While I still don’t feel like I understand electrolytes as well as I would like to, I become more convinced that supplementing potassium when one engages in activities that produce sweating is worthwhile.
Over the last year I started using potassium carbonate like a spice and whether or not it feels tasty depends a lot on how much I was sweating in the day before the meal.
Giving that summer comes up, if you aren’t already supplementing electrolytes for those days that are warm enough to make you sweat, I recommend you to get some potassium carbonate and experiment with it. It’s worth noting that you need relatively tiny amounts, so if you start experimenting with it start really low as it’s easy too put too much into the food and make the food taste bad.
Supplementing sweat out electrolytes seem to reduce the feeling of being drained from the summer heat.
The body uses up sodium and potassium as two major cations. You need them for neural firing to work, among many other things; it’s the body’s go-to for “I need a single-charge cation but sodium doesn’t work for whatever reason”. As such, you lose plenty in urine and sweat. Because modern table salt (i.e., neither rock salt nor better yet sea salt) contains basically no potassium, people can end up being slightly deficient because we do still get some from foods—lots of types of produce like tomatoes, root vegetables, and some fruits are rich in it, for instance.
In addition to that from my perspective, I think that if every day of the year you consume the same amount of potassium you (as a typical office worker) likely consume either too much or too little on some days.
That’s certainly also an option. I personally found for myself, that I feel intuitively less drawn to NaCl+KCl than to NaCl + K2CO3 (I have both at home).
Most supplements that have mixes of electrolytes don’t seem to use KCl and so would give you relatively less chloride than the NaCl+KCl mix.
While I still don’t feel like I understand electrolytes as well as I would like to, I become more convinced that supplementing potassium when one engages in activities that produce sweating is worthwhile.
Over the last year I started using potassium carbonate like a spice and whether or not it feels tasty depends a lot on how much I was sweating in the day before the meal.
Giving that summer comes up, if you aren’t already supplementing electrolytes for those days that are warm enough to make you sweat, I recommend you to get some potassium carbonate and experiment with it. It’s worth noting that you need relatively tiny amounts, so if you start experimenting with it start really low as it’s easy too put too much into the food and make the food taste bad.
Supplementing sweat out electrolytes seem to reduce the feeling of being drained from the summer heat.
The body uses up sodium and potassium as two major cations. You need them for neural firing to work, among many other things; it’s the body’s go-to for “I need a single-charge cation but sodium doesn’t work for whatever reason”. As such, you lose plenty in urine and sweat. Because modern table salt (i.e., neither rock salt nor better yet sea salt) contains basically no potassium, people can end up being slightly deficient because we do still get some from foods—lots of types of produce like tomatoes, root vegetables, and some fruits are rich in it, for instance.
In addition to that from my perspective, I think that if every day of the year you consume the same amount of potassium you (as a typical office worker) likely consume either too much or too little on some days.
“Lo-salt” salt is salt with potassium. That’s been my table salt for 5 years.
That’s certainly also an option. I personally found for myself, that I feel intuitively less drawn to NaCl+KCl than to NaCl + K2CO3 (I have both at home).
Most supplements that have mixes of electrolytes don’t seem to use KCl and so would give you relatively less chloride than the NaCl+KCl mix.