Not enough potassium?

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Angelsrose12
Angelsrose12 Posts: 37 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I analyse most of the nutritional information throughout the week to help get a better idea of what is helping or hurting my weight loss. A couple of things I have noticed is that I get too much sugar and not enough potassium on a regular basis. I know that I am eating foods rich in potassium, i.e. bananas, apples, spinach, but I have never even come close to what the website says is an appropriate amount of potassium. All of the other nutrients I have found in multivitamins, but when I asked the pharmacist about a supplement, she said that too much potassium can cause heart problems and not enough can cause other muscle problems or pain.

My questions are as follows, is there any other reason we need so much potassium other than for muscles? Does anyone get as much as MFP recommends? If so, how do you do it?

Thanks :-)

Replies

  • Lavraieracinette
    Lavraieracinette Posts: 1 Member
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    I came in here looking for the same potassium questions as you.

    (I think the thing with sugar is that there are new, low, guidelines for how much ADDED sugar one should have, but the nutrition labels do not separate it out. (how would they? If there are dates or figs in your granola bar, they are additional to the granola, but still not processed. Would they count?)


    For Potassium, Most sites seem to indicat that lack of potassium is fairly difficult without some factor other than diet. So why do I feel healthy when the tracker consistently says I've barely 50% of my daily potassium?
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    I wouldn't pay too much attention to potassium numbers in the MFP database. Nutrition labels don't contain potassium info, so I've never been able to add that info when I've been entering a product and I suspect that there are a lot of other foods that don't have it either.
  • obrendao
    obrendao Posts: 318
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    If you are eating plenty of fruits and veggies, dont have kidney problems, are not on any diuretics, your potassium level should be fine. I wouldn't worry about the value from MFP. The pharmacist is right. The body needs 3.5 - 5.0 mEq in the blood to function properly. Otherwise low or high blood levels may occur - both which cause heart issues among other things. That is why potassium supplements are only by rX.
  • Angelsrose12
    Angelsrose12 Posts: 37 Member
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    Thanks so much for the info! Very helpful obrendao :smile:
  • celeste821
    celeste821 Posts: 14 Member
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    Wow I have been so stressed out about this, I have been eating when I'm not hungry trying to get that stupid potassium level up and I keep coming in under my caloric goal smh. But I also noticed that some foods in the internet may say x amount of potassium but the app will say 0% or n/a

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