Sodium Armageddon!

mattyb1971

I have lost a ton of weight over the past five months and feel better than I have in years. However, as I've been tracking my calories religiously, I've noticed that I am having problems hitting my sodium target with any consistency. In many cases, I am eating 1.5x - 2.0x as much as MFP recommends. Anyone else having the same issue? Any worries??

HaywireII

I am having the exact same issue. The more I rely on prepared foods to make up for my hectic schedule the more sodium I wind up eating. I'm doing great on calories and cholesterol but just looking to work through my issues with sodium.

I logged all of my food at the Superbowl party this past week and MFP rewarded me with the knowledge that I ate almost 15,000 mg of Sodium. I'm wondering how me and the rest of the country aren't dead yet.

Any experts out there with small changes to nudge us in the right direction? I'm hitting 3,000 to 4,500 on a typical "bad" day and staying under 2,500 on the "good" days.

I'm not going Vegan or preparing every single meal from scratch; I need small changes to adjust over time so I don't get frustrated and fall off the wagon. Soups, frozen foods and pickles seem to be problems right now while fresh fruit and greek yogurt are my new best friends.

jmcreynolds91

I have recently started watching my sodium intake as well. I also have found i eat a ton of salt! i dont think its affecting my weight loss but i know it isnt good. Need advice!!

bcf7683

I have the same problem. I have a few foods that I eat on an almost-daily basis that are relatively high in sodium- cottage cheese, beef jerky, turkey lunch meat (processed junk, I know, I know.), rice cakes and frozen chicken breasts & frozen shrimp (both really, really ridiculous), flatbread wraps..... I'm usually almost double the daily intake. I've almost all but given up trying to control it, I don't have the time to home cook every single thing I eat having an active lifestyle and two jobs. I've lost the weight and put some back on in muscle. I'm pretty happy with myself, so I guess I'll just live with it. :drinker:

baotzu

Drink plenty of water and your sodium intake won't matter.

jmcreynolds91

Drink plenty of water and your sodium intake won't matter.

Really? I drink 12-14 cups a day. Is that enough or should i drink more?

HaywireII

I should have added one thing I have done is gotten the steam in bag frozen veggies and nuke them and crack some pepper over them. I only have to deal with making half a meal from scratch and the side at least is no worries and not processed food.

Anyone seen a study that follows people eating elevated levels of sodium and what happened to them? Kind of hoping it takes more than 4,000 mg before you start getting high blood pressure from salt alone. I'm also wondering how long it takes your body to flush out excess sodium when you do cut back and if all of this water I'm drinking is helping to offset excess sodium at all.

edit: Looks like Bane Kitten up there answered my question on water while I was typing this.

RobinC37

Reading BWWs nutrition facts on Super Bowl Sunday made me cry. Up to 4000mg/serving for some dishes. The things lowest in sodium were chocolate cake and cheesecake- great.

I wound up getting some sushi which I like better than wings and my boyfriend got his B-Dubs.

I'd ideally like to eat less than 2000mg/day, but sometimes that doesn't happen. If I cook for myself, I don't add salt because I can use other pungent spices to create flavor, like garlic or oregano or cayenne pepper. But going out it's easy to get two days of sodium in one meal. I split a portion of chicken tikka masala with a friend for lunch one day and still wound up with 4200mgs!!!

On the flip side though, drinking too much water and flushing out too much sodium can create dangerously high potassium levels in people that results in hospitalization.

Acg67

I have lost a ton of weight over the past five months and feel better than I have in years. However, as I've been tracking my calories religiously, I've noticed that I am having problems hitting my sodium target with any consistency. In many cases, I am eating 1.5x - 2.0x as much as MFP recommends. Anyone else having the same issue? Any worries??

Do you currently suffer from hypertension?

JUDDDing

I think it matters for some people more than others.

It doesn't seem to affect my blood pressure - which I think is the main risk.

chadgard

I've also been struggling with the sodium issue. Of course, the daily recommendation doesn't slide with the number of calories you eat. I imagine it's a lot easier for someone on a 1200 calorie diet to remain beneath the 2300mg standard recommendation. But for someone eating in the 2500 calorie range to try to remain below the 1500mg level recommended for most adults (http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssodium/) is probably impossible without preparing all food from scratch, and avoiding even avoiding some foods that have a fair bit of sodium in them without salt (1260 mg sodium in a teaspoon of baking soda!).

At work, we have a great dining hall, and can eat for free. When 16 hour days are commonplace, 20 hour days not rare, and 7 day workweeks are expected, it tends to be a benefit that is utilized extensively. But I've found that single servings of most entrees are well over 1500mg just in the one dish! Then there was this chicken hoagie that is on the regular rotation - 940 calories and 1800mg of sodium, in 10 bites! And it doesn't really taste particularly good...

I've been working to bring in food prepared at home to help offset the sodium issue. Ironically, we also run an organic farm, and normally would eat almost entirely from food we produced. Unfortunately, with the drought this year, we sold most of the produce we would have put up for ourselves, or distributed it to our CSA, and the schedule has been so wacko we've been mostly eating in the dining hall. So, I gained 20 pounds in the first half of the school year, and my blood pressure shot up to the 140/85 range, and I've started tracking sodium for the first time ever. It's been an appalling experience!

HaywireII

Finally did it....2200 mg sodium on a work day. I only ate 1600 calories but I feel like I'm still learning as I go. Lean Cuisine pizza is the first frozen prepared food I've found that comes even close to 1mg of Sodium per calorie. Going to keep looking for more.

tdmcfall1

I just returned from a session with a health plan dietitian. I've been using Fitbit and MyFitnessPal three weeks. Because of hypertension, she said my sodium intake should not exceed 1500 milligrams per day on a 2000 calorie diet to obtain a one pound a week loss which she agreed with. That is for my height, weight, age, and health history, no one else.

I have exceeded that weight loss these 3 weeks and she said to eat a little more, more for breakfast as I was ending up with a calorie deficit at the end of the day. You do not want to go into starvation mode. Cutting sodium is going to be tough as I eat out a lot or use packaged food at home. I always seem to be too busy to cook or wait too long to start.

We talked about all matters of things from diet, muscle loss as I age, testosterone, sleep, exercise, and other stuff. This was not my first exposure to a dietitian and I though she was very good and covered all the bases. She even suggested BMR testing for me. She also looks like she walks the walk.

Regarding water, we discussed how sodium retains water in the body thus increasing blood pressure. That is totally different than drinking water which is necessary to flush toxins from your organs and prevent constipation. Drinking more water does not allow you to disregard sodium intake nor does it raise your blood pressure. But even water intake has limits based on your personal situation.

I printed out my last week of food intake, and all related charts which she reviewed. She was familiar with Fitbit and some programs like MFP, but not it specifically. I asked her about MFP's methodology of allowing extra calories for exercise. She said she did not agree with that and that I should stick with 2000 calories a day at my present activity level (which is a big step up from being a slug).

Every body is different and we each have our own health history. I don't think you can obtain *specific* advice here relative to what is right for you. Trends, general guidelines, sure. But the pros have their place and seeking their advice is the best route.

amosmoses88

You ARE NOT alone. Sodium is like my arch nemesis. Everything I eat has sodium. But since I took my calorie intake up, my sodium hasn't suffered as bad. I am still struggling with my water intake though. :S

Spokez70

I have a difficult time keeping sodium under the default mfp setting and I do keep an eye on it only because it tends to raise my blood pressure at some point. Just by tracking it and watching my blood pressure I've seen that for me personally it's not bothersome until I get into the 4000-5000mg territory so I shoot to keep it closer to 3500 or below. Restaurant food seems to be the main culprit for me- when I cook at home it's much less of a problem.

barebon

That's funny I can't even get close to the sodium levels I need! I eat everything fresh. Cut back on processed foods, and I never salt anything I usually dispise the taste of salt unless I am craving it. Generally what I do is pepper or put other seasonings, vinegar, tomato sauce.

MamaWeil2018

That's funny I can't even get close to the sodium levels I need! I eat everything fresh. Cut back on processed foods, and I never salt anything I usually dispise the taste of salt unless I am craving it. Generally what I do is pepper or put other seasonings, vinegar, tomato sauce.

My friend told me the same thing this weekend- she's completely cut out all processed foods (as well as a number of other things, but I'm not prepared to go that far just yet), but I'm having the exact same problem as everyone above and it sounds like it might be worth cutting out the processed/'not from scratch' stuff. I just bought some new vegan/vegetarian cookbooks that look really promising for doing just that, so I guess Sunday night will involve a whole lot of cooking for the week!