Help with Charlie Horses/Potassium intake

karen_thinmint

I've been getting a lot of Charlie horses lately; they're painful and awful and I just hate them. I know its because I'm low in potassium, but I don't know how to consume enough without going over my calories for the day. MFP recommends 3500mg/day, but I can barely make it to 700mg. I eat bananas, beans, fish etc. that are the potassium rich foods, but on 1200 a day its hard to get enough.

Bananas have about 350 mg potassium for every 100 cals. And multi-vitamins only have 80mg (because too much is bad for the body so they keep that lower).

Anyone else have issues with muscle cramps or low potassium? Any advice?

jojoworks

first of all......its my understanding that charlie horses/muscle cramps are due to insufficient magnesium and not enough hydration. I take calcium plus magnesium supplements daily and keep homeopathic magnesium / quinine tablets (from a company called Hyland) by my bed for when they rip me out of my sleep (I have suffered for YEARS from leg and foot cramps).

secondly, tracking potassium on MFP can be challenging (not impossible because I do it) because many items on the data base that MAY contain potassium don't have it included in the nutritional data. This is not always the fault of the person who entered it, but the industry in general until recently didn't know we cared about potassium! So, you may be eating more than the database reflects. I actually look through every item listed for a particular food until I find one that has the potassium stated. If I can't find one I go to a trustworthy nutritional info site, write it down and then go and enter my own potassium included item on the MFP database.

don't forget to drink LOTS of water!

good luck