Sodium

I asked a similar question to this not long ago and was told that it would make me retain some water, but it's not really a huge deal unless you have blood pressure problems.

That being said, last week I decided to focus on lowering my sodium intake. I, too, was always going over by around 1000 (darn Subway sandwiches). So, after almost an entire week of going under my sodium, I dropped four pounds. I'm sure a lot of that was water weight.

Despite the bad press sodium often gets, it is essential to life, and you do need some every day. Sodium is necessary:

to maintain the proper fluid balance in your body
to regulate blood pressure
to transmit nerve impulses
to help muscles, including the heart, relax
About 500mg of sodium a day is considered the least you need. That's 1/4 teaspoon of table salt. There is no official recommended daily intake for sodium. However, healthy individuals are advised to limit sodium intake to 2,400mg, and that figure is used for determining the percent daily value for sodium on food labels.

FACT: Most people's bodies get rid of excess sodium in their diet. However, some people must follow a low-sodium diet because they are sensitive to sodium and too much can lead to high blood pressure.

Consult with your physician for clarification about the advice you got. What is meant by serving? Is it one meal, or one food? If every serving of food you ate contained 400 mg. of sodium, by the end of the day you could be well over the recommended amount of sodium for a healthy individual, yet you would have still followed the advice. If 500mg per meal was meant, you would get 1,500mg a day, which would be far more healthy.

I would try to limit myself to eating below the 2500 mg of sodium. It definately causes you to retain water, and yes drinking more and exercising would help you in eliminating some of the excess sodium you are consuming, it is only kind of like putting a bandaid on the situation. We need sodium to function but too much isn't good for your body either. They actually recommend that you eat only max 2300 mg of sodium these days. So do your best to try to cut down. What are you eating? There is a lot of sodium in processed foods, maybe you can try to get some more "clean" foods in your day.

I hope this helps! With this being said, some people don't monitor their sodium- and in their dieting they do ok. I am all about the sodium watch, only because I retain fluid in mass quantity!!!!

Good luck! :flowerforyou: :happy: