Take a look

southerngoddess1

Can someone take a look at my diary and give me some suggestions? I seem to be stuck and I was hoping for a little input.

5'3
Starting 214
current 207
goal 145


Thanks!

katamus

Watch your sodium girl!

I only went back a week but dang there's a ton of sodium.. I had two days in a row where I was 3000+ on the sodium and it took me a whole week to shed that water weight off.

doomspark

What stands out to me after a brief look at your food diary is that your sodium levels are WAY high and you're not drinking enough water.

apom36

Yes, I would agree. The sodium is off the charts, and I personally would cut back on some cheese and increase your water.:happy:

southerngoddess1

Being in the south I should have known to look there first!

What is a reasonable sodium level? 2000?

Christi6604

You can add a sodium column: Settings>Diary Settings> Nutrients Tracked.

KeishaK89

1) I suggest cutting out your processed food. This will severely lower your sodium.

2) water is your best friend! Drink up! It will make you feel great

3) instead of eating bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes, try eating colorful vegetables

4) stay positive and consistent! You will get there!

Polly758

I bet if you make some substitutions for breakfast you will see some improvement.

Replace white bread with whole wheat bread

Replace sausage with mushroom and egg, scrambled in a little oil or butter

Try cheddar cheese and use 1 slice instead of 2

The sausage and cheese are the most important, and switching to whole wheat bread may help you feel fuller till lunch.

Good luck!

Chagama

I agree with the general message, less sodium and more water. Some of the food items, breakfast sausages and biscuits have way too much sodium to be part of an everyday diet.

southerngoddess1

The sausage is turkey sausage. Does that make a difference? I stuck it in there for the added benefit of protein. I find it so hard to get that protein in....

ZugTheMegasaurus

Wow, those are some high sodium levels indeed. I know I'd have a 24/7 headache and huge swollen legs on that, haha.

Try swapping out some of those manufactured/processed foods to the more "real" version (I just know someone is going to jump on me about the terminology but I can't think of a better way to phrase it). Even things that aren't thought of as "health foods" will be lower in sodium than a highly-processed version; for example, I eat cheddar cheese every day, but a quarter cup serving of shredded cheddar has 50mg less sodium than one piece of Kraft Singles cheese.

Also, prepackaged or convenience foods tend to be much higher in sodium than what you prepare yourself, and often, it's not that hard to make your own. As an example (not from your diary but a good illustration), look at beans. A serving of canned black beans has nearly 400mg of sodium; if you make them yourself, it's 20mg. Massive difference in sodium content, and is actually cheaper and tastes the same. See if there's anything you can make yourself rather than buying ready-made and that could reduce those levels quite a lot.

Edit: just looked through again and it looks like a lot of it is coming from deli meats. You might be better off using meat you cook yourself. One thing I do is cook up a big thing of chicken breast in the oven once or twice a week. I buy one of those value packs that has five pounds or so, cut it into approximate 4-oz. portions, and throw it in the oven for about 45 minutes. Then it's ready to go for sandwiches, wraps, burritos, stir fry, whatever (and has more protein than the deli meats anyway, since you mentioned you were wondering how to get that in).