Everything I’ve looked up has calories in it. What do electrolytes do and wouldn’t the calories break the fast? I am on day 2 of a 4 day fast and I should be fine without the ? Please let me know thanks!
Your body needs a certain amount of salts and minerals to function correctly. Those salts and minerals are called electrolytes. Sodium, potassium and magnesium are the primary ones. They maintain your body’s ph and facilitate transmission of electrical impulses through your nervous system to do things like regulate your heartbeat and control your organs, which some people consider important.
What do they do and what happens when you have an imbalance? Here is the first few webpages I found with a basic Google search:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/electrolytes
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/21790-electrolytes
Can you get by without supplementing electrolytes during an extended fast? I’m not a medical doctor but I would not take chances with my life and health.
Will supplementing electrolytes break my fast? Don’t they contain calories? I don’t think they contain any calories, they are minerals not protein, fat or carbs. If you drink Gatorade, yes there will be calories. If you drink table salt mixed with water or take a magnesium pill there will not.
Read the electrolyte FAQ that auto comments to every post in r/fasting.
I’m going to take a swing at this like it was “explain like I’m five“… Because that’s my level of understanding!
You know how it’s dangerous to have electricity around water? Because water conducts electricity right? The old “hairdryer in the bathtub” thing we have all seen before.
Well… While I am begging everybody not to experiment with this, distilled water really doesn’t conduct electricity! It’s the minerals in the water that make it conductive. Distill everything out, you’re left with “pure” water.
Again, I really don’t understand the details… But everything in our body is regulated by electricity. Nerve impulses, brain activity… It is actually Electric in nature. So what happens if our bodies electrolytes get out of whack? Nothing good! It’s hard for our body to maintain itself; kind of like a large computer network that’s experiencing random outages… It will work, it just won’t work very well.
So in my very simple minded understanding, what electrolytes do is ensure that your brain, nerves, muscles… Let’s just say “everything”… Can properly operate and communicate with the other systems of your body.
I have seen different numbers on this, but in my opinion you should probably be taking electrolytes anytime after 24 hours of fasting. You may not need it, but it certainly won’t hurt you. As I recall the big three are sodium, magnesium and potassium. I’m lazy and I buy tablets that have all of that crap in it. Apparently you can make your own; I believe it’s referred to as “snake juice“ or something like that… I’m too lazy to check but someone will jump in and correct me (it’s Reddit, after all)!