Low Sodium diet

I have to admit, it's a long road to eating healthy and living healthy. But one thing that I have not been able to conquered has been eating a low amount of sodium.

Albeit my priorities are:

Well balanced diet:

<2500 calories

<50g fat

<100-200g Protein

<300 carbs

>40 fiber

But I have failed at sodium. The last week, I average about 5500 mg of sodium. I feel like it's impossible to eat as low as 2000 mg of sodium if you consume 1800 or more calories. I am overweight @ 330 and my ideal weight is about 180-200. So I can not reduce my food by that. Any ideas would help. Thank you

Best,

Amir

Processed foods tend to be pretty high in sodium, try and eat more natural foods like vegetables and fruit, or less processed food. I always look at the nutritional pannel of everything I buy and check the stats, even if it's something I want and the rest of the stats are good, if the sodium is too high I usually don't buy it.

Amir,

I have been having problems too with this. I am now able to get it between 1700-2700 a day but it requires thought and effort.

Processed foods is the main culprit. I'm trying to move away from them.

I know how had this can be especially when eating higher calories for weight loss. I started out at 1800 cals but rarely hit it. Now i'm at 1700 and struggling to get that right.

Good Luck. I look forward to more responses on this thread as well.

I'd go further and say that it's only possible to get a low sodium diet if you eliminate almost all ready-made, convenience, canned and other packaged food from your diet.   Other foods to cut right back on are things like cheese and preserved meats.  Most of your calories have to come from fresh foods.... fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, lean meat and fish, nuts, oils.... and then you can get under 2400mg.  You'll also find that 2500 cals of those kinds of foods are very filling.  It means you have to spend a little more time cooking than you might have done in the past but that's a fairly good trade-off for a healthy weight and reducing the risk of needing BP medication long-term.

A typical 2500 cal menu...

• Breakfast... poached eggs, toast, orange juice, yoghurt.... 400 cals
• Snack... fruit... 150 cals
• Lunch.... Sandwiches filled with some lean home-cooked chicken, salads, sliced tomatoes, mayonnaise.  Fruit.   600 cals
• Snack... some raw, unsalted nuts and raisins.  350 cals
• Supper.... Grilled fresh salmon seasoned with lemon-juice and black pepper with baked potatoes, lots of vegetables, a simple sauce made with tomatoes.  A small dish of ice-cream.  800
• Late snack.... toast and a low-cal hot chocolate 200 cals.

Good luck

I was amazed with the sodium content of some foods. I agree with others that the more natural foods you can take in the easier it is to maintain sodium levels. We all joke about Chinese foods but check some of the restaurants like Ruby Tuesday's, Chili's, etc. Even their salads...the Chili's Southwestern Cobb Salad has like 2000+ mg of sodium...amazing.

I hear you!!!

I was shocked to learn the sodium in things I thought were healthy--cottage cheese, soup, yogurt, and especially deli meat--and I was buying the lean, fat-free kind. Deli meat is the worst. And for me, I simply can't cook every single meal I eat. Throwing together a sandwich at night to bring with me to work is something hard to give up. So now I try to bring leftovers at least a couple days a week and sandwich meat the other days. The days I eat sandwich meat I try to cut out sodium in other places--i.e. no soup that day, no cottage cheese, etc. I feel like I've done everything I can do to get it down to about 3,000 mg a day. I have no idea how to cut out any more. My typical day:

Breakfast: 1 egg/two egg white omelette with dill weed and veggies and cream cheese in the middle. 1/2 grapefruit

Lunch: (Either a sandwich) or leftovers from the night before--usually pork or chicken.

Dinner: It varies, but I am having chicken with a lime citrus sauce tonight.

Snacks: Kashi granola bar, celery and hummus, apple, rice cake.

Bottom line is I have tried to locate the items I eat that are the highest sodium and try to not eat them all in one day. I also drink a TON of water. I have heard that water helps flush the sodium, so that is something I try and do. I drink a glass as soon as I get up, one with eat meal and one between each meal for 96 ounces per day. I also drink 1-2 20 oz bottles when I work out.

Thank you so much for everyones responses. I have also found that even healthy soups have tons of sodium. I guess the best thing to do is to cook EVERTHING yourself, which would be very difficult to do.

But honestly, how could anyone NOT get hypertension if you consume normal foods without cooking everything yourself.

I will try to cook everything myself and not add salt.

p.s. whatever happened to our old caveman days when it was actually hard to get enough sodium in you ...

The advertisers of convenience foods have had over 50 years to subtly convince us all that we 'don't have time' to prepare our own food.   When it's actually not so....  With practice and a little forethought you can create good food from scratch even with the busiest schedule and minimum cookery skills.  

The menu I mentioned above was deliberately quick/easy cook.  Poaching an egg, grilling a piece of salmon or baking a potato (in the microwave) takes about 5 minutes.  A snack of raw nuts and raisins is instant.  Cooking a piece of chicken to put in a sandwich the next day takes 10 - 15 minutes.    

Other ways to be more efficient...... There are times when you have more time on your hands.  Use those opportunities to make bigger quantities of dishes or sauces.  For example, you could cook up a big pot of Bolognese/Pasta Sauce at the weekend, split it into portions and put it in the freezer.  On a day when you're very busy cook a portion of pasta (10 - 15 minutes), reheat the pasta sauce in the microwave and serve with some fresh green salad.   A healthy, low-sodium meal in under 20 minutes.  NB... even if you add a pinch of salt to your home-cooked food it won't come to anything close to that present in processed food.

Hypertension is not just down to excess salt consumption.  It's a combination of excess weight & inactivity as well.   You can keep a small amount of convenience foods in your diet if you're a healthy weight and reasonably active.