Holy sodium batman! How do you cut it down? It's everywhere!

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  • lewcompton
    lewcompton Posts: 881 Member
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    Yes it is everywhere... Blood pressure was becoming an issue for me and just four months later the diastolic is down more than 10 points...
  • smittybuilt19
    smittybuilt19 Posts: 955 Member
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    I also added sodium to my profile just for S's and G's...wow! I was so shocked at how much sodium I take in per day, that I decided to remove the sodium tracker from my diary and pretend I never saw it lol! Seriously though, I am now aware that I really need to try to cut down on the fast food aka worst offender.
  • crazyellybean
    crazyellybean Posts: 999 Member
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    Non-processed foods... I've noticed the more foods that I eat that are not processed the less sodium I consume. However, my nutrionist told me not to worry unless I"m over 3500mg
  • lewcompton
    lewcompton Posts: 881 Member
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    Good 4 U for watching your sodium intake. Agreed - processed foods are the culprit. With beans, you can rinse them, but there's not much you can do about soup (except make your own). Knowledge is power! Read every label!!
    Rinsing and not using the liquid in the can will eliminate some sodium but the beans have already absorbed a good amount of sodium... You can soak them in cool water after rinsing them and osmosis will work to get some of the sodium out but it is far better to make your beans from scratch if sodium is a real concern.
  • ellgee119
    ellgee119 Posts: 18 Member
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    I searched this up too, MFP recommends 2500, which is actually the healthy daily MAX
    A very healthy person generally wants to have 1300 - 1800 mgs

    However, this probably won't really make a huge difference unless you are constantly consuming a lot of sodium, it could be bad in the long run

    ETA: To cut down the simplest thing to do is to always look for the reduced sodium items (soy sauce, pb, etc) or replace some items with high sodium (balsamic vinegar) with lower sodium items (red wine vinegar)

    I used to always have chickpeas with 3 tbsp balsamic but now i have 1 tbsp balsamic with 2 tbsp red wine and it tastes the same!
  • ChristyRunStarr
    ChristyRunStarr Posts: 1,600 Member
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    I had tracked mine when I first started but now I"m more aware of what I should have and what is in stuff so I'll try to find things with lower sodium. It's more habit now for me but it also helps that my boyfriend and I check everything anyways cause his dad can't have much at all (heart issues) so since we make a lot of food on the weekends for them for football games, it's a bit easier for me.

    Edited to say I do still track it actually, I hadn't for awhile but wanted to see if I was doing any better with it so I added it back in (and I am thankfully)
  • bizco
    bizco Posts: 1,949 Member
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    The best way to cut sodium is to cut as much as possible that comes in a can or a package. All foods will naturally have a little bit of sodium but it's the 'processed' foods that kick our butts. A few things that will help..

    1. Cook from scratch - do NOT add extra salt when you cook, don't salt your 'pasta water' or vegetable water etc..There are hundreds of OTHER spices that can be used for flavoring food. Try new ones if you don't already.
    2. Don't drink soda or other 'not water' drinks. Sodium is used in soda to make you more thirsty so you will buy more soda ;) Actually quite a few of the bottled water varieties also add sodium for the same reason.
    3. Avoid using packaged foods or if you must use something look for 'low sodium' or 'no added salt' varieties. Sodium is used in a lot of packaged foods as a preservative but many companies offer low sodium versions of products.

    My sodium is set to less than half of what MFP has as default. I rarely go over. My diary is open if you want to peek.

    I go over my sodium as well, so looked at your diary for some ideas. I know you said you set yours to less than half of what MFP suggests, but in quickly looking at what you've logged for November, you've gone over more days than not (a lot days by a considerable amount). Did you mean that you don't go over the originally suggested MFP amount?
    I looked at it too. Yes, she has her sodium level set to 1,250mg per day which is half of MFP's default of 2,500mg.
  • BeetleChe13
    BeetleChe13 Posts: 498 Member
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    Avoid prepackaged foods, especially frozen or canned. Almost anything that is convenient to make or buy is loaded with sodium. Even without blood pressure or heart issues, sodium can make you very bloated. I would recommend making your meals as much as you can. If you limit your "fast foods" to only one meal a day, your sodium will most likely be under 2,500. And no, the goal is not set low at all. From every source I've researched, maximum sodium intake should be around 2,000-2,500mg.
  • Espressocycle
    Espressocycle Posts: 2,245 Member
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    Honestly, I sweat it. As in, I sweat a lot and lose the salt. In the summer I actually have to take electrolyte tablets if I'm working out or else I get stiff and exhausted. For most people without high blood pressure, there is no reason to worry about sodium and the 2,500 limit is probably lower than it needs to be. Also, some emerging science suggests it's actually low potassium that does us in, and high-sodium packaged foods happen to have less potassium. So, if you eat lots of veggies, the salt isn't so bad.

    Check out this article: http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/12/salt-how-bad-is-it-really/
  • jcstanton
    jcstanton Posts: 1,849 Member
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    Truly, the only way to drastically cut sodium is to reduce how many times/week you eat out and prepare everything at home as fresh as possible. A few months back I cut out everything from my diet that was boxed, bagged, or canned (with a few exceptions) and didn't eat out for a month. For the first three days I couldn't stay out of the bathroom for all the excess water my body was able to flush out. I felt fantastic, though. Much less fatigued. As soon as I am able to get into my own place again (I'm staying with my aunt right now), I plan to go back to that. It was hard to cut out all that junk at first, but it was worth it.
  • weeblex
    weeblex Posts: 412 Member
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    Totally agree about cutting down the sodium, but be aware of where it is. Sodium in Coke isn't that bad (45mg according to the can in front of me) but the sodium in my sliced turkey from the deli that I made a sandwich with is well over 100mg a slice. Just need to be aware IMHO

    Once you log it you will figure out how to limit it.

