Don't ignore Sodium!

erikkmcvay
erikkmcvay Posts: 238 Member
in Food and Nutrition
As I work on my food diary which I do every morning I constantly run into the same problem over and over and over again: when people input foods they neglect to add the amount of sodium in the foods they input.

No sodium in spaghetti folks? Seriously?

Mayo Clinic and others say you should only get about 2500mg's of sodium a day unless, like me, you suffer from high blood pressure, then it ought to be about 1500mgs or less. HOWEVER when trying to lose weight you really must pay attention to sodium levels! Why? Water retention!

I see people eating all kinds of high sodium foods (just start searching for what you plan today) and most often don't see sodium levels tracked -- seriously? If you wonder why you aren't losing weight while eating foods high in sodium then stop for a minute and start paying attention. You might be sabotaging your own efforts.

Today my wife plans on making spaghetti with 93% lean ground beef and whole wheat noodles and since I plan my food for the day every morning I went in to see what I could use to guesstimate my caloric intake for the day -- nadda.

I guess I'll head over to Sparkle today and try to work up a recipe so I can accurately input my sodium levels which I for one have seen clearly impact my daily weight level as weekly progress.

Replies

  • Bekahmardis
    Bekahmardis Posts: 602 Member
    Absolutely true! Good rant.
  • JennBona
    JennBona Posts: 255 Member
    Agreed!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    why not just use the recipe builder on mfp
  • carrietehbear
    carrietehbear Posts: 384 Member
    There is a recipe section on the food log. I use it all the time. You can track your sodium, too. I choose not to track sodium and it didn't hinder my weight loss.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,982 Member
    I'll disagree here. While sodium impacts people with high blood pressure, kidney disease, congestive heart failure, cirrosis and does affect water retention, it has no effect on FAT LOSS. And that's what people are trying to lose. Fat and not water.
    Think about it, the Asian culture consumes sodium in moderate to high amounts on a daily basis, yet those countries aren't suffering obesity issues.
    It's more important to worry about how many calories one is consuming rather than how much sodium one is taking it (again unless one is susceptible to sodium because of health issues).

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • missybct
    missybct Posts: 321 Member
    What really irks me is when a food is built into the system, but people don't see that NI on packets measures in GRAMS and not MILLIGRAMS - therefore, 1g is NOT 1mg - or at least they do in this country. I normally change it because I'm pedantic like that - it's not because I have a high sodium diet - I never have, but I am a data junkie :noway:
  • lsmsrbls
    lsmsrbls Posts: 232 Member
    Not everyone needs to limit their sodium intake, and for many people it may not even be advantageous to decrease the amount of sodium in their diet.

    http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18311
  • byustrongman
    byustrongman Posts: 74 Member
    Don't worry. More sodium is good. Bump up your potassium if you're really worried about it.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,982 Member
    Don't worry. More sodium is good. Bump up your potassium if you're really worried about it.
    THIS. Electrolyte balance helps to reduce some of the water retention.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • erikkmcvay
    erikkmcvay Posts: 238 Member
    Yes yes I understand balancing electrolytes etc and I also realize that there are and were studies showing that too little sodium can be as bad or worse then too much. However, many people trying to lose weight watch their weight closely, eat too much sodium, see the weight go up and complain they have reached a plateau while munching fritos or cheetos or whatever.

    All I'm saying is that you really SHOULD track your sodium intake -- heck, how can you balance it with potassium etc if you don't even track it?? Not to mention that MOST have NO IDEA how much sodium is in their foods as evidenced by the fact that they don't bother to track it (input it etc).

    Thanks for the reminder on using MFP's recipe builder -- I have used it also but I like Sparkles better actually ;)
  • redraidergirl2009
    redraidergirl2009 Posts: 2,560 Member
    I think a lot of people are misinformed about sodium, I mean some people reduce it thinking they will lose weight because there is some widely shared belief that you are carrying around 20lbs of water weight.
  • erikkmcvay
    erikkmcvay Posts: 238 Member
    I think a lot of people are misinformed about sodium, I mean some people reduce it thinking they will lose weight because there is some widely shared belief that you are carrying around 20lbs of water weight.

    I think you're correct. Lowering sodium isn't a method for reducing bodyfat BUT it is something that should be understood and because we have no idea how to property eat as a people (come on really! Mac-n-cheese is food?) we tend to get WAY more then what is considered 'safe'....3500+mgs a day without adding potassium for example....but then people eat refined sugar all day long too....but I digress.
  • shannashannabobana
    shannashannabobana Posts: 625 Member
    Not everyone needs to limit their sodium intake, and for many people it may not even be advantageous to decrease the amount of sodium in their diet.
    Indeed. There is an ideal amount and for most people too little is as much a problem as too much...

    As for people not entering into the DB, a lot of this stuff is like wikapedia. People are just entering things and sometimes it's a pain (or impossible) to find all the tiny little details. When I'm forced to make my own food because I can't find it in the db, I generally just include fat, carbs, protein, calories.

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