Calories are good, but sodium too high

I'm getting A's and B's on my food analysis.  And I'm keeping my calorie intake at a perfect level, always between 500 - 800 deficit from my burn.  But the sodium intake is always high.  I'm not noticing any bloating.  Should I be worried about this?  Does anyone out there just not worry about it?

I don't really worry about it. In fact, I don't even keep track of it. My sodium is probably really high because, well, I'm a salt fanatic. I put it on most of my foods, even those that already have a high amount of sodium to begin with. I just figure that my main goal is to lose weight and eat healthier, so what if I'm putting too much salt on my cooked veggies? At least I'm eating them, you know?

Pick your battles. :)

And are you losing weight?  I just started this thing several weeks ago, so I'm trying to figure it all out.  The weight was coming off at a fast clip until I hit TTOM, so I'm not counting the 1.5 weight gain right now.

I don't know yet lol, I also just started. So today was the first time that I weighed myself (I started last Wednesday). But on my previous weight loss efforts I lost weight while having a high sodium intake. So I don't think that it really makes that much of a difference. But it's different for everyone. Some people are really sensitive to sodium, whereas others aren't at all. Since you haven't noticed any bloating or anything I'm guessing that you aren't very sensitive to it, so it probably doesn't matter that much.

Taking too much sodium might make you retain water as well as raise your bp.

My advice is to take in more potassium rich food to offset the sodium level.

 

A gentle word of warning for -colorblind-  Excessive sodium, like a lot of poor dietary/lifestyle habits, doesn't necessarily impact on you today, tomorrow or next week.  But 10 or 20 years down the track when your doctor is prescribing you medication to tackle your hypertension problem you may wish you'd learned how to reduce the salt in your diet. :-)  Drinking more isn't enough.

Original Post by gi-jane:

A gentle word of warning for -colorblind-  Excessive sodium, like a lot of poor dietary/lifestyle habits, doesn't necessarily impact on you today, tomorrow or next week.  But 10 or 20 years down the track when your doctor is prescribing you medication to tackle your hypertension problem you may wish you'd learned how to reduce the salt in your diet. :-)  Drinking more isn't enough.

 I know everyones body is different, but my mom salts her salt if you will and only eats highly processed food and her BP is so good Dr.'s rave to her about it. Same with me.  High salt intake does not always equate to High BP and Heart Disease later in life. I am not trying to start a debate just noting everyone is different esp. in their sodium needs or abilities to process it.

With that being said since trying to lose weight I have reduced my sodium just so I am not retaining as much water.

       &nb sp;     If you want to get rid of salt you need to sweat it out. You need to do something strenous enough to make you sweat. In the summer its easy, I sweat just layin in the sun. When its cooler you have to work a little harder.

teeto2.... Not everyone that smokes gets lung cancer.  Not everyone that eats a high fat diet gets heart-disease.  Not every obese person gets cancer.  And someone may live on salt and  have a perfect BP.  But there's not a doctor alive that's going to suggest to anyone that they should take up smoking, eat lots of lard, gain 100lbs and sprinkle salt on everything in sight.

Your mum's lucky, that's all.  Most people aren't

There is no good reason to eat lots of salt, and simply "sweating it out" is not going to make a lot of difference if you are consuming too much.

http://www.femhealth.com/DangersofSalt.html

Oh yeah, I'm right there with you.  I've been more sticker-shocked about sodium content than caloric content since starting CC+!  And gi-jane's right... too much sodium is just not healthy, regardless of your weight loss goals. 

The key for me has been cutting overly processed foods and limiting the meals cooked outside of the house.  Instead of regularly eating Lean Cuisines or other convenience "diet" meals, I set aside about 3 hours on the weekend to cook up several recipes and freeze the portions.  Instead of a can of diced tomatoes, I dice my own fresh tomatoes for recipes.  Canned beans get rinsed before cooking or eating.  And I don't add salt to anything - instead I add herbs.  If you can find little ways to cut sodium where you can, it starts to add up.

To address your weight loss question:  I can consume about 2800mg of sodium in healthy eating and not be bloated or retain water.  But one night at a pizzeria (even if I just eat 2-3 slices), and I'm bloated like crazy.  Restaurants really seem to go overboard on the salt.

I think the main thing is just to be aware of the presence of sodium in certain foods and eat those in moderation.  I refuse to give up my low calorie lunchmeat and lowfat cottage cheese (both very high in sodium), but I try to balance them out with lots of fresh stuff.

Well if it is not effecting you - you are VERY lucky! I have been struggling with this the last 2 weeks and I have 'gained' 3#!! I am planning on sitting down today to come up with a plan to get more 'unprocessed' food into my diet. If I just say 'salt' I am bloated for a week! Everyone on here is right - all that extra salt is not good for you BUT I do believe in baby steps. If you are new to this and trying to get your eating under control tackle that first. Once you have made some decent headway on that - THEN proceed to tackling the other areas like better quality food in terms of vitamins and minerals. Personally if I try to change too many things in my life at the same time - it is only a matter of time before I fail at them all. Good luck!

I agree with -colorbind-, pick your battles.  Unless you already have high BP I salt shouldn't be too much of a worry.  It seriously bugs me how big of a deal people on CC make about salt, seriously if you are on here, chances are you have much more pressing concerns, like losing weight and reducing your fat/sat fat/calorie content.  Please people, GET OVER IT!  Salt should be one of the LAST things to worry about unless you already have high BP.  Most likely the worst thing that will happen is you'll have some water weight if you increase your salt intake, but if you consistently have a calorie deficit you WILL loose weight!