How in the world to stay under Sodium goal?

WOW - OK Sodium IS a big deal even if you don't have health problems.... yet. By constantly exceeding it we are putting ourselves at higher risk for prehypertension and additional stress on our organs. She is smart to want to reduce it.

I was hoping to find suggestions myself but wasn't expecting to see so many people say don't worry about it. if you just want to lose weight, maybe don't worry. If your overall goal is ultimate health - it's legit.

I've been trying to avoid packaged foods where and when I can but it's hard. Check labels on everything and then start adding it up. I may check one item that has 35% of my daily sodium intake and think "thats not bad" but that's horrible.

Check everything that's packaged. Eat as fresh as you can. See where you are after a week or two and then try to re-evaluate.

that's all I got

I would identify the largest sodium drivers in your diet and try to find alternatives for those.

For salad dressing, try cutting it half and half with other stuff like olive oil, balsamic, juice, lemon, or milk (depending on the flavor). I also add green onion, celery, parsley or other herbs to my salad because those help "spice" up the taste of the greens so that I can use less dressing.

For the lunch meats, you probably need to swap some out for home cooked meats. I poach/sauté a family pack of chicken and then keep it in the fridge using it in sandwich wraps for a couple days instead of lunch meat.

To reduce the salt in your cooking without feeling like your food is bland, double the other spices in any recipe.

Good salt substitutes for cooking:
Lemon
Pepper
Onion
Garlic
cayenne
balsamic
mustard

Thank you!!!!

This is helpful, I'll give it a try next time I have a salad. I like sesame ginger balsamic, so I'm assuming cutting it with a little balsamic vinegar and maybe a little water might work.

I spent some time at the grocery store looking at the sodium levels on all the packaged lunch meats. I found that some brands had a lot less sodium than others, and some types of meat had a lot less sodium than others.

Maybe if you look at the back of the packages and try to find a brand and type of meat that is lower (maybe turkey instead of ham, for instance) you can cut some sodium out that way.