Can anyone tell me the symptoms of low potassium? I have been feeling so very tired,bored and I have terrible leg pains at night. I have been on this diet since Feb. 23 and have lost 13 lbs. I take a multiple vitamin. I drink all my water plus. Annie

low level of potassium will probably raise your blood pressure and give you leg cramps. Muscle cramps can be relieved by taking either calcium, magnesium, potassium or combination of them. I believe potassium goes out with your urine if you are urinating a lot (well, along with other minerals)

Sodium and potassium go hand in hand. If you take too much sodium, more potassium will be leaving our body, so I make a point to take a few potassium capsules when I eat salty food, to balance it out.

I hope this helps.

Hiya Annie,

From Protein Power page 183.

"If your potassium levels fall too slow, u can suffer from weakness, muscle cramping, fatigue and breathlessness."

Hope this helps

Bebe

Any LC diet is diuretic - you lose water. And when you drink the water you need on an LC diet, you flush out and excrete both sodium and potassium.

Atkins advises that we should use No Salt or Half Salt - which contain either all or half potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride. ( Find them in the same aisle as the salt in your big grocery stores.) You can buy potassium supplements at a health food store. In the US, they must be less than 1 gm so they are 99 milligrams. You should not take more than 3 per day.

Another solution is to raise the carbs you eat. The first few days of LC bring the biggest "upsets" in your body. Don't cut the carbs - eat the veggies and salad. They have potassium and sodium in a good balance. This WILL pass and you will weigh less after it passes.


All the best.

To tell if you have a potassium deficiency, here are the symptoms according to the book Protein Power, Eades, p. 145:

Q. I have been on the diet for a couple of weeks now. I felt a little tired at first, then I felt fabulous, and now, all of a sudden, I feel exhausted, and my legs ache.
A. You have described a textbook case of hypokalemia, or low blood potassium. Because the diet has such a diurectic effect on the kidneys, it often gets rid of enough potassium along with the excess fluid that some people become potassium deficient. Low potassium can cause all kinds of different symptoms such as tingling, light-headedness, fatigue, muscle aches, and especially deep muscle fatigue and cramps. We recommended that you use Morton's Lite Salt or NoSalt because these are pure potassium salts and usually will compensate for the potassium lost through the kidneys. If you aren't using these, start now. If you are, then get one of the potassium supplements listed on page 184 and start taking it. If your symptoms are from potassium deficiency, they should resolve in a matter of hours after beginning potassium supplementation.