have a hard time getting fiber in and keeping carbs low
brenn24179
Posts: 2,144 Member
can someone help me get more fiber in, beans and cerael have so many carbs. I am trying to balance this out, constipation problems. I need suggestions on high fiber foods low in carbs.
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I add chia seeds to oatmeal or cottage cheese or a protein shake. Gets you five grams of fiber and only one grams of net carbs.
Usda - Chia Seeds Tbsp/14 Grams, 15 g 73 calories-1g net carbs-6g total carbs-5g fiber-5g fat-2g sodium-2g protein1 -
Eden Black Soy Beans. Use them the same way you'd use any bean. Chili. Bean salad. Topping for a salad.
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I have heard flaxseed is good also, bought some today, we will see.1
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You’re more likely dehydrated. Fiber will add bulk. If you’re constipated, that’s the last thing you want.
Are you supplementing sodium? You need proper sodium when you cut carbs to maintain fluid balance.
5000mg a day, minimum, if you’re keto and at least 3000mg minimum if you’re just low carb.
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https://healthcareassociates.com/7-signs-youre-not-drinking-enough-water/Health Care Associates of Texas
...Water makes up 60% of the human body and is needed to help maintain a healthy weight, flush toxins from the body, and produce bodily fluids like saliva. Water also contributes to regular bowel function, optimal muscle performance, and clear, youthful-looking skin. However, failing to drink enough water can cause dehydration and adverse symptoms, including fatigue, headache, weakened immunity, and dry skin.
Is it possible your health problems are being caused by not drinking enough water? Here are seven signs that indicate you may need to start drinking more water to benefit from improved health.
...4. Constipation
Water promotes good digestion and regular bowel movements by keeping your stool soft and moving it easily through the digestive tract. Not drinking enough water can cause your body to pull water from stool to compensate for fluid loss, leading to harder and firmer stool that is more difficult to pass. If your bowel movements are irregular and infrequent, try drinking more water to loosen your stools and relieve constipation and bloating.
I like the Eden Black Soybeans too. I add them to chili and taco salad when I get tired of just meat in those recipes.
I also use NutraCleanse in some recipes where I want to stick more fibre in that's low in carbs.
https://omega3nutracleanse.com/
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thanks so much for these comments, will try some of these ideas, yes I do need to up my water intake, flaxseed and my high fiber oatmeal helped this morning. Balancing this stuff out is tricky.0
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Have you considered taking a Magnesium Supplement? Most people don't need more fiber, all it does is bulk up your stool, however, many people are deficient in Magnesium. It is known as the relaxing mineral, because not only does being sufficient help you sleep better at night, it also helps your bowels to relax allowing your waste to move through more efficiently. I follow a mostly Carnivore Diet, I barely get 1-5g of fiber, but I'm regular as all get out.2
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yes I took 400 mg magnesium for past 2 nights, dont take any pills but if flackseed doesnt work I will definitely take magnesium on regular basis. I was eating chicken tenders from Mcdonalds probably too often, only diet change I can think of so will quit that and see what happens.1
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I learned drinking a gallon of water a day works for me but it can flush a lot of electrolytes so I really have to keep up my magnesium. The difference in the before and after weight first thing each day clues me in on my state of hydration. Doing some ad hoc n=1 with enzymes, probiotics and yogurt does not add any fiber but most of my plant based carbs bring in about 75% of the grams of fiber as the total carbs in them but they are not so needed in my case of regularity either. I am thinking almonds, coconut flakes, 100% cacao bars, etc. The digestive enzymes seem to lead to good movements as well.
While I like fiber I no longer think it is the most important part of my WOE but do it more to feed my gut microbiome hoping to give me better health in the short and long run due to their required by products needed for my health.
The magnesium prevents muscle spasms in my case but if I get out on the tractor bush hogging, etc and do not drink much water transit constipation can occur because the colon is removing water as fast as it can from the stool due sweating so much.
