles burn while holding arms above head while holding up something, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, bloated stomach, sweating without reason, sweating while sleeping, sore neck muscles, stiff neck, sudden contraction of calf or hamstring muscles (very painful), anger out of proportion with the problem at hand (or for no real reason at all), waking up angry, regularly yelling, hair loss, sudden high pitched whistle sound in ears fading off several seconds later, and reddish complexion. People die of heart attack caused by a potassium deficiency all the time. Usually only one or two of these symptoms appear at one time. No doubt there are other potassium deficiency symptoms.
Don’t confuse cotton mouth from too much or too little potassium with dry mouth from breathing through your mouth because your nose is stuffed from a cold. Dry mouth can, of course, be caused by dehydration (not drinking enough water), drug side affects, etc.
Some say there are many other reasons for these symptoms. There are other possibilities for these symptoms, but when you start regularly relieving and preventing these symptoms (no different than runners eating bananas for potassium to prevent leg cramps) the chances that the cause of the symptoms are not a potassium deficiency or potassium related (magnesium deficiency causes a potassium deficiency) is pretty low.
Healthy potassium intake is needed for maintaining blood sugar, but certainly blood sugar can drop for many reasons even when potassium intake is perfect. Eating only three bananas a day to try to lose weight might not be enough food to keep blood sugar normal.
Potassium Overdose
The phrase “potassium overdose” is often used to mean more potassium than the body needs - whether it’s a little more potassium than the body needs or a lot more potassium than the body needs. The term for high potassium is hyperkalemia.
Potassium overdose symptoms include most of the symptoms of potassium deficiency. A true potassium overdose (toxic amount) causes a heart attack, and for several each year, potassium overdose causes death. Here the definition of potassium overdose is too much potassium but not a true overdose (toxic amount) of potassium.
Using only symptoms, it can be pretty difficult to tell the difference between potassium deficiency and potassium overdose. One symptom that potassium deficiency doesn’t cause and potassium overdose does cause is a form of paresthesias, a burning sensation in the shape of a line as if a drop of hot water is moving on the scalp. (It may also cause tingling or numbing.) This doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will have this symptom every time a potassium overdose occurs, and some may have this symptom and not even notice.
None of the symptoms listed above are distinct symptoms of potassium deficiency or overdose. In other words, each of the symptoms can be caused by a deficiency or overdose of other nutrients, although experiencing two or three of these symptoms simultaneously is a good indication of a potassium deficiency or overdose. Remember that a deficiency of some nutrients can be caused by a deficiency of another nutrient - magnesium deficiency can cause a potassium deficiency, and deficiency of potassium is not the only deficiency that causes thirst.
Blood sugar lower than normal for any reason can cause many of the same mental and muscle weakness symptoms of a potassium deficiency - drop in blood sugar can easily be mistaken for a potassium deficiency, causing one to take more of a potassium supplement, causing a potassium overdose.
A feeling of relief from symptoms of a deficiency of a nutrient using an individual supplement of that nutrient takes no more than a couple of hours. But feeling relief from a significant potassium deficiency by eating potassium rich food or taking a potassium supplement can take as 3 to 5 hours. If you’re experiencing the uneasiness of a potassium deficiency and impatient for the uneasiness to fade off and keep eating more and more potassium rich foods or taking more and more of a potassium supplement, you could easily turn a potassium deficiency into a potassium overdose. Then trying to rid yourself of the uneasiness of potassium overdose is even more trying.
Exercise and water will help some with potassium overdose. During a potassium overdose it’s very important to avoid food with rich and moderate amounts of potassium for at least 3 or four days. Eating an omelet with 3 or 4 shakes of salt into the liquid eggs can also bring relief, but continue to avoid potassium. Potassium overdose is much less likely to occur if you avoid diet extremes and potassium supplements.
