Sodium Soup

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So I just changed my food diary settings to show sodium and had a shocking revelation! :noway: I eat these very healthy low calorie soups (whether canned or homemade) and can't understand why I weigh more the next day... :frown: I finally figured it out! While low in calories, I'm consuming a RIDICULOUS amount of sodium! :embarassed: That's gotta be why! Grabbing my 9th glass of water for the day now... :drinker:

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  • JenniferMann24
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    Yeah I was the same way. Just because it says healthy doesn't mean that it really is. It sucks!
  • SillySkittles
    SillySkittles Posts: 202 Member
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    I've noticed that a lot of lower calorie or "diet" foods have a LOT of sodium in them. Bad news for me is that I'm a SALTY FOOD LOVER! Give me a donut and anything salty and I will always pick the salty snack ANY DAY.

    I've been TRYING to keep an eye out for sodium when I read the labels on packages, but I've also recently just switched to buying HALF-SALT instead of regular table or sea salt. A friend of mine said that she had definitely noticed a different when she cut out as much sodium as she could from her diet, so I'm going to see if using half-salt for anything else I normally put salt on will help.

    Thanks for the info about adding sodium to your food diary though! I didn't know until I read your post that I could include that!!!
  • Channing
    Channing Posts: 617 Member
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    Uhhh... yeah, I'm on the sodium battle myself. It seems like everything I eat is packed full of sodium, so I'm really making an effort to cut back! A recent revelation is that I can just put a flavored vinegar on my salad and it tastes the same as balsamic dressing but without the sodium!
  • weaklink109
    weaklink109 Posts: 2,831 Member
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    According to something I saw in a post recently on the 50+ womens' group, 77% of the sodium we consume is from processed foods. You have to become a label reader if you are not one already.

    Another sneaky thing mfg'rs do is show a "Serving" as only a portion of the package that any normal person would consider to be one serving. If you read the nutrional info per serving, the sodium may not look too bad, but if you eat the ENTIRE package, you have DOUBLED your sodium intake and sabotaged your best intentions.:grumble: :mad:

    I feel your pain. My schedule is such that I do use some processed foods in my diet, and I really have to watch and plan.

    Whenever possible, select reduced sodium products. Every bit helps. Good luck.

    As one of the posters above me said, reduced calorie is not necessarily reduced sodium. You will find certain product lines are better at controlling sodium than others.
  • annaliza
    annaliza Posts: 809
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    I've noticed the same things. I've pretty much cut out pre-packaged food and eat as cleanly as possible. I hardly ever go over my sodium intake now. The only time I do is when I cave in and eat something ready-made.

    My husband hates salt so I've been cooking without it for years. I've gotten used to it though every now and then I crave salt (mmmnnnn potato chips). It's funny, but even diet soda taste salty to me.
  • Valtishia
    Valtishia Posts: 811 Member
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    Yep.. that was definately the problem. Too much sodium will make you retain water but you gotta load up on water to dilute it enough to get it out of you... so you get kinda stuck on both ends.