anyone lacking in potasium?

Potassium helps the heart pump. I learned this from my Doctor who told me this when I was lacking it.

Potatoes and Navy beans are very high in potassium.

Get you some leafy green vegetables! Fruits too.

If you want to bump up your potassium, eat more greens. All leafy greens are high in potassium. Veggies, fruit and beans also have a lot of it. Many listings in mfp don't include it, so you may be eating more potassium than you think. I use the listings without the asterisk in front because they show potassium and my doctor has me track it for my heart condition. Good luck!

I've been told that many entries on this site do not include potassium counts. So you are likely getting more than you think, based on your food log. It's there, just not being recorded.

this.

and potassium supplements are fairly worthless as the legal limit of potassium they can contain is extremely low

I know I was low because of blood work. I just found out that coffee has it.Not a huge amount but still... I've always heard bananas were the go to food for potassium but really there a ton of other food much higher and lower cal count.... I get a lot of muscle cramps from low potassium. A few things that help me maintain my levels are;
Coconut water
Baked Potatoes
Spinach
Broccoli

I've been told that many entries on this site do not include potassium counts. So you are likely getting more than you think, based on your food log. It's there, just not being recorded.

this.

and potassium supplements are fairly worthless as the legal limit of potassium they can contain is extremely low

agreed

It's not required to label potassium on food labels. If it's not included on the label, it's not generally on MFP. I search around and find a food that is similar that has the potassium listed. Like I'll log fresh blueberries, because the frozen ones I buy don't have it on the label. (yes, fresh is best, but they don't keep as long)

Low potassium is general aches and feeling tired. Can be confused easily with over training, or starting a new work out routine.

I wouldn't go that far. I'd estimate for the last few days how much potassium is in your food. I.e., if you ate a baked potato, look how much potassium is in a typical potato. See if you're high or low, go from there.

Go to the doctors and have a check up have them check your blood to see if you are deficient in anything. If you're not having muscle cramps all the time you are probably ok. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my arches cramped or my calves cramped. It would happen when I was driving, stretching really all the time sometime they would take an hour to go away. I didn't need anything special I just needed to make sure to be intentional on getting food with a good source of potassium regularly and to keep my sodium under control.

going over my diary, I think I'm getting a lot more potassium than is showing up on my chart. Asparagus, Brussels spouts, squash, I love all that stuff, bananas, apples, oranges etc, I eat a lot of the stuff on the list, and I haven't had any cramps at all lately, that might be due to all the water I drink. I've virtually cut out all drinks except water. An occasional coffee, or a diet soda at the movies is all.

Your potassium intake is probably fine, then. I worried about this for a while too, until I searched for "potassium-rich foods" and found a lot of my favorites on the lists. So I looked up potassium content for some of the foods I eat regularly and realized I was getting a lot more than my diary showed.

Unless you are on a diuretic for hypertension, take albuterol or insulin, or never eat anything with potassium then you aren't likely to develop any significant hypokalemia. If you're worried about it, eat a banana every couple of days and you should be fine.

I'm on Albuterol I only take it when I need it. Which is anytime I exercise. I have never heard that before! I wonder if this is what caused my seizures while working out....Not one doctor in the last 5 years has even brought it up. I've been on it since I was a teen so I never looked up the side effects. That would explain a lot though...

It doesn't make you actually lose potassium, it causes the potassium that is floating around outside your cells to shift inside your cells thus causing hypokalemia without a true potassium deficiency. I'll spare you the lecture on cell membrane physiology but electrolyte imbalances such as this can lead to problems in electrically excitable tissues, namely your heart and nerves. Hence why the main symptoms are muscle weakness and heart arrythmias.