How Much Potassium is Lost with Sweating

I wanted to cover an important topic if you're an athlete and it relates to how much potassium and sodium do you need when you're actually sweating .

Now the problem is most people think of sodium loss when they're sweating .

They don't think of the potassium loss .

So this video is for that person .

Normally we need about 47 100 milligrams of potassium every single day and you can get by with like 25 , 100 milligrams if you're not exercising , but that's not completing all the functions in the body .

You actually need at least 47 .

And if you're exercising and you're stressed or you have inflammation , you have other problems , especially rheumatoid arthritis , this number could probably go up to 6000 milligrams per day .

Now you need 23 100 milligrams of sodium per day .

That would come out to , I would say about a level teaspoon per day .

But that's from someone that doesn't exercise .

Let's say for example you are working out really intensely outside where it's hot in the summer and you're playing tennis , you could lose up to 2 pounds of sweat .

Now for those people that are on the metric system , a little more advanced than us Americans , that's 0.9 kilograms .

Almost 1 kilogram of sweat every single hour .

So if you're a football player or you're playing tennis or you're in some boot camp or some type of physical activity , you could lose a tremendous amount of fluid .

Now how much sodium loss ?

Well , it's very difficult to tell exactly how much , but it's gonna be between 500 at the very minimum up to 2 , 000 milligrams of sodium loss every single hour .

That's like the almost the entire , recommended daily amount of sodium .

But with potassium , you lose a 150 to 500 milligrams of potassium through the sweat .

Okay ?

But that's not all .

You also have something called glycogen .

Glycogen is stored glucose in your muscle and in your liver .

And any time you store glucose , you need potassium .

So 2 things .

Number 1 , you're using up your glycogen and when you lose up your glycogen when you're exercising , guess what ?

You're losing your potassium too .

So that's in addition to this amount .

Not to mention , if you're a long distance runner , you might be taking glycogen or that goo every hour .

People have been known to take a 100 milligrams of that every single hour when they're in a race .

When you're taking glycogen without potassium , you're depleting your potassium reserves even more because it takes potassium to store glucose as glycogen .

So that would subtract from this even more .

Now this is 1 of the reasons why a long distance runner could get cramps , bloating or fatigue because of the lost potassium even more than the sodium .

Because normally they're taking salt , but they're not considering sodium .

And here are a few more , symptoms of low potassium .

Nausea , vomiting , weak muscles , muscle spasm , and increased heart rate .

And lastly , when you get a blood test , realize that the great majority of potassium in your body like 98.5 percent is inside the cell .

It's in the muscle .

It's not in the blood .

So if you get a blood test , it's very likely that an actual potassium deficiency inside your cells is gonna show positive by testing the blood .

I put some links down below for more data on potassium which I think is important so you can check that out .

Thanks for watching .

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