LESSON #16 – Why Did Keto Raise My Blood Pressure – 4min

. . Can keto cause high blood pressure problems? Here’s what you need to know.

Timestamps
0:00 Why did keto raise my blood pressure?
0:13 What is glycogen?
2:12 Dehydration, electrolytes, and high blood pressure
2:53 What to do for high blood pressure on keto?
3:22 Keto consulting

In this video, I’m going to answer the question: why did keto raise my blood pressure? This is a question I recently got from a viewer, so I wanted to make a quick video on this topic.

First, it’s important to understand that you have this stuff called glycogen. This is stored glucose or sugar. Glycogen needs potassium. For every molecule of glucose, you need one molecule of potassium. One molecule of glucose also retains 3-3.5 molecules of water.

It helps to think of glycogen as a sponge—it soaks up and holds a lot of water.

Glycogen is stored in your liver and muscles.

When you do keto and intermittent fasting, you deplete the glycogen in your liver. You’re left with only the glycogen in your muscle. In turn, the glycogen you burn also gets rid of the water and potassium it retains. This may cause dehydration and low electrolytes/potassium.

One of the primary causes of hypertension is low potassium.

Not only do you lose a lot of potassium while adapting to keto, but also your requirement goes way up. Additionally, many people are already low on potassium, which makes matters worse.

The best remedy for this issue is to do the healthy version of keto. How? There are two things:

1. Get around 1,000 mg of potassium
2. Consume 7-10 cups of vegetables per day

This will help support weight loss and also promote a healthy body and blood pressure level.