Sodium/Salt

It depends on what your goals are. There are several points of view on sodium. The USDA recommended maximum is 2400mg a day. If you are on a special diet like the DASH diet or other low sodium diets the recommended maximum is 1500mg. Most of the medical institutions that make diet recommendations suggest a 2000mg maximum. Which ever way you go it's very hard to stay under the maximum.

I look for anyway that I can to cut sodium in my diet. It pretty much means that you are required to prepare everything that you eat and use as little processed food as possible. One of the best ways I have found is to use frozen vegetables whenever you can. Canned and other types of veggies have a lot of sodium in their preparation and frozen are very low sodium. I make my own chicken stock for soups because even the "low sodium" varieties are loaded with sodium. You'll find that it is much easier to cut calories than to cut sodium from your diet.

I've been doing great with the sodium and I'm still losing consistently. It takes a lot of work, but it really does wonders.