Tag Archives: muscle cramps

Weight: 155 lb

Transgressions: Ate oysters instead of fish, and 22 oz salad greens instead of maximum 14 oz

Exercise: Four hours of barnyard chores: clearing brush, moving rocks, adjusting fences.

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My recent cheat day didn’t seem to set me back, other than increasing temporarily my desire for more carbs.

I tried the Morton Salt Substitute on my eggs this morning.  Tastes fine.  Even drank 8 fl oz of water containing one quarter teaspoon (1.2 g) of this potassium chloride product.  That’s 610 mg potassium in one fell swoop.  Regulators in the U.S. limit potassium in over-the-counter supplements to 99 mg.  But remember the potential health benefits of high potassium diets are tied to fruit and vegetable consumption—markers of potassium intake—rather than potassium supplements. 

My leg cramps could be related to deficiency of magnesium, calcium, or potassium.  This is probably an issue with most very low-carb ketogenic diets.  Easy enough to supplement, especially if you know that salt substitutes contain much more potassium than bottled potassium supplements.

I found an example of carbs sneaking into food you might not suspect: ham.  I bought some “fully cooked cubed ham, water added, ground and formed.”  A two-ounce (56 g) serving has 3 g of carbohydrate: dextrose and modified food starch.  Like many processed meats, it also contained sodium nitrite, which might be good to avoid.  Some studies link nitrites—a preservative added to processed meats—to cancer.  Others do not. 

Tracking nutrients in processed foods like this ham is also a little problematic.  The food database at NutritionData has about 60 entries for ham.  The closest product I found was “pork, cured, ham and water product, slice, boneless, separable lean and fat, heated, roasted.”  Close enough.

Smoked oysters were right next to the canned tuna on my last shopping trip, so I grabbed a couple cans.  Turns out they are relatively high in carbohydrates—6 g per 2 ounce serving.  Also found out they are an excellent source of protein, B12, zinc, copper, and iron.  This is an example of why food variety is important.  The other foods I’ve been eating tend leave me lacking iron, copper, and zinc. 

Again, I lost track of my veggie intake and exceeded the max.

–Steve