Actually in my case I say constipation occurs 99.99% of the time due to just hydration. Making sure I have a movement of any size at least twice daily helps insure my stool does not set and get totally dehydrated. Of course starting the day with fiber and a lot of coconut oil in my coffee is somewhat moving in itself.
Everyone is different and most figure out what works best for them.
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can anyone recommend which magnesium supplement to take? there are like 5 or 6 options it seems. I've read the "constipation" thread in the stickies and I'd say i'm not quite constipated on keto but i'm definitely not regular. i'm scared to try any of them for fear of an extreme laxative effect!1
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I take sugar free metamucil (doctor recommended for digestion) drink an obscene amount of water, and supplement with an electrolyte mix geared for keto.0
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Fiber One cereal with sunflower seeds/nuts mixed in. Magnesium did nothing for my problem, neither did drinking more water. We all have to find what works best for our own bodies.0
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I take either Lorna Vanderhaeghe MAGsmart or Preferred Nutrition MAGsense. They both contain mag bisglycinate along with B1,3,6,12, and calcium, potassium, folic acid, malic acid, taurine, L-glutamine, inulin, Vit. E, molybdenum, and selenium.
Organic raspberry flavour powder with a bit of stevia - no sugar. I need to take it for Fibromyalgia and it helps with more restful sleep. It doesn't have any extreme laxative effect - not sure if it does much for constipation though.0 -
can anyone recommend which magnesium supplement to take? there are like 5 or 6 options it seems. I've read the "constipation" thread in the stickies and I'd say i'm not quite constipated on keto but i'm definitely not regular. i'm scared to try any of them for fear of an extreme laxative effect!
The best I’ve ever come across is www.purevitaminclub.com0 -
This is the one I use, and it's currently bogo half off...
https://vitacost.com/vitacost-magnesium-ultra-300-mg-180-capsules0 -
Here's a very interesting little blog post from ChrisMasterjohnPhD.com on Magnesium. I'm getting a regular weekly email on all the vitamins & minerals we need for good health.Today our lesson is on magnesium.
Ok, this is a bit cray cray, but...
Guess what magnesium does in the body?
EVERYTHING!!!
Magnesium is Needed to Make Proteins and Use Energy
In fact, just by virtue of only TWO of the hundreds of things magnesium does, it has its hand in everything:
It is needed to make proteins, and everything that exists in the body is either a protein or is made by proteins.
It is needed to utilize energy, and everything that happens in the body requires energy.
Let's take a slightly deeper look at each one of those.
Magnesium and Proteins
Proteins are key components of all life. You get some protein from any food, but you get most of it from animal flesh, eggs, dairy, and beans. You eat this protein, and then break it down and build it back up into thousands of unique proteins that fulfill critical functions.
Thousands of the things that make your body work are proteins, but many are not. For example, cholesterol is not a protein. Neither is anything made from cholesterol, such as estrogen and testosterone (sex hormones), cortisol (a stress hormone), or aldosterone (a hormone that regulates your blood pressure and your levels of sodium and potassium). Yet, all these things are made with proteins. Enzymes are proteins that break things down, build things up, or convert one thing to another. Just to make cholesterol requires almost 40 enzymes. To convert cholesterol to something else, such as a hormone, requires even more enzymes. So, thousands of things within us are proteins and EVERYTHING is made with proteins.
The information needed to make each protein is stored within your DNA. Your DNA is divided into genes, where each gene has the information to make one protein, or a small set of proteins. Making a protein from the information within a gene is called EXPRESSING the gene. There are a handful of enzymes involved in expressing genes and they require magnesium. That makes magnesium directly required for the production of every single protein. And since proteins make everything else, it makes magnesium indirectly required for the production of everything else.
Magnesium and Energy
While it may seem on the surface that "energy" is mostly needed to get up and do things, especially things that require a lot of intensity, incredible amounts of energy are also needed just to keep you alive, and even to keep you calm and well rested.
