please help! water and sodium questions!

No - drinking lots of water will make you pee more - the salt will eventually leave your system - any fluids count towards your water intake, but I have found that I really like the Dasani water enhancers when I am not in the mood to drink water - whatever it takes and the Dasani ones taste like kool aid (especially the grape one) :drinker:

Drinking water doesn't cause you to retain water, it does the opposite. Try to limit packaged foods and restaurant food to help decrease sodium

^^ This.

I try to flush my system of excess salt by "over-watering" twice a week. I don't recommend that for everyone, especially if you don't work in an environment where you can use the restroom (very) frequently, but it works for me.

For the vast majority of people, their body regulates the amount of water and sodium it retains quite well especially if a person is consuming more or less the same amount all the time. Water retention due to sodium is more often a result of eating a large amount more than a person usually consumes which challenges the normal mechanisms to regulate levels of sodium and water.

If you have been consuming a lot of sodium then cut your amounts, you will find you will lose that water rather quickly. If you at the same time increase water consumption, you will speed that process along.

In other words, cut your sodium consumption and increase your fluid consumption especially water, and you will not retain water.

For the vast majority of people, their body regulates the amount of water and sodium it retains quite well especially if a person is consuming more or less the same amount all the time. Water retention due to sodium is more often a result of eating a large amount more than a person usually consumes which challenges the normal mechanisms to regulate levels of sodium and water.

If you have been consuming a lot of sodium then cut your amounts, you will find you will lose that water rather quickly. If you at the same time increase water consumption, you will speed that process along.

In other words, cut your sodium consumption and increase your fluid consumption especially water, and you will not retain water.

This. CUT SODIUM AND DRINK MORE WATER. You should have about half your body weight in ounces of water per day. Try making your own foods because processed and pre-packaged foods and restaurant foods have a ton of sodium.

Well, I've come to realize that I have been taking in too much sodium (in my opinion.) Not only that, but I don't drink NEARLY enough water. OK, so I really didn't drink water at all... I'm trying to remedy that as of today. My question is, won't i retain water from all the sodium?!? I would hate to step on the scale day after day and feel so bloated all the time...
Or does it not work that way? If I do retain water, will it eventually... you know... work itself out? I do want to work on cutting back the sodium, it's just that it's in EVERYTHING. And usually in larger quantities than I need!
Any advise or tips would be appreciated!

Your body needs to maintain a steadystate ionic concentration (dissolved salts). The two components of this are water and salt (sodium).

What does this mean for you. Well, if you have lots of sodium in your diet your body will need to balance that out with dissolving it in additional water to maintain its steadystate balance of a specific concentration of sodium dissolved in water. What that means is the more sodium you have the more water your body will retain. 400mg of salt takes 2 pounds of water to dissolve to your bodies ionic concentration.

What happens if you drink very little water. Well in a way this is the same as eating lots of sodium. If you are dehydrated then the sodium level in your blood increases because there is less water and again your body will retain water that you do take in.

What happens if you drink lots of water? The effect is to dilute out the amount of sodium, to adjust for this your body will want to remove some water from your system...ie you will need to pee.

So as counter intuitive as this might seem if your goal is to retain less water then you should drink lots of water along with having a moderate sodium intake.

My actual advice to you however is that this isn't something you should care about at all. Your scale weight isn't an indicator of your health, your percent bodyfat is...and that has absolutely nothing to do with how much water you happen to be retaining on a given day.

That said its never a bad idea to drink lots of water. I wouldn't care about the sodium though unless you have a medical condition and are under a doctor's advisement to lower your sodium intake.

That said its never a bad idea to drink lots of water. I wouldn't care about the sodium though unless you have a medical condition and are under a doctor's advisement to lower your sodium intake.

Actually, it can be a bad idea to drink too much water. Hyponatremia - low blood sodium due to excessive water consumption - can be serious or even fatal. If your blood sodium concentration gets lower than the sodium concentration in cells, the cell membranes will transport water from the blood into tissues, causing them to swell. If the brain is one of those tissues, it can cause confusion and even death.

The best advice is to drink when you're thirsty.

Further reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/hyponatremia/overview.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/sports/sportsspecial/20marathon.html
http://www.runnersworld.com/drinks-hydration/revisionist-drinking
http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/tim-noakes-on-the-serious-problem-of-overhydration-in-endurance-sports.html

Well yes but honestly you would really really have to force the water down to drink that much water with peoples standard sodium intake.

You are right though that you can take this too far. If you become a total nazi about your sodium intake and try to drive it as low as you can plus drink gallons of water a day you could cause yourself harm. Your body needs to maintain its steady state, it needs water but it also does need sodium.

The advice to drink lots of water stems from the fact that there are a lot more people who are chronically dehydrated than there are people who drink to much water.

Well yes but honestly you would really really have to force the water down to drink that much water with peoples standard sodium intake If you become a total nazi about your sodium intake..

Hyponatremia is a concern for endurance athletes--those engaging in physical activity lasting 90+ minutes--even those who are not "sodium nazis" and rather eat the RDA of 1,500-2,300 mg or a less healthy American's 3400mg/day. I learned this well from my dawn-to-dusk hike of the Grand Canyon (134 degrees). Marathon runners have learned also. If you overhydrate, please dial it back before pushing your body.

Overhydration--in addition to washing out sodium--can wash our calcium, potassium, and other beneficial things. The immediate results of calcium and potassium deficiencies are less dramatic. Long-term?

Play it safe. Don't underhydrate. Don't overhydrate. Aim for straw-colored pee.

http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2013/10/what-the-color-of-your-urine-says-about-you-infographic/