Good bye low carb
 

For the last 10 - 15 years I maintained carb intake at around 20g. It was very comfortable and so easy, nothing in my refrigerator beside meat, cheese, eggs and butter.
However, there was a huge drawback - nightly leg cramps. I have heard all the advice - it will pass after some time, up your magnesium, potassium, more salt in your diet. No, nada, zip, zilch. It never went away.
A foot cramp is an annoyance, a calf cramp is worse but a thigh cramp is enough pain to almost pass out.
Sometimes weeks would go by without cramps and I would think this is it I am free of this. But then it would be back, sometimes every single night several times.
I never went to bed without having a bottle of tonic water on my side, I even traveled with it. Tonic water is a true miracle for cramp sufferers, a glass or just a half and within a couple minutes the cramp is gone.
Anyway, a couple of months ago due to rare circumstances my carb intake went up for a few days and bingo - no cramps. That finally did it, now a days I maintain my carbs at about 100g and enjoy peaceful nights.That is not enough to keep me in keto, even though for mainstream nutrition it is still way too low. I still shy away from fruits but i find that I enjoy eating veggies again.

If you weren't eating vegetables before, what else were you eating that added up to 20g of carbs?

You find small amounts of carbs in everything, eggs, cheese, liver, heavy cream in your coffee. There is no such thing as a zero carb. 20g is a good estimate.

Sounds like you're finding your way. Good for you!

ps, did you find that calcium stopped working for you?: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost...51&postcount=17

Good research.
Calcium stopped working after a very short time, in fact it probably never really worked.

To get enough Potassium you would have to take 7+ of the over the counter tabs to equal the minimum of a prescription tab which is approximately 750mg. Most people wouldn't take 7+ tabs per day so never reach any type of relief from it's effects.
Also, some people take certain meds which can further deplete the body of Potassium, in addition to low carb.
It has made all the world of difference for me to get a prescription.

I avoid drugs. I get a lot of potassium from juicing veggies, coconut water and avocados.

That's Great! Glad you solved your problem!

Nightly leg cramps are terrible. Glad you have found a solution. I get them, but not to the extent that yours sound like. Calcium and Magnesium seem to help, as well as Smart Water.

Glad to hear you found the correct dietary combination. That's my quest as well, and it's a continuing learning experience. When you find what works to support health and make you feel healthy, that's a break through.

Nothing worse than a night cramp. I keep lo-salt handy. Would you consider that a drug , or a food?? Hopefullly a food.

One wise woman told me a few years ago to "eat my salt" to keep cramps at bay. She is right. WHen I keep my salt intake ( cheese, added to eggs or a hamburger, etc) the cramps are not an issue. However when I am laxs, Im lacks.... hee hehe, and MUST have the lo-salt to fix the situation.

Maybe adding the salt and lo-salt will allow you to drop down your carbs. Dr Berg suggest 6 cups of green leafy vegies to get your potassium. That is a bit much for me, so I rely on the salt and no-salt.

Good luck.

If what you tried (potassium, magnesium, etc) didn't fix it, then that wasn't the problem, ya?

I have calf cramps. Dunno the cause, but I do know it ain't low-carb. When I initially went all-meat, I had no problem whatsoever. Got sick, everything went south, started getting cramps too. I tried supplements for that too, didn't work either.

Of everything I tried, only one thing had any significant effect. Mega dose vitamin A, you can read about that in my journal. At the time, it seemed to have some effect on cramps as well. Recently, I believe I figured out pretty much what my problem is. Accordingly, I also figured out how to manage it fairly well. You can read about that in my journal too. Anyways, cramps are rare these days.

I'm not suggesting you got what I got. I'm suggesting there's a link between dietary fat intake, vitamin A, and cramps.

Thanks everyone for well meaning words. But as some of you mentioned if what I am doing works for getting rid of cramps ,then great, just great. I certainly tried a lot of things and now I am quite happy with 100g of carbs and no cramps as a result.
It is a pleasure to wake up in the morning and do a luxurious stretch without activating some muscle that immediately goes into spasm or even change a position in the night without the same happening. Not to speak of jumping up in the middle of the night when I am being stuck with red hot poker and being sore for a couple of days.

Here's an idea. Keep looking for the cause. Think about it. Is this carbs deficiency? If it's not, then the carbs are merely therapeutic, not a cure. If that's what's going on, maybe the carbs are hiding something. It's like an injury, there's pain, remove the pain, the injury remains.

There's another reason you should keep looking for the cause. It's about the logical conclusion of going from near-zero carb up to 100g carbs, just to fix a problem that occurs during near-zero carb. Here's how it goes. If near-zero is bad, and if 100g is good, then more than 100g is best. The point is if 100g stops working, what you gonna do, hm, go back down to near-zero? Of course not, cramps gonna come back if you do that.

And now you can take your time cuz you found something that removes the pain. For a start, figure out how this works. Obviously, it's not carbs deficiency, right? But the carbs are certainly compensating for something else. As you figure this out, if the cramps come back, you can fall back on that 100g carbs.

It's just an idea.

If < 100 g of carbs a day takes your cramps away and you feel well and maintain your weight, more power to you! You don't have to figure anything else out.