high heart rate doing basic things

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astartig
astartig Posts: 549 Member
I just started doing keto like a week ago. my heart rate seems normal when I'm totally sedentry but going up and down the stairs or heck even doing dishes my heart rate is getting high. like 140 going up one flight of stairs. or 130 doing dishes.

help? do I need to go to the doc and get labs or can I do something to help with this?

been getting about 68 oz of water taking an ener-c or two a day for electrolights supplementing with magnesium malate too. and about 1700 mgs of salt a day. I"m vegetarian so most of my protein is coming from soy/gluten/eggs I may have a sensitivity to soy.

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  • tcunbeliever
    tcunbeliever Posts: 8,219 Member
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    You probably need way more salt, and the ener-c already has magnesium, so is it possible you are taking too much since you are supplementing that one twice?
  • astartig
    astartig Posts: 549 Member
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    I doubt it's anything too serious with the magnesium. a packet has 15 percent of your daily req and a full serviing of mag has 425mg which is 106% and I haven't been doing three pills more like 2 so it's coming out about right I think (I wasn't doing it on purpose that way though lol. they are just big horsetabs I don't like taking)
  • kpk54
    kpk54 Posts: 4,474 Member
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    I was previously on medication for high blood pressure and a low sodium diet so the thought of upping sodium to me was a bit scary. That said, a year after ceasing BP meds and a restricted sodium diet, when I decided to try keto...I was pretty hesitant about upping sodium. I did increase it. It took away my ills when they occurred which were light headedness, heart palpitations or lethargy.

    I'm not a doctor nor anything close to a medical practitioner but increasing sodium to ~3000mg-5000mg was helpful to me. I don't eat keto level everyday now but still have days I need a sodium boost to help with legs of lead (lethargy).

  • astartig
    astartig Posts: 549 Member
    edited April 2018
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    I've always been sensitive to salt. like I gain ten pounds over night if I eat out at a chinese restaurant lol. and I'm unsure if I have high blood pressure. the docs seem somewhat concerned but haven't told me to do anything further at this point for it. I have white coat anxiety AND I'm terrified of blood pressure devices. the thing squeezing on my arm gives me a panic attack. so when I go to the doc it's HIGH.. but if I go to the doc with xanax it's a little high like borderline. so yeahn salt always seemed scary to me. normally i get under 1k a day. so upping to 1.7 seemed crazy. I was light headed before I upped it. but the heart wasn't fast. now not so light headed but hr fast. I'll try upping it a bit more and see how it goes.
  • anglyn1
    anglyn1 Posts: 1,803 Member
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    Probably electrolyte related. I am possibly not the best person to answer because I have tachycardia but I actually found my heart rate stays lower on keto. I can actually run up a hill without being way over 200.

    Have you been sick lately? I got the flu a couple of months back and my heart rate was crazy high even for me during that period.
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
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    Actually, I read up on something similar recently. It has to do with getting oxygen into the muscles, since the way Keto works, it isn't naturally aerobic or something. Due to the lack of glucose, we need more of a light warm up to do anything that uses the muscles. They said as long as it calms down within 15-30 minutes and you don't feel bad when it happens, it's just the body sending out the need to crank up the oxygen for the muscles...

    Let me know if anyone wants to me find the links again.
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
    edited April 2018
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    astartig wrote: »
    I've always been sensitive to salt. like I gain ten pounds over night if I eat out at a chinese restaurant lol. and I'm unsure if I have high blood pressure. the docs seem somewhat concerned but haven't told me to do anything further at this point for it. I have white coat anxiety AND I'm terrified of blood pressure devices. the thing squeezing on my arm gives me a panic attack. so when I go to the doc it's HIGH.. but if I go to the doc with xanax it's a little high like borderline. so yeahn salt always seemed scary to me. normally i get under 1k a day. so upping to 1.7 seemed crazy. I was light headed before I upped it. but the heart wasn't fast. now not so light headed but hr fast. I'll try upping it a bit more and see how it goes.

    @astartig

    This sensitivity to salt might also be to table salt/iodized salt. I've recently run across some medical data that says that table salt, and what's used in soy sauce as well as most cooking, if not explicitly sea salt ONLY, will spike blood pressure in many folks.

    Reportedly, sea salt is absorbed differently (and also not processed the same - table salt has generally been through a TON of processing), so it is far less likely to cause this reaction. (The article I read at the time said 85% or more less likely to trigger a reaction.)

    Try reducing anything that is already salted - and add your own salt - sea salt. So skip prepared sauces, marinades, dressings, etc., wherever possible... I'd personally recommend (just my opinion, no medical training here) slowly increasing the sea salt to see if that helps.


    P.S. I'm SOOO with you on the white coat syndrome and tight cuffs! Those machines will read AT LEAST +30/+10 or more higher than a traditional cuff EVERY SINGLE TIME!
  • astartig
    astartig Posts: 549 Member
    edited April 2018
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    I'm terrified of any device that squeezes my arm in or out of the doctors office. lol. it makes it problematic. I keep crossing my fingers they'll come up wiht a laser device that tells pressure.

    I think the problem with table salt is the lack of other electrolytes. I've been doing lite salt which is half potassium more or less. I do have pink salt too. I should probably do a bit of each.

    but the reason I was having a reaction had more to do with a carb diet and salt than keto. every time I do low carb or keto I lose a ton of water weight and salt doesn' tmatter no matter what form. but I usually don't do a ton of salt anyway. (I usually go for low carb but not lchf) I've never had this reaction doing low carb and higher protein. this is the first time I've tried to do keto properly lol.
  • domesticlou
    domesticlou Posts: 8 Member
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    I can't add to the reasons why other than to say that I went through this when I first went keto some years ago now, I was on a very gentle run, my usual 3 mile route but intentionally taking it steady, my HR was through the roof. It just sorted itself out in time.
  • ClayBengal
    ClayBengal Posts: 124 Member
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    I run into accelerated hr during cardio especially if I don’t warm up for 15-20 min.
  • DarthWaderMT
    DarthWaderMT Posts: 231 Member
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    Chinese food sauce is loaded with sugar and MSG too, that could be more the cause of wieght gain at resturants
  • Sunny_Bunny_
    Sunny_Bunny_ Posts: 7,140 Member
    edited May 2018
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    When you ate Chinese you weren’t just eating salt. Those are high carb foods. They require a lot of insulin. Insulin prevents sodium excretion. That’s why you retained water on Chinese food.
    Eating low carb you have lower insulin and you must replace the sodium you are losing on a daily basis.
    If you are keto, the rate is 5000-7000mg a day. Every day. 1700 is literally nothing.
    If you are jut low carb you can probably aim for somewhere between 3000-5000mg a day.
    Low sodium is serious.
    One symptom of low sodium is increased heart rate along with the other things you previously mentioned...
  • katrados
    katrados Posts: 10 Member
    edited May 2018
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    Hello, I had that accelerated heart rate too for a few days and solved it with omega 3 capsules.