My Hubby has been on a diet for a full week, he's been doing well, but not eating nearly enough in my opinion. Last night he woke up w/ these TERRIBLE leg spasms! He was later talking to a friend of his who's lost 80 pds and his friend said that those kind of spasms go hand in hand w/ weight loss.

I'm not sure I buy that...whats your thoughts??

fascinating...

I get the same thing - wicked charlie horses in my calf muscles that just are really painful... I do not attribute it to weight loss at all... When I researched it - it was attributed to a potassium deficiency and since that is one of the nutrients that I do track- when my potassium is lowish (and potassium is tough to track because it's not mandatory for it to be listed as a nutrient so you sometimes have to guess) then I get more spasms...

I notice it especially if I've walked a lot that day too

Mal is right, it is due to potassium -and calcium- deficiency. I'm on a diet where I can get a very limited amount of potassium, and I'm intolerant to the supplements, so I can get those anywhere from once a month to three times a week. So my suggestion would be to eat things rich in potassium and calcium. If the cramps still come, you can make them go away faster just by moving your foot up in the same position as if you were standing up.

See, the potassium/calcium is the very 1st thing that came to my mind. BUT, heres what confuses me. I understand he's on a diet, but he's eating much healthier now than before. Its not like he is cutting potassium...oh and the weird thing, he said yesterday he had 3 bananas for lunch. I made him some wraps today but I noticed he threw in 3 more bananans. Thats whats confusing me. If he had cut potassium or milk from his diet I could see that, but he's having more of it now that ever before.

is he tracking his nutrition?

because potassium isn't a required element to be listed in foods, it is in a lot of things - probably the not so healthy stuff he was eating before... since he's cuttig back on calories -he's cutting back on essential nutrients.

I strongly doubt it's related to weight loss other than my last statement - cut back on calories - lost weight but also cut back on nutrients.

Many dieters cut out sodium. It is just as likely as both calcium and potassium to contribute to the problem.

Yup, sodium too. Especially if he's been cutting out prepackaged foods for fresh vegetable, meats, and fruit. If he doesn't put it over his food (I HATE salty food), he might have to down a teaspoon a day with water...

well, yea, he has cut out his sodium, but he's been diagnosed w/ sky high BP, he's on a presc. med for it now. I understand how cutting food =cutting nutriants, but his food before had no nutriants to begin with, you know? fast food, pizzas chips, he cut out all of that (which probably had TONS of sodium in it) Maybe thats what it was???

Yes, poor food has poor levels of "nutrition". Except, when it comes to sodium. In fact, a small fast food meal(along with other forms of junk food.) can easily exceed the RDA for sodium. Its not hard to exceed this limit (by far) if one is consuming "poor" food on a fairly regular basis.

Without any other knowledge of this person I would assume, with what I know, that the sudden reduction in sodium might at least be a contributer to the problem.
Add on to this he is surely in a deconditioned state and low neuromuscular efficiency level which is all being stressed by a new activity level.

With all of this, you got a recipe for muscle spasms