Sodium
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inspirationstation
Posts: 209 Member
Can someone remind me how much we should be ingesting on a daily basis. I haven't been paying enough attention to this and I think I might start tracking it.
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Replies
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3,000-5,000mg daily. I'd push for the upper limit early on. As you become adapted, you can migrate down to the lower end. Adaptation decreases the need for sodium a little.0
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@baconslave nailed it. It's definitely more important in the first week or so, but Phinney and Volek recommend keeping it in the 5g/day range pretty much all the time.
Your body regulates sodium pretty tightly, but there's about a 4-day lag between consumption and dumping it out. Excess ketones cause too much sodum to be dumped, and that happens in the first week, but also after exercise, fasting, and diet-induced high-ketone changes.0 -
Thanks! I am definitely under consuming sodium. I feel like I am still foggy, even when I shouldn't be.0
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inspirationstation wrote: »Thanks! I am definitely under consuming sodium. I feel like I am still foggy, even when I shouldn't be.
Do the best you can. I would consider myself an experienced ketoer, and I'm still a scatterbrained idiot when it comes to the electrolytes. I know how important they are. But it's easy to get busy and forget about them.
Me:"Why am I so tired (or foggy or achy) again?"
Keto brain:"You getting enough salt, Einstein?"
Me: "Oops! Forgot. Again"
Keto brain: "You're an idiot. Time for broth."0 -
baconslave wrote: »Me:"Why am I so tired (or foggy or achy) again?"
Keto brain:"You getting enough salt, Einstein?"
Me: "Oops! Forgot. Again"
Keto brain: "You're an idiot. Time for broth."
Ha! That is awesome baconslave!
I thought I was the only one....
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A good way to help keep it up is to salt to taste. Yes, even if that means salting bacon. Your taste preferences are actually a pretty good guide for what you need once you've slain the sugar-monster. If salt tastes good to you, then you probably could use it. The nice thing about this way of eating is that it's actually rather difficult to get too much sodium, between the higher needs and the lower inherent amount in the staple foods, so you don't really have to worry about things like blood pressure from sodium unless you have an underlying condition.0
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Also, for every other water bottle I drink, I tend to toss a "pinch" of Pink Himalayan crystals into my mouth. I let them salt my mouth to tolerance, then swig some water and drink them down. This tends to keep from from over watering and under salting...0
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baconslave wrote: »inspirationstation wrote: »Thanks! I am definitely under consuming sodium. I feel like I am still foggy, even when I shouldn't be.
Do the best you can. I would consider myself an experienced ketoer, and I'm still a scatterbrained idiot when it comes to the electrolytes. I know how important they are. But it's easy to get busy and forget about them.
Me:"Why am I so tired (or foggy or achy) again?"
Keto brain:"You getting enough salt, Einstein?"
Me: "Oops! Forgot. Again"
Keto brain: "You're an idiot. Time for broth."
Ha! Maybe, I will just start incorporating broth into my daily routine. I like it well enough. I just never think to salt...how is that even possible?
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inspirationstation wrote: »baconslave wrote: »inspirationstation wrote: »Thanks! I am definitely under consuming sodium. I feel like I am still foggy, even when I shouldn't be.
Do the best you can. I would consider myself an experienced ketoer, and I'm still a scatterbrained idiot when it comes to the electrolytes. I know how important they are. But it's easy to get busy and forget about them.
Me:"Why am I so tired (or foggy or achy) again?"
Keto brain:"You getting enough salt, Einstein?"
Me: "Oops! Forgot. Again"
Keto brain: "You're an idiot. Time for broth."
Ha! Maybe, I will just start incorporating broth into my daily routine. I like it well enough. I just never think to salt...how is that even possible?
Training from all the old rules - that salt is evil...0 -
Wait back up, help the noob, my search isn't coming up with a good answer. Doesn't too much salt reak havoc on your kidneys??0
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Too much salt? Is there such a thing?
5 grams of sodium a day. That's all they suggest.
Coincidentally, that amount also has the lowest mortality rate associated with it.
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Interesting...
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Dragonwolf wrote: »A good way to help keep it up is to salt to taste. Yes, even if that means salting bacon. Your taste preferences are actually a pretty good guide for what you need once you've slain the sugar-monster. If salt tastes good to you, then you probably could use it. The nice thing about this way of eating is that it's actually rather difficult to get too much sodium, between the higher needs and the lower inherent amount in the staple foods, so you don't really have to worry about things like blood pressure from sodium unless you have an underlying condition.
Salting bacon!
That just made me laugh thinking about it!
I can just see the looks when Sitting at Cracker Barrel putting salt on my bacon!
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farmers_daughter wrote: »Wait back up, help the noob, my search isn't coming up with a good answer. Doesn't too much salt reak havoc on your kidneys??
Not under typical low carb circumstances, where our base need is higher to begin with. Again, it comes down to reaching that theoretical upper limit, which is harder than you might expect. Again, too, we're talking otherwise healthy kidneys and not those dealing with underlying kidney dysfunction independent of sodium intake.
The more important thing is maintaining the correct balance of electrolytes and the correct proportion of sodium to water within the body.
As for kidney health, as I understand it, it again comes back to proper hydration and electrolyte balance. Kidney stones are typically made of calcium, so balanced intake of sodium can keep the body from excreting calcium.
5 grams is generally considered the sweet spot for intake. If you're eating a whole foods diet (ie - not eating a bunch of fries and chips and other high-sodium, low-nutrient food products), then getting 5g of sodium is a lot, and really hard to do without actually putting effort into it.
Trust your body to tell you what it needs. It's far better at determining what it needs (if you let it do its job) than some external source.AppetiteControlFreak wrote: »Dragonwolf wrote: »A good way to help keep it up is to salt to taste. Yes, even if that means salting bacon. Your taste preferences are actually a pretty good guide for what you need once you've slain the sugar-monster. If salt tastes good to you, then you probably could use it. The nice thing about this way of eating is that it's actually rather difficult to get too much sodium, between the higher needs and the lower inherent amount in the staple foods, so you don't really have to worry about things like blood pressure from sodium unless you have an underlying condition.
Salting bacon!
That just made me laugh thinking about it!
I can just see the looks when Sitting at Cracker Barrel putting salt on my bacon!
My son actually asks for salt on his bacon sometimes (and for added salt on his fries), because he tends to be deficient in sodium.0
