WAY OVER SUGAR AND SALT INTAKE

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Hey everyone. I've noticed lately that I'm going way over my sodium and sugar intake...any lists of food you would recommend to eat to help prevent this? I know fruits are good (natural sugar), low sodium canned goods, but that's the extent of my knowledge. TIA :)

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  • brower47
    brower47 Posts: 16,356 Member
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    To avoid sodium, you pretty much have to avoid most packaged foods. To avoid sugar, you have to avoid most processed baked goods and sweets.

    Fresh fruits/veggies
    Meats that you don't salt
    Label reading for everything else

    That said, unless you have medical conditions where overages of these cause problems, you really don't have to worry about them.
  • Mmmmona
    Mmmmona Posts: 328 Member
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    Don't eat any packaged or canned foods to avoid sodium. Also, fast food and most restaurant foods.

    I always enter my food before I eat it so that I know if it is low enough for me.

    For spices, try Mrs Dash no salt or Clubhouse No Salt spices. They are also zero calorie.
  • chu604
    chu604 Posts: 353 Member
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    Yeah take a look at the back label anyway
    It may say low sodium but in reality its still packed full.

    Best thing you can do is eat as fresh as possible!
    As mentioned anything canned or processed is going to be loaded.
  • cupcakes_and_cardio
    cupcakes_and_cardio Posts: 369 Member
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    Thanks everyone, very helpful
  • amandadawson24
    amandadawson24 Posts: 11 Member
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    For salt, like others said, minimize your intake of processed foods. Some foods are harder to avoid unless you have a lot of time to make it yourself (like pasta), but other things like cooking dried beans take a little planning but little work to actually make. Even "low sodium" processed foods still have a lot of sodium in it to cover up all sorts of terrible flavors that would exist in preserved/precooked food.

    For sugar, again minimize processed foods. However, I do want to note that my fitness pal does not differentiate between intake of natural sugars (like lactose in milk and fructose in fruit) from added sugars. What really matters at the end of the day is how much added sugar you're consuming. I eat a lot of fruit usually so I changed my nutrient that it tracks from sugar to fiber because I was tired of it telling me I went over. On a typical day I would have less than 10 grams of added sugar, which is below what is recommended for women.
  • phurst00
    phurst00 Posts: 100 Member
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    For sugar, again minimize processed foods. However, I do want to note that my fitness pal does not differentiate between intake of natural sugars (like lactose in milk and fructose in fruit) from added sugars. What really matters at the end of the day is how much added sugar you're consuming. I eat a lot of fruit usually so I changed my nutrient that it tracks from sugar to fiber because I was tired of it telling me I went over. On a typical day I would have less than 10 grams of added sugar, which is below what is recommended for women.

    ^ This. I'm at 53g of sugar today and all of it is from dairy and fruit!