Should We Really Be Pushing Electrolytes?

[cujet]

Age plays a role, as does prior weight loss surgery. My wife had the gastric sleeve and she now has trouble with cramping. She has to pound down the Brawndo. I'm 62M, and using Reta for weight loss and touching on my goal weight. No question the FL heat and the fact that I'm working outside in it requires electrolytes from time to time.

 

[5byfive]

You might need to lay off the fries then.

The post is related to a scientific review of literature on electrolytes and your contributions are drink salt and lay off the fries. Trolls are going to troll but that's not going to go over well here. I know a lot of people have been making their way here from Reddit lately, but this board has a much different spirit. If you spend time reading posts, you'll find much more of a spirit of sharing knowledge and experience. Hopefully you will learn to embrace that.

 

[WYSiWYG]

It's not a one size fits all kind of solution - I have a very high sweat rate that is a high electrolyte concentration - which means that during exercise - if I am sweating, I am loosing a lot. If it's a 1 hour gym session, probably fine - if I am running 6+ miles or riding 40+ miles, different story. this doesn't account for heat acclimation or other environmental factors either, which do impact the need

if we are talking about someone taking a GLP and not doing anything other than starving themselves, probly not a big deal - but if you are active and find your self fatigued, crumply regularly and struggling with sleep quality - it absolutely makes a difference. what types and how much are all dependent on the person, their lifestyle and general 'activity'.

My gut also says there's a fair amount that hope on GLP's and go lo-carb, end up with what I describe as the Keto flu - the fix is usually electrolytes

 

[domin8brix]

Age plays a role, as does prior weight loss surgery. My wife had the gastric sleeve and she now has trouble with cramping. She has to pound down the Brawndo. I'm 62M, and using Reta for weight loss and touching on my goal weight. No question the FL heat and the fact that I'm working outside in it requires electrolytes from time to time.

 

[5byfive]

It's not a one size fits all kind of solution - I have a very high sweat rate that is a high electrolyte concentration - which means that during exercise - if I am sweating, I am loosing a lot. If it's a 1 hour gym session, probably fine - if I am running 6+ miles or riding 40+ miles, different story. this doesn't account for heat acclimation or other environmental factors either, which do impact the need

I don't think they are bad overall, they definitely have their place, especially for longer activities; that's what they are really for. And there are other specific instances where they could be helpful as has been discussed, especially low sodium versions.

I just have seen a lot of posts where people start on GLPs and everyone starts pushing electrolytes which just doesn't make sense. Most of the people are significantly overweight, hense the GLPs, and high blood pressure tends to go with that. Pushing salt on them seems like a bad idea. Overall, its just unnecessary for most (I said most) people and likely a net harm.

 

[tendency]

I was probably drinking my electrolyte packets with water about 4 times a week, as it seemed to mitigate much of the exhaustion typical on Tirz 15mg shot day. Well, that backfired because the blood test showed elevated potassium (6.5). Back to just water now, and went back to normal.

Elevated creatinine is another tell-tale blood marker of potentially too much electrolyte consumption as the kidneys have to work extra hard to maintain homeostasis.

 

[CreepyZebra]

Adding electrolytes was the solve to almost all of my really gnarly sides when I was adjusting to taking reta. Now 7 weeks in at the same dose I ran out of liquid IV a couple days ago and seem to be doing and feeling just fine. As someone mentioned above, it appears to be situational for me.