Potassium, how on earth to get enough?!

Hey there everyone!

I am really struggling on how to get enough potassium into my diet every single day. I am on a strict 1200 cal plan that is also very sugar conscious. Adding a banana, some spinach, or a small handful of pistachios just isn’t getting me anywhere near my daily requirements and is eating up calories I’d rather spend elsewhere by leaving me hungry.

How do you get enough potassium in your diet while also maintaining a decent low fat, low sugar, low calorie diet?

Everything I’ve read says to not take supplements for potassium… But I feel like that may be my only option if I want to stay true to my diet. However, my research on potassium supplements has kind of fallen short because there’s not a ton of details out there about what is actually safe.

Help a girl out!

I’m all ears!!
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Replies

  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    Are you deficient in potassium?
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited January 2021
    Are you deficient in potassium?

    This, and what others have said.

    I log at Cron using whole food entries, which do have potassium, and the best bang for the cals are vegetables. I eat lots of veg (10+ servings/day) and am pretty much always over my potassium, even on unusually low cal days.

    I do agree with those saying that you might want to reconsider if you actually need to be on 1200, especially if you exercise at all.

    Also, coffee has some. I never logged coffee until I realized that.
  • Kaysmile012015
    Kaysmile012015 Posts: 68 Member
    Potatoes have lots of potassium more than banana's..if you're doing 1200cals and you want to hit Potassium 100% everyday, you will need to be strategic with meals, fruits &veggies are where its at; I do a smoothie with Greens Powders Recipe:
    Greens blend powder
    1cup frozen fruit
    1cup water or OJ
    comes to roughly 140-300calories
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,053 Member
    Others have covered the potassium issue so I will talk about the 1200 calories. Unless you are very very short AND sedentary, you can eat more than 1200 calories and lose weight just fine.

    https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

    As you will see in the article, eating 1200 calories when you don't have to can be counter-productive to weight loss:

    binge-low-calorie-diet.jpg
  • joyanna2016
    joyanna2016 Posts: 323 Member
    I worried about the same thing when I started noticing that I never met the potassium goal and that most days I was WAY off. I had lab work coming up in a couple of months though so I decided I would not worry about it and just see what my potassium level was in my bloodwork. It was perfectly fine despite me failing miserably at potassium per MFP. My advice: don't waste your time worrying about potassium. 😃
  • LisaGetsMoving
    LisaGetsMoving Posts: 664 Member
    Apricots, potato skins, mushrooms, all rich in potassium.
  • 5838fish623
    5838fish623 Posts: 76 Member
    Coconut water
  • sailor789
    sailor789 Posts: 33 Member
    body armor lyte has 20 cal and 700 mg of potassium
    5.5 ounce can low sodium V8 has 30 cal and 700 mg potassium
  • gigius72
    gigius72 Posts: 183 Member
    edited January 2021
    I've never understood why they associate banana with potassium. It doesn't even make in the top 100 sources of potassium.
    This is the USDA official list of food per potassium content. It's a PDF file.
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/www.nal.usda.gov/files/potassium.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjL89i3ocfuAhUDYawKHXJ4BZQQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw093tN4d3YX7OqPnmjPsja9
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
    "Lite" salt has potassium. But if you are thinking you are "low" because of the numbers MFP data base gives you, it's probably not a thing - many, many of the entries don't have potassium #s at all.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,079 Member
    gigius72 wrote: »
    I've never understood why they associate banana with potassium. It doesn't even make in the top 100 sources of potassium.
    This is the USDA official list of food per potassium content. It's a PDF file.
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/www.nal.usda.gov/files/potassium.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjL89i3ocfuAhUDYawKHXJ4BZQQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw093tN4d3YX7OqPnmjPsja9

    It seems rather arbitrary, as it's ranked by mg of potassium per "measure," in which the measure is different for different foods -- 1 cup of one food, three cups of another, one "piece" of a fruit, etc. It would be more helpful if it were mg of potassium per calorie, or at least mg of potassium per 100 g (but per calorie, or per 100 cals would be best for people who are trying to fit X mg of potassium into their calorie budget)/
  • B_Plus_Effort
    B_Plus_Effort Posts: 311 Member
    two words: egg whites

    1 cup of egg whites ie your breakfast is only 125 calories 0 fat and serves up 375 mg of potassium

    honeydew melon is another excellent source at 0 fat, though the sugar may be a concern for you

    also if you haven't done so already pay for MFP and it will show you which foods deliver which vitamins and minerals
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,079 Member
    two words: egg whites

    1 cup of egg whites ie your breakfast is only 125 calories 0 fat and serves up 375 mg of potassium

    honeydew melon is another excellent source at 0 fat, though the sugar may be a concern for you

    also if you haven't done so already pay for MFP and it will show you which foods deliver which vitamins and minerals

    I don't pay for MFP and it shows me the same vitamin and mineral info that is available in premium. Both versions use the same crowd-sourced database.
  • MsMelloDoggerello
    MsMelloDoggerello Posts: 14 Member
    Bananas?
  • luceegj
    luceegj Posts: 246 Member
    edited February 2021
    Can I ask why you're looking at your potassium stats it is a deficiency also why a strict 1200 if that is based on the MFP recommendation please do not use this as it is very inaccurate and takes very little about a person into account and you may be very under eating.

    Lucy
    [edited by MFP mods]
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    This is cool, as you can look at potassium-rich foods ranked by 200 cal servings or 100 g servings, as well as whatever they define as common serving. https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrient-ranking-tool/Potassium/All/Highest/200cal/Common/No

    It leads to some silly results (coffee wins with the 200 cal serving, since you have to drink a LOT of plain coffee to get that many cals, and greens score high too, for similar reasons), but looking at all three options or just using common sense is informative.