man yall are killing me

Hnter1976

So i just recently (3ish weeks) started hitting the gym 5 days a week 1-2 times a day, eating better, cut out my Diet Dr. Pepper addiction, and quit dipping snuff. Now thats not good enough i am supposed to pay attention to all the break downs and nutrients. Is it really that important or is it just one of those anal retentive health freak things? Is sodium really gonna hurt me other than make he hold a bit of extra water (i'm always way over on my sodium). Basicly i just wanted to know how picky i actually have to be.

mageepilot

Personal opinion, unless you have health issues, or problems that run in your family, I wouldn't worry about it. I don't worry about anything but calories and trying to eat more more vegetables and less carbs. I track my protein because I have found I feel fuller longer if I have more protein. At least at first just losing weight is hard enough without worrying about all the other things. Maybe later! Good luck

AnaNotBanana

At first just counting calories worked for me. Now I've lost the initial weight and am trying to gain muscle I need to watch my macro nutrients to make sure that I'm getting enough of what I need.

ramblingirl

If you feel good about what you are currently doing, stick with that. As you get used to a more healthy lifestyle, start looking at the nutrients, salts, etc. You'll want to anyways. Otherwise, you may get discouraged and reach for a diet soda if you start to feel restricted. Start to add more and more whole foods and lean proteins, stay away from frozen things and you won't even have to be concerned with sodium.

sister_bear

That's between you and your doctor, imho. I have a history of high blood pressure/heart disease and high cholesterol in my family as well as a history of cancer. I watch my cholesterol and sodium as a result and I try to eat more 'cancer fighting' foods.

UsedToBeHusky

You can work the program any way you want. Sodium has a tendency to cause plateaus. Potassium deficiency will cause that too. So maybe you just do what you need to do to lose the weight and then take a look at the other stuff when you hit a plateau.

HMonsterX

If you want to lose weight, not really. Just get some exercise, make sure you create a calorific deficit, and you're good to go.

If you want to get uber healthy, then you need to start looking at your macros etc.

Depends what you want really.

MikeSEA

It's all very personal. If you're losing weight with what you're doing, you feel good, and you're not doing something obviously and horribly unhealthy...keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore.

I personally pay attention to my macronutrients because I'm in the gym 6/week, running a caloric deficit and want to maintain the muscle that I've got.

EDIT: if you're just calorie counting and not looking at much else, I'd also suggest taking a daily multivitamin. It probably won't hurt you and it's easy.

Hnter1976

thanks for those answers... it was getting to be a little discouraging I decided to get in better shape and all i'm hearing is about how i get too much sodium and sugar when my trainer would look at my MFP logs

rachel1496

For now I would focus on what you're doing. Once you feel like you're in a good place with all of this then work on making small changes in your diet, one at a time. Every time I've had issues it's because I tried to take on too many new changes at once.