This is because everything in the universe by nature tends to spread out and mix together randomly over time. To maintain order in the face of this tendency requires continuously investing huge amounts of energy. You can get a sense of this relationship by thinking of your room. When it's subject to random events (something falls, something gets knocked over, you put something down without much thought), it gets messy because everything is mixed together randomly. In order to clean your room, you need to invest energy and effort. When you do, it appears orderly because you've put everything in its unique place.
You can see this order in yourself by looking in the mirror. You have one place for your nose, another for your eyes, quite another for your bum bum and a totally different one for your feet. It is all the more true that the inside of your body is orderly, only the complexity is stunningly greater. Right down to the level that only the most powerful microscopes can detect, cells are incredibly ordered in mind-bogglingly complex ways. This all requires energy to maintain.
To take an example, calcium is the on-switch for muscle contraction. In order to allow your muscles to REST, that calcium has to be stored away in specialized compartments so that it isn't always triggering muscular contraction. If calcium were randomly distributed, your muscles would be contracting randomly, or would just stay contracted all the time. In fact, the tremors of Parkinson's result from a decline in the energy spent controlling muscular contraction. When we die, within a few hours all our muscles stiffen up. This is a condition known as rigor mortis and lasts a few days. This is because we no longer produce the energy we need to keep muscles relaxed.
So the highest-energy state is well-controlled, intense physical activity. At rest, we spend less energy, but rest is not the lowest-energy state. Beneath this is loss of muscle relaxation, causing muscular tension, cramps, and poorly controlled, random activity, such as tremors and spasms. This is what happens when we fail to produce and utilize enough energy.
Much like your dollar is the basic currency of your money if you're American, or your Euro if you're European, or whatever your national currency happens to be, the basic currency of energy within your cells is ATP. The six B vitamins that we said are most fundamentally involved in energy metabolism — B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B7 — all play their roles by helping us make ATP. Iron and copper, which we just covered in the last few lessons, both help us make ATP, too. What magnesium does is stabilize the ATP molecule. Literally everything that ATP ever does, it does joined at the hip to magnesium. ATP on its own is impotent. ATP teamed with magnesium is the cellular superhero.
Magnesium, Calcium, and Other Electrolytes
Let's take, for example, the interaction between magnesium and calcium:
The parathyroid glands, several glands that sit on top of your thyroid gland within your neck, make a hormone known as parathyroid hormone (PTH) when your blood runs low in calcium. PTH activates vitamin D in a two-step process to an active hormone that helps increase the calcium in your blood.
Since magnesium is needed to make every protein, it is needed to make PTH and to make the two enzymes needed for the two-step activation of vitamin D.
Once activated, vitamin D causes you to express specific genes that raise the amount of calcium in your blood. Since gene expression requires making proteins, it requires magnesium.
Since calcium is the on-switch for muscle contraction, we need to keep it sequestered in special compartments to prevent it from causing constant or irregular contraction. This requires ATP, and everything that requires ATP requires magnesium.
So, in someone with a severe magnesium deficiency, their blood levels of PTH, activated vitamin D, and calcium are all low. Doctors can inject them with PTH, or with activated vitamin D, but these treatments don't do anything because PTH can't activate vitamin D without magnesium and activated vitamin D can't bring your blood calcium back to normal without magnesium.
On top of this, calcium isn't being stored properly, so muscles are twitching, spasming, or cramping, and the heart may skip beats, flutter, or beat irregularly. Since the calcium levels in your blood are low, and since calcium controls neurotransmitter release, you can also develop neurological dysfunction. As we discussed in the lesson on calcium, when this gets really bad it can lead to confusion, seizures, coma, and death. Although the calcium level in your blood is running low, many tissues have more calcium than they should, and the calcium inside them is not properly sequestered. That means there is MORE calcium available to bind to phosphate or oxalate and cause soft tissue calcification. This means magnesium deficiency can contribute to heart disease and kidney stones. If calcium is winding up in kidney stones and blood vessels where it doesn't belong, there is less available for the bones and teeth. That can contribute to osteoporosis, and perhaps to tooth decay.
Magnesium partners with ATP not just to control the distribution of calcium, but also to control the distribution of sodium, potassium, chloride, and phosphate. The nervous system uses sodium, potassium, and chloride to control most of the activity that your neurons engage in. The loss of control over these minerals during magnesium deficiency contributes another layer to the neurological dysfunction.
Magnesium deficiency can also hurt the kidney's ability to get rid of excess sodium and phosphate. The excess sodium that results can raise blood pressure and contribute to swelling, known medically as edema. The excess phosphate that results can partner up with the misbehaving calcium and worsen the risk of soft tissue calcification even further.
Magnesium and Fatigue
Being unable to use ATP underlies most of these effects, and it will also make you feel weak and fatigued.
Magnesium and Glutamate Sensitivity, Asthma, and Pain
Magnesium also does some other cool things. It acts as the off-switch for some of the receptors that get activated by glutamate. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that switches neurons on. So, magnesium is an important off switch for hundreds of millions of neurons.
This means magnesium might be important for preventing:
Glutamate sensitivity, a condition where people have negative reactions to MSG, a food additive, or to fermented foods or slowly cooked protein-rich foods.
Asthma, since glutamate can constrict the airways.
Pain, since pain is partly governed by glutamate.
Magnesium and Hearing Loss, PMS, Pregnancy, Migraines, Diabetes, and More
And here are a few more cool things magnesium does:
✅ Magnesium supplements protect against noise-induced hearing loss.
✅ It helps with depression and PMS.
✅ Injections of magnesium sulfate help prevent the progression of preeclampsia to eclampsia. Preeclampsia is a complication of pregnancy involving high blood pressure and swelling. Eclampsia involves seizures and can be fatal.
✅ Magnesium injections are also used to prevent neurological damage in infants born prematurely or admitted to intensive care shortly after birth.
✅ Magnesium supplementation seems to help with migraines, and severe migraines can be halted with magnesium injections.
✅ In diabetics with magnesium deficiency, correcting the deficiency lessens the severity of the diabetes.
How Much Magnesium Do We Need?
So, how much do we need? Let's start with the RDA.
Up through the age of 30, the RDA for adult men is 400 milligrams per day (mg/d) and for adult women it is 310 mg/d. These are based on the amounts needed to keep total body stores from dropping over time. For adults 31 and older, these slightly increase to 420 mg/d for men and 320 mg/d for women, based on the same criteria.
The RDA for pregnant women adds 40 mg/d to the existing RDA for the woman's age group. This was set on the basis of how much lean mass a woman gains during a healthy pregnancy, and how much magnesium we would expect that new lean mass to contain. Lean mass, by the way, is mostly muscle, bone, and internal organs. Everything except your fat tissue gets counted as lean mass.
The RDA for nursing moms is kept the same as the RDA for non-pregnant women. Although a nursing mom does need to put magnesium into her milk, she will take some from her bone, along with calcium and phosphorus, and she will pee out less. Consuming extra magnesium doesn't seem to change that, perhaps because she would still need to take calcium and phosphorus from the bone even if she got more magnesium in her diet.
For children and adolescents, the RDA is made to support the accumulation of an apparently adequate amount of magnesium during growth. This was based on data from kids aged 9 through 18, and was adjusted downward by bodyweight for younger kids. It increases from 80 mg/d in children aged 1-3, to 130 mg/d in children aged 4-8, to 240 mg/d in children aged 9-13. Finally, for kids aged 14-18, it increases to 410 mg/d for boys and 360 mg/d for girls. For infants, there was not enough evidence to set an RDA, but an AI was set based on average magnesium intakes and the fact that these appear to give infants sufficient accumulation of magnesium to support their growth. The AI for infants under six months old is 30 mg/d and for infants from six months to one year old is 75 mg/d.
