How in the world to stay under Sodium goal?

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  • cjhex
    cjhex Posts: 10 Member
    There not my statistics and personally, I fall below too but I wasn't looking for an argument, just wishing to express the risk of insufficient salt in the diet.
  • cuinboston2014
    cuinboston2014 Posts: 848 Member
    WOW - OK Sodium IS a big deal even if you don't have health problems.... yet. By constantly exceeding it we are putting ourselves at higher risk for prehypertension and additional stress on our organs. She is smart to want to reduce it.

    I was hoping to find suggestions myself but wasn't expecting to see so many people say don't worry about it. if you just want to lose weight, maybe don't worry. If your overall goal is ultimate health - it's legit.

    I've been trying to avoid packaged foods where and when I can but it's hard. Check labels on everything and then start adding it up. I may check one item that has 35% of my daily sodium intake and think "thats not bad" but that's horrible.

    Check everything that's packaged. Eat as fresh as you can. See where you are after a week or two and then try to re-evaluate.

    that's all I got
  • jclark0523
    jclark0523 Posts: 47 Member
    Natural Peanut Butter is a good way to get some calories without blowing your sodium goal. 2 tbs of Smuckers Natural PB is 210 cals and only 105 mg of sodium.
  • ThriceBlessed
    ThriceBlessed Posts: 499 Member
    I would identify the largest sodium drivers in your diet and try to find alternatives for those.

    For salad dressing, try cutting it half and half with other stuff like olive oil, balsamic, juice, lemon, or milk (depending on the flavor). I also add green onion, celery, parsley or other herbs to my salad because those help "spice" up the taste of the greens so that I can use less dressing.

    For the lunch meats, you probably need to swap some out for home cooked meats. I poach/sauté a family pack of chicken and then keep it in the fridge using it in sandwich wraps for a couple days instead of lunch meat.

    To reduce the salt in your cooking without feeling like your food is bland, double the other spices in any recipe.

    Good salt substitutes for cooking:
    Lemon
    Pepper
    Onion
    Garlic
    cayenne
    balsamic
    mustard

    Thank you!!!!

    This is helpful, I'll give it a try next time I have a salad. I like sesame ginger balsamic, so I'm assuming cutting it with a little balsamic vinegar and maybe a little water might work.
  • ThriceBlessed
    ThriceBlessed Posts: 499 Member
    I am trying to focus more on staying under all of my macros including sodium

    I never TRY to go under on protein, I try to hit my mark or as close to it as I can.
  • aflawson111
    aflawson111 Posts: 2
    I spent some time at the grocery store looking at the sodium levels on all the packaged lunch meats. I found that some brands had a lot less sodium than others, and some types of meat had a lot less sodium than others.

    Maybe if you look at the back of the packages and try to find a brand and type of meat that is lower (maybe turkey instead of ham, for instance) you can cut some sodium out that way.
  • bkelly30
    bkelly30 Posts: 7 Member
    I am currently googling why all my Macros are always under including calories, but my sodium is high as can be. So as I am looking at my entries, though low never realized fresh spinach has sodium. I eat cottage cheese, and actually just made this amazing chicken salad recipe that uses pureed up cottage cheese rather than mayo, felt like I was making great decisions. Cals low, carbs low, fat low, protein high, sodium off the charts. I really would like to just remove the entire column of sodium. Mine is set at 2300 mg a day, its 11:49 and I am already at 1597. I started using Silk Vanilla Almost Milk (unsweetened) this week in my protein shakes and see it is 151 mg, so I guess I will go back to water. I don't have any advise, but kind of feel better seeing many have the same issue.

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