Anyone here to track their sodium?

drstratman
drstratman Posts: 5 Member
in Introduce Yourself
I am new to MFP since mid July. The main reason I signed up on MFP was to track my sodium, and since I need to continue to drop some weight, I do that as well.

Everyone here is tracking calories and seems to be concentrating on dropping weight, and I don't see any discussions or Blogs about too much sodium. The foods we eat nowadays has TOO MUCH SODIUM, which cause a variety health issues, especially down the road where I am. Is there anyone at MFP like me, that need to be low sodium? and also dropping weight? I would be interested to hear from any MFP members whose enemy is sodium.

Good luck to all in the pursuit of being fit.

Replies

  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I see sodium talks in here all the time. I think of "the food we eat nowadays has too much sodium" much as I think of "it's hard to lose weight as we get older" - if we cook more from scratch, we can easily reduce sodium intake, and if we eat less and move more, we lose weight, regardless of age. I have never appointed sodium specifically as my enemy, but I struggled with my weight all the time when I though sugar and fat and everything good tasting were my enemies; it turned out food fear and demonizing was the real enemy! Just eating normal food I like, and in appropriate portions, in short, going back to how we ate when most people were normal weight, is easy, and it makes me healthy and normal weight too.
  • Gemini61454
    Gemini61454 Posts: 85 Member
    I do track and try to stay under 2300 gms daily. Since I cook mostly from scratch,that helps, but if we eat out or eat prepared food, OMG
  • ewhall46
    ewhall46 Posts: 15 Member
    @drstratman As a T2 diabetic, yes...sodium is a concern (as well as carbs/sugar). I've worked with a nutritionist as a starting point, but the journey continues. For me (and the food I like), it's not too hard to meet sodium goals. I still exceed from time to time, but consciously, if that makes sense.
  • mattde17
    mattde17 Posts: 1 Member
    i have pkd and track sodium losely
  • drstratman
    drstratman Posts: 5 Member
    Thanks for the responses. I figured there are probably not a lot of people sharing the problem with sodium, or at least not wanting to post. I really like the MFP app, and have lost over 15 lbs since mid July, more importantly have got my sodium under control. But I’m finding out that buying food to make low sodium meals limits a lot of what I can eat. Pretty much any food you buy in a can, or that is prepared, packaged or frozen is very high in sodium. I can’t find a any place to eat out where I can eat a single meal under 2000 mg of sodium, most are over 3000 for a single meal. I can’t afford that.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    But you're supposed to use fresh or frozen or dried foods to cook from.
  • MissouriRose
    MissouriRose Posts: 6 Member
    I track sodium as well because of my blood pressure, and I find staying between 1500-2000 mg also helps me lose weight more consistently. Definitely it's a lot of fresh foods and smaller meals. Freezer type meals or ready made rice or anything like that tends to be quite high but if I'm careful the rest of the day I can often manage that for dinner, with a protein bar for lunch and a couple packets of oatmeal for breakfast. Definitely eating out isn't sodium friendly and the only thing I've found that didn't kill me on the sodium was like, maybe a veggie sub from Subway without a lot of sauce, or a big smoothie from Booster Juice. Your typical fast food is pretty much a no go, unfortunately. If you look hard enough at the grocery store, however, you can find SOME 1/3 sodium soups or low to no sodium canned beans, things like that. Would not recommend getting dried beans and cooking them lol, found that confusing and time consuming. I'm only allowed 1200 calories and honestly I have trouble even reaching that without going way over on sodium, I assume you'd be granted more calories than that which would make it even more difficult but if you add lots of bulk with veggies, lots of snacks with fruit, nuts, greek yogurt, flavoured oatmeals or even better plain oatmeal just add a bit of brown sugar. If you're like me and don't like to cook you can even get plain brown rice and self-steam veggies that you just have to microwave. It's a pretty bland life but after a while you'll notice the natural flavours more.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    drstratman wrote: »
    I am new to MFP since mid July. The main reason I signed up on MFP was to track my sodium, and since I need to continue to drop some weight, I do that as well.

    Everyone here is tracking calories and seems to be concentrating on dropping weight, and I don't see any discussions or Blogs about too much sodium. The foods we eat nowadays has TOO MUCH SODIUM, which cause a variety health issues, especially down the road where I am. Is there anyone at MFP like me, that need to be low sodium? and also dropping weight? I would be interested to hear from any MFP members whose enemy is sodium.

    Good luck to all in the pursuit of being fit.

    Last month at my annual exam I was one point below the low end of the sodium range provided by the lab so I have stepped up my salt usage a bit. I work to get in 5-7 grams total daily from all sources. While I do not track anything I eat I know not eating main processed foods low sodium can become a serious health issue. I have no weight goals so it just is what it is. People can die from low sodium. Recently locally a guy crashed his truck hauling his tractor when he passed out due to low sodium.

    If my feet start to swell I know I overdid it on the salt.

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