Since the RDA is based on making sure we maintain stable concentrations of magnesium in our body over time, and not on optimizing any health concerns, perhaps we would find we need even more magnesium when we start looking at health effects. However, there are almost no studies that examine whether doses higher than the RDA improve health better than doses equal to the RDA.
There are some exceptions:
After a potentially fatal event of brain bleeding, known as an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, magnesium levels drop. Doctors can maintain them in the normal range by giving intravenous magnesium in the amount of 1536 mg/d, which is better than giving 720 mg/d.
Patients with chronic kidney disease develop soft tissue calcification. Magnesium supplements help with this, and one study found that in a mix of men and women, 720 mg/d was better than 360. Although 360 is below the RDA for men, when added to the amount they were already consuming in the diet, it gave them more than the RDA.
Although there are no head-to-head comparisons of different doses, studies tend to be more successful when treating migraines with 600 mg/d instead of lower doses, and when lowering blood pressure with 700 mg/d instead of lower doses.
Overall, the data supports using the RDA for a target of our basic needs and using supplements to go a little higher for specific health problems that seem related to magnesium deficiency.
Magnesium in Foods: The Five Tiers
OK, let's look at foods now!
TIER 1
Tier 1 provides 420 mg or more per 100 g, which allows you to meet or exceed the RDA for men over 30 with one serving.
It includes rice and wheat bran, soy flour, emi-tsunomata Canadian-cultivated dry seaweed, and several seeds: hulled hemp, shelled pumpkin or squash, and watermelon.
TIER 2
Tier 2 provides 210-419 mg per 100 g, and allows you to meet or exceed the RDA for men over 30 with two servings. Tier 2 contains some grains: buckwheat, wheat germ, and oat bran.
And it contains a very large variety of legumes, seeds, and nuts.
Tier 2 legumes: many peanuts and peanut butter (see tier 3 for others), soybeans and most soybean products, catjang cowpeas, and these beans: moth, yardlong, hyacinth, mungo, lima, and yellow.
Tier 2 seeds: sesame seeds and sesame products, flax, chia, dried lotus, sisymbrium (used in certain mustards) and hulled and dried but not roasted sunflower. Pumpkin and squash fit in here if they are not hulled.
Tier 2 nuts: almonds and almond products, Brazil, pili, cashews, pine, and butternuts.
TIER 3
Tier 3 provides 84-209 mg per 100 g, and allows you to meet or exceed the RDA for an adult male over 30 with 3-5 servings.
Tier 3 contains some grains: quinoa, teff, oats, wild or brown rice, sorghum, wheat or spelt, dark rye, triticale, hulled barley, corn, millet.
American cheese makes it onto tier 3, but most dairy products don't.
Tier 3 has a few seafoods: cod, chinook salmon, and whelk.
It has three fruits: tamarinds, prickly pears, and dried coconut.
Tier 3 has lots of legumes: lupins, common cowpeas, many peanuts and peanut products (Valencia, Spanish, and Virginia), pigeon peas, tofu and natto, chickpea flour, and these beans: fava, white, great northern, mung, French, baby lima, small white, pink, winged, pinto, navy, black, black turtle, kidney, cranberry, soy, and adzuki.
Tier 3 also has some nuts: walnuts, hickorynuts, hazelnuts, Chinese or Japanese chestnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, pistachio nuts, and acorn flour.
Hulled and dry roasted sunflower seeds fit in tier 3 as well.
Finally, tier 3 has some seaweed: irishmoss, kelp, wakame, rehydrated emi-tsunomata; and some other veggies: fireweed leaves, dock, grape leaves, lambsquarters, and bitter gourd leaves.
TIER 4
As we move into tier 4, we are no longer talking about foods that are "good sources of magnesium," but instead talking about what has to make up 25-70% of your diet if you don't seek out Mg-rich foods from the top three tiers. Tier 4 provides 46-83 mg per 100 g, allowing you to meet or exceed the RDA for adult males over 30 with 1-2 pounds of food.
Tier 4 contains some grains: pearled barley, corn bran, and medium rye flour.
