How important is sodium intake?

SavvyGurl0528

I have been reading post after post and just can't seem to find the answer. A few days back, I set my tracker to track sodium. Someone posted that they thought this was the reason they were not losing weight, because their sodium intake was too high. Well, looking at mine, I am over the roof. Plus, I am a saltaholic and cannot imagine eating anything without salt. So my question is, how will the affect my weight loss?

Danam48

Here's a good article: http://www.caloriesperhour.com/tutorial_salt.php
Salt doesn't make you gain or lose weight per se, but it does make you retain water.

wfte

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt

Unless you are particularly over sensitive to salt, or maybe having 5 times the RDA (which is almost definitely way too low) I wouldn't worry too much.

nicleed

Taking aside the issue of weight loss - the average western diet is WAY too high in sodium anyway. I monitor mine because heart problems run in my family and I don't want to die of a heart attack at 60.

I set it at 2500mg and I am often over, but am getting better (like you a major saltaholic. If there's a choice between greasy, salty hot chips or a piece of chocolate cake, the chips will win EVERY time!)

That said, low sodium is also a problem - my mum was hospitalised earlier this year because her sodium was dangerously low!

SavvyGurl0528

Thanks for the comments and the links. I have been worrying myself crazy about this!