salt intake

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c1aireee
c1aireee Posts: 297 Member
in Food and Nutrition
does MFP measure how much salt u have in your food in your food diary? if so what does it come under?

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  • dls06
    dls06 Posts: 6,774 Member
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    Go to settings and add salt to your diary setting.
  • pj270764
    pj270764 Posts: 12
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    It's actually 'sodium' you should be looking for!!
  • Matt_Wild
    Matt_Wild Posts: 2,673 Member
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    I wouldn't worry too much on salt unless you suffer from hypertension.
  • pj270764
    pj270764 Posts: 12
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    Does anyone know what level of sodium you should stay under before you start retaining water?
  • Matt_Wild
    Matt_Wild Posts: 2,673 Member
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    Any level of salt will make you maintain water. Its how the ions in salt work. In the body sodium is present in large quantities compared to potassium and other ions.

    As a result the body's cells are always trying to pump sodium out and take potassium in. To do this task there are what is called sodium potassium pumps (I will refer to them as Na & K pumps to make it shorter in this reply) So what happens is Na (sodium) is constantly pumped out and K (potassium) is constantly pumped in.

    For every 3 molecules of K that come in 2 Na molecules are pumped out. Since this reaction is occurring against equilibrium ATP is used to power the reaction. Well your sodium pumps have to work harder to pump out all the sodium that comes into the cell.

    Essentially, the more you take in, the more you retain until the body pumps it out.

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