Learning what works for ME

april1lowe

Just a rant really but.....

I am going to try to up my sodium allowance. By keeping it at 1000 mg or under, I did really well and lost a great amount of weight for one week. BUT with ONE bad day, that honestly wasn't THAT bad, I've basically gained it all back. It's as if my body was so cleared of salt that when I consumed more then normal it hung onto every single mg of it. That is an unrealistic lifestyle, for me at least. I want to eat better and have a better, healthier lifestyle. I am slowly achieving that and learning more about my foods and my body. That is working for me. I know to have this journey continue to my ultimate goal, I'll need to allow myself slip ups. I'm only human. Going the rest of my life without dining out or eating a french fry is unrealistic.....again, FOR ME, it is. HOWEVER, going the rest of my life making better choices daily with an occasional off meal, is realistic. It's something I CAN do. For some people, cutting out processed, eating sticks of celery and brocolli day in and day out is perfect. Never eating out is no problem. That's awesome! But, that's not for me. I can live my life like that 90% of the time but to say I'll never eat bad again just isn't realistic for me and it's begging for a relapse of making poor food choices and gaining all my weight back and loosing the battle to fight off the genetics and poor choices I was raised to know. SO, with that, I am taking what I've learned from dropping the sodium super low.....veggies aren't THAT bad having as many as I can in a day is good, watching the sodium is a good thing, TRY to keep it low and within reason, ignoring it isn't the answer but obessing over it isn't either. Complete deprivation of sodium works wonders for my body, but the minute I put a little in, my body goes into shock or something and WWIII with the scale begins and I can't deal with that battle everytime I cheat.

I am hoping by allowing myself a LITTLE extra sodium in a day, but still A LOT less then what I was, will give me the weight loss I desire but the allowance to have a little slip up without the result I got this weekend (basically gaining every bit of the loss back!) Trying to find a balance. A balance that works FOR ME.

soulofmyshoe

It is my understanding from the articles I have read that sodium restriction will not result in long-term weight loss. The deal is that sodium causes your body to hold on to more water, so if you cut sodium out, there is less water in your blood and hence you lose a bunch of weight really quickly. This weight isn't fat or any other sort of body tissues (at least, not more than it would have been without the reduced sodium intake), just water. This is probably why you got such a rapid gain when you slipped: your body retained all that water again and it looked like you had gained a bunch. I wouldn't worry about that weight gain, because it shouldn't be indicative of actual fat loss and gain.

All that being said, high sodium foods are often high calorie as well (and heavily processed), so reducing sodium intake could easily have a secondary effect of improving the quality of the food you eat. Unless you have high blood pressure or have been told to drop sodium from your diet by a doctor or trainer or something, I don't think you need to worry about upping your intake a little, as long as you stay within reasonable limits. In fact, according to the AHA, the average healthy adult needs around 1500 mg/day of sodium for optimum health (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/publications/dietaryguidelines/2010/meeting2/commentattachments/aha-220e.pdf). Hope that helps.

april1lowe

THANK YOU!!! I KNEW that low of sodium forever just sounded nuts!! I have learned by cutting it down tho that the processed stuff is horrible. It is generally high in everything so avoiding it is always good. It was just hard to enjoy 1/4 cup of cheese or a slice of wheat toast bc of the sodium. I just want to find a healthy balance that keeps the sodium down and the veggies up but without causing havoc on my body should I occasionally decide to have ONE meal that isn't within those limits. So maybe having around the recommended amount of 1500 will do that. It'll keep enough in so when I cheat my body don't go into shock but enough out that I will not be bloated 24/7. Thanks

chrikoko12202007

So very true. It's great that we've both learned this quickly through our experience and it's good to know im not alone in this. You are such a big help and inspiration to me. We'll both have struggles but having others there for the support and knowing ure not the only one has helped me from giving up. i just gotta get more into the veggies :-/ lol