    P.S I'm not advocating Soda, they are bad for you for so many reasons, but oddly enough, sodium isn't one of them.
  • julieh391
    julieh391 Posts: 683 Member
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    I really don't pay a whole lot of attention to sodium. I don't track it because there's really no way to be super accurate considering I cook almost all of my own food, and I refuse to measure salt (I count/measure enough.) I drink a lot of water, so I'm not super concerned, and I don't have any health issues. If you're eating fresh/clean/well I wouldn't be too concerned. The occasional meal out will almost always be loaded with sodium, but if you are eating well the rest of the day/week I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe just have an extra few glasses of water.
  • AmyFett
    AmyFett Posts: 1,607 Member
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    i usually don't have any issue staying under sodium unless it's a day i go out to eat and purposely go overboard. cook food yourself and eat a lot of healthier things.
  • weeblex
    weeblex Posts: 412 Member
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    Oh, and one other thing, be careful of the sodium listed in the food diary. I added "Generic Mashed Potatoes" It said it had 500mg of salt in in, since I added a little margarine to the potatoes and mashed, I knew I was no where near that, but if I'd have just blindly clicked on someones recipe of something from a pot in the store I'd have been way over.

    If you cook yourself you can keep stuff much lower.
  • jcstanton
    jcstanton Posts: 1,849 Member
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    Totally agree about cutting down the sodium, but be aware of where it is. Sodium in Coke isn't that bad (45mg according to the can in front of me) but the sodium in my sliced turkey from the deli that I made a sandwich with is well over 100mg a slice. Just need to be aware IMHO

    Once you log it you will figure out how to limit it.

    P.S I'm not advocating Soda, they are bad for you for so many reasons, but oddly enough, sodium isn't one of them.

    I know you're not advocating soda, but I wanted to point out that if you're a soda addict (or for people who haven't yet realized just how bad that stuff is), that 45mg really adds up if you're not watching how much you drink every day. My brother, for example, drinks at least a two liter of soda everyday. That's 400mg of sodium JUST from his soda habit.
  • tvanhooser
    tvanhooser Posts: 326 Member
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    No, it's not set low. I looked into that at the Mayo Clinic site because I'm watching that too. The maximum recommended is 2500 per day but the lower the better. 1500 if you have other problems like high blood pressure (ME) or diabetes or some other things I don't recall off the top of my head. I lowered mine to 1500 goal because I am on HBP meds when I found that out. Most days I can come pretty close to that on one side or another. Any time you eat out, it's going to throw all your numbers to the wind....nothing at any restaurant is made the healthy way, even the stuff they say are the "healthy choices." Found that out 10 years ago when my husband was diagnosed with diabetes and I looked into the menu nutrition for some of our favorite restaurants. So number 1, limit your eating out to special treat days. But all I've really done as far as home cooking is start using unsalted butter, substituting salt-free seasonings for salt in many recipes (doesn't work for baking, but most anything else, you can either leave it out or substitute it), look for low-salt or no-salt canned and boxed goods, eat more chicken, turkey and fish (which are lower in sodium than any beef in many cases but not all. I read the labels and ask the deli which of their fresh-sliced meats are the LOWEST in sodium and get those.) Sometimes I use vanilla Greek yogurt instead of salad dressing which is pretty good actually. It's amazing how much difference a few simple changes can make. I didn't realize how high the numbers I was seeing really were until I looked up what they SHOULD be. When I look back over my diary from June when I started here vs. since late July when I had the sodium lightbulb, it's gone from 5-7,000 per day to hovering in the vicinity of 1,000-1500 per day and I document very carefully and use the recipe tool freely to reflect exactly what I put in my food since I cook from scratch alot. So it can be done -- where you can't control the ingredients, you just have to use portion control and look at where you want to spend your sodium allowance. If a dish is really high in sodium and there's no way to cut it down, take a half or quarter portion and fill up on other things. That's my best advice.
  • weeblex
    weeblex Posts: 412 Member
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    Totally agree about cutting down the sodium, but be aware of where it is. Sodium in Coke isn't that bad (45mg according to the can in front of me) but the sodium in my sliced turkey from the deli that I made a sandwich with is well over 100mg a slice. Just need to be aware IMHO

    Once you log it you will figure out how to limit it.

    P.S I'm not advocating Soda, they are bad for you for so many reasons, but oddly enough, sodium isn't one of them.

    I know you're not advocating soda, but I wanted to point out that if you're a soda addict (or for people who haven't yet realized just how bad that stuff is), that 45mg really adds up if you're not watching how much you drink every day. My brother, for example, drinks at least a two liter of soda everyday. That's 400mg of sodium JUST from his soda habit.


    Or thats 4 slices of Deli meat, on a Subway 6" sandwich there are 4. I think there are way more people out there eating a 6" turkey sub a day thinking it is healthy. Most people who drink 2 litres of coke know that is bad :)
  • almartini11
    almartini11 Posts: 35
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    Thanks for the article! Great read! I am learning a lot today :-)
  • erinn43
    erinn43 Posts: 20 Member
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    I am in the same boat. ALWAYS over on the sodium. Gotta read the labels - all frozen dinners, soups, cold cuts- highest amounts. Trying to avoid them- but I love soup!
  • Wabbit05
    Wabbit05 Posts: 434 Member
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    Sodium causes bloating and adds to retaining water weight. I avoid it as much as possible for those reasons.

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