Today, we’re diving into the electrifying world of electrolytes. Think of them as the Zeus-approved lightning bolts ⚡️ for your body, keeping everything charged and ready to go!

What do electrolytes do?

Electrolytes are the body’s own version of tiny engineers.

They make sure your muscles contract, nerves fire, and hydration levels are on point; all while keeping everything balanced behind scenes.

The main essential electrolytes of the body are sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, bicarbonate, chloride, and phosphate.

Some key roles electrolytes play:

• 💪 Regulate nerve and muscle function: help transmit nerve impulses and enable muscle contractions

• 🌊 Fluid balance: ensure the body’s cells have the right amount of water to stay hydrated

• 🩸 Balance blood acidity and pressure: maintain pH level of your blood and regulate blood pressure

• 🧬 Support cellular function: assist in moving nutrients into cells and waste products out

We’ve all experienced getting a cramp like Harry Potter without his wand in a duel and we all think…should have had a banana this morning 🍌 

Besides the debilitating cramps, electrolyte imbalances can also cause symptoms such as fatigue, headache, numbness, tingling, overheating, among many others.

I’m going to tell you good sources for all of them but let’s take a deeper dive on sodium!

Sodium 🧂 

Have you seen what mountain goats will do for a lick of salt?! 🐐 These fools are crazy!

All electrolytes are important but the balance of salt may be the most important.

The right amount of salt can have tremendous benefits with performance, hydration, and energy. Your workouts can last longer and you can recover better.

If you eat like Cartman from South Park, with cheesy poofs and fried chicken, you can probably pass on the extra salt.

Where adding more salt becomes more important is with those of us that exercise or sweat a lot; particularly athletes.

Also, it may come as a surprise to you, when you are someone who eats healthier without processed foods, you may need to add more salt to your diet.

This becomes even more so if you are on a low carb, keto, fasting, or carnivore approach.

In fact, one of the main reasons, according to the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, for feeling low energy, impaired performance, or experiencing a keto flu is not compensating for the loss of sodium.

This is largely due the effect of carbs being stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver, and each gram of glycogen is bound with several grams of water.

Switching to any type of low carb approach and your body depletes the glycogen. This means water is flooding out faster than a kid doing cannonballs at a pool party.

To combat this excessive loss of water, it’s crucial to increase your intake of electrolytes; especially sodium, magnesium, and potassium during the initial stages as your body adjusts.

This can greatly mitigate the negative side effects.

NERD ALERT 🤓: Electrolyte is a fancy word for ions. They have a natural positive or negative charge when mixed with water. Our bodies are roughly 60% water which means just about every cell in you has electrolytes. They play a huge role in chemical reactions and maintaining balance within your body.

Love the guys at MindPump. They’ve been in the fitness game for a long time and break down what they have seen over the years with electrolytes.

Natural Electrolytes Sources

• Sodium: sea salt like Redmonds or Celtic salt. You also need Iodine so a little table salt is ok or something like seaweed.

• Potassium: avocado, sweet potato, spinach, coconut water

• Magnesium: pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, almonds, spinach, black beans

• Calcium: yogurt, cheese, sardines, tofu, collard greens

• Bicarbonate: not found in food, but produced by the body as part of pH regulation

• Chloride: this goes hand and hand with salt so think table salt or even seaweed

• Phosphate: pumpkin seeds, salmon, sunflower seeds, lentils, chicken breast

Supplements

There is more electrolyte supplements on the market than there are workout selfies on Instagram.

Let’s break down what to look for ingredient wise.

DON’T WANT: no excessive amounts of sugar (if any), no artificial colors, and no artificial sweeteners. Excessive calories are also not needed.

Also, I would avoid proprietary blends (mainly because this is a mystery). It is a way to hide ingredients.

Gatorade and Powerade are not good options. Pedilalyte is better than these two but we can still do better. I wouldn’t choose any because of the above rules.

DO WANT: sodium, magnesium, potassium, flavored with ingredients like stevia or monk fruit, a small amount of carbs/glucose to help with sodium absorption. I’d want at least 500mg of sodium per serving.

I’ve taken all sorts of different electrolyte supplements and the one I use now is LMNT. It’s the one I’ve noticed the biggest difference when I time it accordingly with my workouts.

LMNT is a little more pricier and some people think the salty flavor is a bit much. However, more salt is really what you are looking for.

Choose any brand you like provided it sticks to the above rules. You may not need as much sodium as I need.

Make your own electrolyte drink

• 500 mL coconut water (potassium)

• ½ teaspoon sea salt (1,000 mg of sodium and 1,700 mg chloride)

• Squeeze in half a lemon (calcium and magnesium)

Tips and Tricks

• Spring Water: I drink mainly spring water due to natural minerals/electrolytes in the water. It’s delivered to me in 5 gallon glass bottles via Mountain Spring Valley.

• Urine Color: If yours is mostly clear, you could be overdoing the water. Scale the H2O back a little and add salt or electrolyte supplement.

• Bone Broth: packed with electrolytes and amino acids. Great to add in when dieting or fasting to meet needs you might be losing.

• Bloodwork: test your levels with your doctor to see if have deficiencies

• Timing: play around with 250mg to 1,000mg of salt in water before your workouts depending on your intensity and how much you are dieting.

• Low Blood Pressure and Dizzy when Stand Up: common symptoms of low salt levels (check with doctor for right approach)

• Creatine: draws water into muscles so another good supplement to pair with electrolytes to combat a lower carb approach when dieting

• Too much Magnesium/Sodium: you will know when you’ve gone too far on these via diarrhea worse than a bad date with a taco truck.

• Stan Efferding: this guy has great insight on sodium; personal trainer for 30 years and worked with many professional athletes

• Contraindication: reasons to not add salt would be hypertension, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle. In these cases, it is initially more about working with your doctor to get things under control while making lifestyle changes with diet and exercise.

Conclusion

Aside from Stan, I’ve also listened to Dr. Andy Gaplin, Dr. Layne Norton, Dr. Clyde Nancy, the Cochrane Review, and the list goes on, that salt has been over demonized.

The contraindications are listed above but if you have your blood pressure under control and are leading a healthy lifestyle, take a deeper look at salt and electrolytes as a whole!

Stay Salty! 🧂 

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