It contains some cheese: gjetost, hard goat, and parmesan. It also contains veal loin.
Some seafood makes it into this tier: mackerel, sablefish, pollock, ling, haddock, sturgeon, kippered herring, turbot, tuna, shark, crab, and abalone.
Tier 4 has some legumes: pigeon peas, chickpeas, peas, lentils, carob, and these soy products: tofu, tempeh, edamame, and miso.
It has three fruits: medjool dates, longans, and dried coconut.
It has two nuts: acorns and chestnuts.
And two seeds: breadnut, and raw but not dried lotus.
Tier 4 also has these veggies: spinach, beet greens, sweet potato leaves, purslane, agar, potato flour, raw wasabi root, jute, artichokes, lemon grass, okra, amaranth, borage, nopales, arrowhead, arugula, and taro.
TIER 5
Tier 5 provides 19-45 mg per 100 g, allowing you to meet or exceed the RDA for a male over 30 with 2-5 pounds of food. These foods could only meet your requirement by themselves if you used them for your entire diet. You would have to exclude junk food entirely, and if you have a low food intake you would be vulnerable to deficiency.
Virtually all beef, lamb, pork, poultry, game fall into tier 5. However, there are a handful of cuts in each category that do not.
Most cheeses tested make it into tier 5: cheddar, dry white, monterey, mozzarella, muenster, colby, queso asadero, queso fresco, port de salut, blue, caraway, cream, cheshire, limburger, brie, camembert, ricotta, and feta.
Virtually all finfish and shellfish fall into tier 5. The exceptions are the small number listed in tiers 2-4, as well as the ones in the next section that don't make the cut.
Some milk and yogurt products make it into tier 5, but most do not. Fresh eggs do not make the cut either.
The following fresh fruits make it into tier 5: coconut, coconut milk and cream, plantains, horned melon, currants, rowal, persimmons, durian, avocados, jackfruit, passionfruit, bananas, breadfruit, abiyuch, currants, raspberries, blackberries, guavas, longanberries, papayas, kumquats, and nance fruit.
The following dried fruits make it in as well: delget noor dates, litchis, peaches, prunes, raisins, pears, apricots, apples, and cherries.
Tier 5 has two nuts: ginkgo, and European chestnuts.
Tier 5 has many veggies: drumstick pods and leaves, taro leaves, ginger, potatoes, chives, New Zealand spinach, burdock root, garden cress, dandelion greens, kale, zucchini, taro, mustard greens, turnip greens, acorn squash, chicory greens, green beans, collard greens, cilantro, arrowroot, broccoli, garlic, chili peppers, beets, Brussels sprouts, lotus root, summer squash, sweet potato, Chinese waterchestnuts, cassava, shallots, watercress, yams, kohlrabi, and morel mushrooms.
HONORABLE MENTION: SPICES
An honorable mention should be given to all the spices: covering their distribution in the five tiers would double the space devoted to this discussion. The reality is that hardly anyone eats 100 grams of spices a day, in total, nevermind 100 grams of an individual spice. However, keep in mind that the more spices you use, the more magnesium they will add to your diet.
FOODS THAT DON'T MAKE THE CUT
Foods that don't make the top five tiers essentially detract from your magnesium status. Even though they have small amounts, they don't have enough to meet the requirement even if you consume five pounds of them per day. And if you get most of your magnesium from tier 5 foods, you won't have any room for these foods at all. Therefore, you should ONLY feel the liberty to eat these foods once you know you've met your requirement from foods in the top 4 tiers.
