Anyone struggle to keep their sodium intake down?

BullishBull

Does it matter if my sodium intake is between 2800 and 3000? MFP tells me it should be 2300 or below. I'm really struggling to decrease my sodium intake without affecting my protein intake. Even my protein shakes have quite a high amount of sodium in. My daily diet hardly has any junk in it, yet my sodium level is still high.

4legsRbetterthan2

It is pretty hard to keep sodium down, most people do not worry about it too much unless a doctor instructs them to for a medical condition. I also noticed as I tried to increase protein sodium tends to go hand in hand, as many meats are salted to aid in preservation so they tend to be high in sodium.

kshama2001

I tend towards low blood pressure and don't eat a lot of ultra processed foods so am not personally concerned about Sodium. I swapped out Sodium and Sugar for Fiber and Iron (fiber for satiety and iron cuz I'm anemic.)

JeromeBarry1

Are you sensitive to sodium? Are you under medical supervision for high blood pressure? If not, don't stress about it.

Sp1tfire

I almost always take in around 2200 mg of sodium a day, like you said, most of it is from protein. If i feel particularly concerned about it I just swap out my usual fruits for bananas to up my potassium.

Queenmunchy

I had very high blood pressure and cut down sodium just to see if it would help. All I did was start making my own salt free condiments and pickled items, and stayed away from lunchmeat and too much cheese.

Cutting out alcohol actually made my blood pressure drop to low ranges and I eat a ton of salt again.

elliej

"Matter" maybe not, but it may impact how much water you retain and therefore your weight / stomach bloat. I know that when I have a high sodium day (over 2000) I feel it afterwards.

psuLemon

Since I workout and don't have hypertension or BP issues, I tend to intentionally keep it high (~5000mg). But then again, I don't care about weight, I care about body composition and sodium doesn't affect that. If you are concerned about potential bloat, than increasing potassium & magnesium can provide electrolyte balance.

DasItMan91

Drink a gallon of water a day and stay away from foods that have a high sodium count (aka try to eat as hippie as possible)

kshama2001

All these comments about protein and salt made me curious so I turned Sodium back on. Meat isn't inherently salty - salt is added to foods like lunch meats. Just wanted to point out that if one is concerned about sodium no need to limit meat per se - just get it raw and cook it yourself.

A notable exception would be corned beef. From wiki, "Corned beef is a salt-cured beef product. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large grained rock salt, also called "corns" of salt."