Sodium

Chrans

I did notice a couple problems with your Diary. The first one is that you are drinking SlimFast Shakes for two of your meals. This is what is causing you to have a low sodium intake. I would really try to stick around 1,000 mg of Sodium, minimum, especially if you work out. In addition the Slim Fast diets do work to promote weight loss; however, as I have read on a lot of sites they don't really help promote a routine lifestyle. I would also recommend you to eat some small snacks during the day that you actually burn calories with such as: Celery, Oranges, Strawberries, Tangerines, Grapefruit, Carrots, Apricots, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Watermelon, Cauliflower, Apples, Hot Chili Peppers, and Zucchini. Eating several of these snacks during the day can help speed up your metabolism.

deadstarsunburn

Read an article stressing the importance of sodium and specifically running. Sorry I can't remember it to pass it on, but I would do some further research. If you're bouncing around 1000mg I would think you're okay. If not I'll give you some of mine xp

Goal_Seeker_1988

try to aim for less than 1500 mg a day

AngelaeLebron1

try to aim for less than 1500 mg a day

This is what I aim for

IvoryParchment

You'll know you're getting too little sodium if your blood pressure is low. You feel woozy and your vision gets dark if you stand up suddenly, especially if you're squatting down for a while or if it's hot. Some people's bodies are very efficient at saving salt from one day to the next, and others will dump it all in their urine by next day (which is convenient since you can eat as much as you want without high blood pressure, but if you're ever lost in the desert, you'll be the first to die).

You have to know your own body.

ElPumaMex

Iv just opened my diet to the public so feel free to take a look to see if you can see where I'm going wrong.

You're going wrong by not eating nearly enough! You won't go over in sodium when you're only eating 300-500 calories some days. You could do some damage to your metabolism eating such a low-calorie diet.

Definitively agree.
You seem to be depending on Slim-Fast shakes too much.

Also I have noticed many days with 1000 calories or less (not logged?)
You don't want your body to go into starvation mode; if your target is too high (2000 cals) for your body, change it, but if it is correct then don't consume much less than it.

ATT949

And even if you go over 2500 mg/day, the impact may be of little consequence.

Sodium, like so many other substances in our food, is another one of the substances where the early studies have been shown to be flawed. The biggest issue is that sodium has been shown to increase BP for folks who already have elevated BP. That's of concern for overweight and obese folks because that cohort tends to have elevated BP.

I stopped taking BP meds this year because I lost weight and started running. My take on it - eat healthy foods, drop the weight, drop the BP.

dmpizza

If you eat a lot of high sodium foods, you will retain about 5 pounds of water, other than that, there probably is no reason to worry about it unless you have some other health problems.
Some people have cardio or blood pressure issues.
Some people have headache issues from high sodium.
Some people(like me) make kidney stones partly from high sodium levels.