The foods that don't make the cut are:
❌ All fats and oils
❌ Fresh eggs
❌ A small number of cuts of meat, even organ meats
❌ These seafoods: smoked salmon, eastern wild oysters, flatfish, cisco, roughy orange, pout, pickled herring, and jellyfish
❌ Most foods in the other categories that weren't mentioned in the top five tiers
Clearly, the greatest coverage of tiers 1 and 2 comes from nuts, seeds, and legumes. Seaweed, a few other seafoods, fruits, and vegetables start popping up in tier 3. Tier 4 shows greater prominence for seafood, a greater diversity of vegetables, and a few grains and cheeses. Most cheese, seafood, meat and poultry, and commonly consumed fruits and vegetables fall into tier 5. Grains are spattered throughout. cont'd next post - apparently MFP says 'Too long.'1 -
Cont'd from last post.....Dietary Patterns: Carnivore, Autoimmune Paleo, Keto, High-Fat, Junk Food
This presents a challenge to several dietary patterns.
CARNIVORE
Most carnivore foods are in tier 5, making it difficult to get enough magnesium for someone with low food intake. Additionally, certain cuts of meat do not make it into tier 5. Carnivores should focus on the seafood and cheeses in tiers 3 and 4, or supplement.
AUTOIMMUNE PALEO
Although the paleo diet allows nuts and seeds, the autoimmune protocol (AIP) version of paleo does not. Those on the AIP should focus on the seaweed in tiers 1 and 3, and on the fish and shellfish in tiers 3 and 4.
KETO AND HIGH-FAT
Ketogenic diets, and high-fat diets more generally, run the risk of magnesium deficiency simply because all added fats fail to make the five tiers. Most animal products are in tier 5, where there is no room for added fat. Choosing liberally from among the low-carb nuts and seeds will allow keto dieters to obtain higher-tier magnesium-rich foods to compensate for added fat in their diet.
JUNK FOOD
White flour, white sugar, and fat are all extremely low in magnesium. Meat is low in magnesium as well. A burger on a bun made from white flour with a side of fries and a soda would be very deficient in magnesium. Keeping junk food low in the diet is important for magnesium status.
Other Causes of Magnesium Deficiency
More than just the magnesium content of the diet is relevant:
❌ High-fiber diets lower magnesium absorption.
❌ Low-protein diets lower magnesium absorption.
❌ Proton pump inhibitors, antacids, vomiting, diarrhea, ulcerative colitis, pancreatitis, and anything that hurts fat absorption will hurt magnesium absorption.
❌ Diabetes, anything that causes increased urination including excessive intake of water, and acute injuries all increase magnesium losses.
❌ Sweating from hot weather, exercise, or sauna use, as well as burn injury, cause magnesium to be lost through the skin.
❌ Some antibiotics, antifungals, and anticancer drugs hurt magnesium absorption.
❌Chronic alcohol abuse hurts magnesium absorption and increases its loss in the urine.
❌ When a disease causing bone loss is treated, magnesium can suddenly move into the bone, causing blood levels to drop dangerously low.
❌ During the recovery from an eating disorder or an extended fast, magnesium can be pushed into cells, causing blood levels to drop dangerously low.
❌ There are rare genetic disorders in magnesium absorption or retention.
Should You Supplement With Magnesium?
There are two good reasons to supplement with magnesium:
You don't consistently meet the RDA. In this case, use whatever you estimate would bring you up to the RDA, when added to the rest of your diet, such as 1-200 mg/d.
You have signs of deficiency and one or more of the factors listed above that increase magnesium needs. In this case, you should use the dose that gives you the best results.
Potential Harms of Magnesium Supplements: Loose Stools and Magnesium Toxicity
In general, the only harm you can expect from moderately dosed magnesium supplements is loose stools or diarrhea. Limiting your supplement to 350 mg/d and spreading it out evenly across meals will reduce the risk of loose stools, as will using the right type of magnesium, which we'll talk about in a minute.
However, high doses of magnesium (above 900 mg/d or so), or supplementing with magnesium when you have kidney problems, can become more dangerous. If your blood pressure drops too much, your heart rate gets abnormally slow or fast, or you develop twitching or spasming, you should cut back on the supplement and ask your doctor to test your blood levels.
Which Magnesium Supplements Should You Take?
There are lots of magnesium supplements, so let's paint them with a broad brush for some general conclusions:
Oxide, chloride, and sulfate have lower absorption and a greater risk of gastrointestinal side effects.
