(Low) Sodium Suggestions?

martinkristyk

Hello Everyone

A lightbulb went off for me this week as I noticed that I gain up to a half pound in water weight if I consume the allotted amount of sodium (or slightly over) per MFP. I hadn't paid much attention to sodium before, but the two days this week that I was at/slightly over in my sodium intake both resulted in a weight gain in the morning.

I know it's not a big deal and the water weight will come back off, but it does have me wanting to pay attention to my sodium instake.

Question- does anyone else keep a close eye on sodium intake? If so, suggestions on what to eat or what to avoid?

Thank you!

kyregi

I am on a low sodium diet per doctor's order since the beginning of the year. I can go up to 1500mg, but a lot of days I am staying around 300-500. (I did not really look out for it before, but my guess is that most days I have been at 3000+mg of sodium.) I just had to learn to read all the food labels very very careful and adapt most of my recipes. Canned food and bread has lots of sodium. SO I found myself a bread with "only" 110mg per slice. That is not very low, but better than most breads. There are some breads with no sodium, but I have not ventured there yet. It was in the frozen section and the amount of ice on the bread indicated that it had been in the shelf for quite some time... For the canned veggies: There are cans with "no salt added" and those have only the salt which is naturally in the veggies. I also found a Trader Joe's crunchy peanut butter with no salt added. Usually I do not like peanut butter, but I really like that one.
As I usually eat my big warm meal in the evening, I will check my overall balance in calories etc as well as in sodium before I throw in the final spices. I will add a little salt if I am still very low on my intake just to make it less bland. I have adapted to it and even my family says most of the time that there is not much taste difference to our previous versions of the meals.
So the best thing to do: read the labels....

waterwaif

I am posting here to follow this. I have to limit my sodium, too, for health reasons.

For now, I eat a lot of raw or whole foods at home without adding salt to anything. And I have to avoid eating out a lot. We went out for dinner the other night and I had roast turkey with a small scoop of stuffing. When I came home to enter it here, I was shocked to see that the dinner had more than my daily limit of sodium in one meal.

Laughter_Girl

I keep a close eye on mine because I have to for health reasons. Feel free to try one or all of the following:

1. Eat the freshest ingredients available. Fresher is better.
2. Stay away from processed food (frozen meals & many canned foods are very high in sodium).
3. Dine out infrequently (They have to season the food with salt to make it taste so yummy.) So, pizza, Mexican food, Italian food, Chinese food, and fast food should be limited.
4. Don't add salt to your meals at home (Use Mrs. Dash or create your own spices w/out salt. Also, use fresh herbs when possible. They add more flavor.)
5. Read labels. It's surprising how much sodium some items have.
6. Drink plenty of water. It will help flush out some of that water you're retaining.

Wishing you the best.