Tips & tricks for starting (or restarting) low-carb Pt II
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/230561-Tips-tricks-for-starting-or-restarting-low-carb-Pt-II
Dr. Michael Eades, M.D.
ProteinPower.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 07:04 CDT
Hydration
A few years ago, I learned the lessons of adequate hydration the hard way, so take this as a cautionary tale and benefit from my painful experience. I had always pooh-poohed the notion of drinking a lot of water in addition to coffee, tea and other non-caloric beverages because I always figured (and probably have even written in the pages of this blog somewhere) that coffee, tea, etc. are nothing but water with a little flavoring in them. I mean, if you start out with a glass of water and put tea bag in it, the water doesn't go away. It's still there; it just becomes tea-flavored water. Well, turns out that's not actually the case.
My daily ritual was as follows: Get up, stagger to the refrigerator and take a big gulp or two of sparkling water. Then make my way to the espresso maker and crank out a cup of Americano. Followed by four or five more Americanos over the course of the morning and early afternoon, interspersed with a gulp here and there of sparkling water. A snort of Jameson in the early evening, maybe a glass of red wine with dinner and a decaf Americano after dinner. If I watch a movie or read a book, I usually nurse another glass of Jameson. I typically take my supplements at bedtime, so I throw back another half glass or so of sparkling water then. Plenty of liquids, right?
Well, not exactly, as it turned out.
I began developing severe cramps in my hands and feet that I had a hell of a time massaging out. That was just the beginning. I started being awakened at night with brutal leg cramps, requiring my springing from the bed and walking them out. My potassium is too low, thought I, so I started taking potassium. No change in the cramping situation. In fact, if anything, it got worse. I was complaining to a friend who told me calcium had helped his cramps. So I downed calcium at bedtime. No improvement.
Another friend told me that tonic water had helped her with cramps, but I only half believed it, so didn't really try. Then MD and I had family visit us in Tahoe for skiing. I upped my booze intake, kept the coffee intake about the same, and probably decreased my consumption of sparkling water (or water of any kind, for that matter). The cramps increased dramatically. And what was worse, they stopped limiting themselves to the night. When MD and I were driving over to Napa one day, the cramps were so severe I could hardly drive. I had to keep the seat back as far as I could get it so I could straighten my leg when one hit me. Then my hands started cramping just holding them on the steering wheel. I pulled off the freeway and made a beeline for a convenience store and grabbed a one liter bottle of diet tonic water and proceeded to chug the entire thing as I drove down the road. Miraculously, my cramps subsided. So, I figured tonic water (quinine) was the solution.
One night - after being out of tonic water for a few days and being failed by my bride in resupplying - I had another brutal night of cramps. The next day I was scheduled for blood donation. After going through the long list of questions that must be answered verbally (and fighting down the impulse to tell my interrogator that I had recently paid for sex while imprisoned in Africa - those who have given blood lately will know what I mean), I was sent to actually have the blood taken. The phlebotomist couldn't find my vein, which had never happened before because I usually have rope-like veins in my forearms. She asked if I was dehydrated. I told her I didn't think so since I had had my normal four of five cups of coffee that morning along with my gulp of water. She brought me a couple of 16 ounce bottles of water that I drank, and, bingo, there were my veins. Big and robust as usual.
It finally occurred to me that my cramping problem might be due to dehydration and that the diet tonic that solved the problem did so not because of the quinine but because I was drinking all the water the quinine was dissolved in. And it occurred to me that the cramping was worse in the middle of the night because a lot of water is lost through the breath at night. (See my second post on the Anthony Colpo Smackdown to read more about this.) You can lose a couple of pounds during sleep simply by breathing water vapor away, which was, I'm sure, what was happening to me. I was barely hydrated enough to prevent cramping while awake, but when I slept and my fluid level fell due to my breathing water away, I hit some critical threshold of fluid that kicked off the cramps.
{We also always recommend hydration during the EE program}
I started rehydrating first thing in the morning and throughout the day. Now I get up, drink anywhere from 16 to 32 ounces of remineralized water (more about which later) first thing. Then I head to the espresso maker and start my daily Americano regimen. But I consume at least 8 ounces of sparkling water after each cup of coffee. And I drink water after each shot of Jameson and/or glass of wine (or any other alcoholic libation),* and I'm proud to report that I have been cramp free since upping the water.
My brush with cramping misery inspired me to hit the medical literature to read about hydration. And I learned many wonderful things. For example, I learned coffee is a diuretic (which I already knew but had chosen to forget), but that some acclimation occurs over time. Still, due to the diuretic effect, you don't get the full fluid from a cup of coffee that you would from an equal amount of water. Same with alcohol. Once I started calculating how much fluid of that I drank throughout the day I was actually retaining, I was amazed that cramping was the worst that happened to me.
I learned that water has a lipolytic effect (fat burning). I read this in a number of papers that had studied it, and the data clearly showed that those who took in a lot of water had increased lipolysis. I didn't deny the data, but I couldn't figure out the mechanism (and apparently neither could any of the authors because none described it). I thought on it a while and finally came up with what I think is a plausible scenario.
When you drink water, especially cold water, you require some increase in caloric burning to bring the water to body temperature, but that increase doesn't amount to all that much (the authors did describe this phenomenon), but you also dilute your blood for a bit until the water equilibrates with the fluid in all the tissues, and effect that takes some time. During this time, while the blood is more dilute, the concentration of the various substances carried in the blood decreases. Which would mean that insulin levels would fall. The typical blood volume is about 5 liters, so drinking a liter of water would increase the blood volume temporarily by about 20 percent, which would mean the concentration of insulin and other molecules in the blood would fall by about 20 percent. A 20 percent drop in insulin levels would allow fat to escape the fat cells and would facilitate its transfer into the mitochondria for burning. At least that's my explanation for the lipolytic effect seen in numerous studies of subjects increasing water intake.
Those starting a low-carb diet are prone to dehydration because excess ketones are gotten rid of via the kidneys along with a lot of fluid. So, when you start your diet, consciously increase your fluid intake. Do like I do now and come up with some sort of regimen that ensures you consume plenty of water throughout the day. You'll feel better; you'll avoid cramping; and you'll actually burn a little more fat. And don't make the mistake I did and assume that drinking a lot of coffee, tea, booze or other diuretic fluid is a replacement for water intake.
Since I drink either bottled water or water that comes through our RO filter, both of which are depleted of minerals, I always remineralize my water by adding a pinch of Celtic Sea Salt or one of the other such salts to each bottle. I add enough so that the water just barely hints of a salty taste.