Magnesium L-threonate should be regarded as a source of threonate for cognitive enhancement and not a source of magnesium, because it doesn't have that much magnesium.
Aspartate, glycinate, gluconate, and lactate are all well absorbed forms.
Some people report magnesium glycinate as the least likely to loosen stools.
Topical magnesiums, such as magnesium oil and epsom salt baths, are not well studied. They do appear to increase magnesium status, and they may have the benefit of getting around the gut to avoid poor absorption and loose stools, but it is difficult to control the dose and we do not know how well they are absorbed. It is okay to use magnesium topically, but not at the expense of using oral magnesium supplements, which are much better studied.
To wrap up:
✅ Magnesium is needed to support protein synthesis and energy use, which in turn supports EVERYTHING.
✅ It maintains good energy levels, relaxation, and calmness.
✅ It prevents twitching, spasming, muscle tension, cramping, and irregular heartbeats.
✅ It helps build healthy bones and teeth, and prevents soft tissue calcification.
✅ It helps with asthma, pain, glutamate sensitivity, noise-induced hearing loss, depression, PMS, pregnancy complications, diabetes, and migraines.
✅ The best sources are legumes, nuts and seeds, with seafood, seaweed, and cheeses coming next.
✅ Higher protein intakes and lower fiber intakes help with absorption.
✅ Carnivore, keto, high-fat, AIP, and junk food are the dietary patterns where magnesium deficiency becomes risky.
✅ Alcoholism, diabetes, sweating, antacids, certain prescription drugs, acute or chronic digestive problems, rare genetic disorders, and anything that increases urination can increase magnesium needs.
✅ If you can't meet the RDA consistently, supplement with a low dose that will help you meet it.
✅ If you have reasons to believe you are deficient, work up slowly from the RDA to find the dose that best seems to help.
✅ Aspartate, glycinate, gluconate, and lactate are all well absorbed forms, and glycinate may have the lowest risk of gastrointestinal side effects. Avoid oxide, chloride, and sulfate.
✅ Take it with food and spread it out across meals to avoid the risk of loosening stools, and cut back on the dose if you do loosen your stools.
✅ Cut back on the dose and have your doctor measure your blood levels if you develop excessively low blood pressure, a faster or slower heart rate, twitches, or spasms.
That's it for magnesium!
The next lesson will be on manganese. I'm HOPING to have it ready by Sunday, July 7. If things go well I'll have it early but if it's late please know that it's coming!
Class dismissed,
Chris3 -
It was touched on above, but sometimes fiber makes it worse as can be seen in this study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435786/
I found this is the case for me, at least when dealing with insoluble fiber (i.e. chia seeds). I am ok with a reasonable amount of fiber from real, whole foods like spinach, celery, zucchini and other mostly green vegetation, but any kind of supplement just gets me bloated, uncomfortable and more constipated.2 -
@rich41n from another thread on this subject on MFP a few years ago I started using Doctor's Best High Absorption Magnesium and I still use them. While they are large I now shallow them fine 3x if I do not think about it first.
Not sure if the brand one uses is important but magnesium is mission critical to human health. Due to reviews I basically only use supplements sourced from Amazon these days. Bioavailability and price per dosage my two main buying criterion when it comes to supplements. Supplements can be awesome or can be rip offs so do not be put off by the rip offs. Life Extension is a source that I like because they share the research articles behind the need for different kinds of supplements. At 68 totally guessing on things like magnesium is not in my best interest timewise after years of not being highly aware of diet.
I see different options in the offices of healthcare providers and expect most are fine but cost seems to be about 2x.
Best of continued success.2 -
A couple of days after starting keto, my boyfriend, daughter, and I started a magnesium supplement, sublingual d vitamin, and using a potassium salt substitute along with our sea salts. And drinking more water.
Staying hydrated and balancing electrolytes!
2 -
thanks all for the information! haven't been on MFP since mid last week so I've got some reading to do!2
