So I am really good about keeping track of the fat, sugar, and protein in the foods I eat, obviously trying to keep them low in fat and sugar but high in protein. And I'm going to start the calorie counting process tomorrow to see if I can get it to work for me this time.

But I don't pay attention to sodium. I figure if it's low cal, low fat, low sugar, high protein, that's good enough, especially since I drink mostly water all day (all water, in fact, except for one glass of OJ and the occasional diet soda...that is not a daily thing). But, thinking about what I eat, at least for dinner, there is probably a lot of sodium in my foods, and I'm going to check it out tomorrow.

Is sodium a big deal? How much sodium is too much sodium? How does this affect weight loss?

I appreciate any help!

Hi! I am afraid I won't be much help, but when I had a trainer, he set up an eating plan for me, and I remember I could only have 2,000 mg a day. And it added up QUICK! I thought calorie counting was challenging, but sodium counting was even harder, especially at restaurants b/c you don't know exactly how much they put in your food. In the end, I ignored it, and drank lots of water with my food so I would stay within my portion range. I stayed away from junky foods that had obviously a lot of sodium (like chips, cheese, etc) After counting EVERYTHING, sodium fell off my "tracker" list. And I did get "lite" salt from the grocery store to help a little, or I'll purchase "lower sodium" products at my grocery store.

I went to Ruby Tuesdays on Friday and had one of their "light" dinners- 600 calories or something. I ate about 2/3 of it because it was the saltiest meal I'd ever had.

Lo and behold, I woke up 4 lbs heavier the next morning!!! It's gone now, but it freaked me out a little.

So yes, sodium -while temporary- can mess up the scale.

Wow...I just totaled up the sodium in my breakfast and what I packed for lunch/my snack today and I'm already up to 1520mg for today, which if I went by your trainer's suggestion, that means I can only have 480mg in my dinner. That does add up fast!

Well, one advantage I do have is that I rarely add salt to anything I'm eating. I put salt on eggs, which I have once or twice per week, and in green beans, but nothing else, so I'm safe there, I think.

2,000 mg is a LOT of sodium. Wow. I try to stay below 1200 mg per day.

I watch my sodium, mostly because of the water retention factor. Its not "real" weight, but it can mess up the scale.

I am a bit obsessive watching my salt, but for me it really helps counter more drastic daily fluctuations. In the past i was able to do well losing weight w/out being as strict about this as i am-but i do believe its helping me even more so. It can be that much harder in what i can eat, but i also for the most part make a lot of my own meals for that reason and stay away from most packaged foods (while i love so many lean cuisines and the like their sodium content makes them treats far and few between). Even cottage cheese has a sodium content that makes me wary!
I am a huge huge fan of spices, esp Mrs.Dash. My biggest vice sodium wise is hot sauce i think! I limit it hard core through the day to have more later, lol. I even switched to low sodium V8. Thats something else i noticed, i had the v8 lite, and realized its sodium content was i think a bit higher then even regular v8. I think in quite a few cases with "diet" foods, sodium content can increase b/c the manufacturers add more salt to attempt to make it "tastier" in some cases. There is a much better way to explain that, but i'm running low on time.

So bottom line, imo, do you have to be super on top of sodium content? No, but i def suggest trying to stay under 2000 if you can, and it does help.

I've found I can counteract the ill effects of sodium by drinking a metric ton of water. Yes, I may be running to the bathroom every 20 minutes, but I can salt my broccoli with confidence that the scale won't show it the next day.

I've tried sodium counting, it's hard between the calorie, protein, carb, and fat counting.

I love salt, and I love hot sauce and soy sauce (wheat free) which are filled with salt. It's my way of making sometimes bland food better. Hot sauce on eggs and soy sauce on vegtables.

I have way too much salt in my diet so now I'm trying to be more accountable for all the salt I have because it does make my scale bounce up and down. I shot up 4-5 pounds overnight from a salty weekend, and it took me over a week of drinking a ton of water and working out and being careful to lose that water weight.

Oh! I like this topic.

Sodium does not affect your "fat" loss, but it does have many risks associated with it.

Your body is geared to hang onto sodium because it was rare, important mineral in evolutionary terms - same way we are geared to hang onto excess calories by storing it as fat instead of just excreting it. Of course, in present times, we are at no shortage for either sodium or calories in the western world. So we now have problems associated with too much instead of too little.

Sodium is retained in the kidney through a complex process, but basic principles of concentration gradients cause water to follow the sodium as it is reabsorbed into the body.

What this means for you is that, short term, increased sodium intake will retain water and cause weight gain or retention. It is water weight and should dissipate over time assuming you drink enough water and reduce your sodium intake.

Long term sodium intake has more serious effects including risk for hypertension which can lead to cardiac issues, as well as edema. Because your body retains the water, concentration gradients in the body move more water through your blood vessels. This puts strain on your blood vessels, particularly dangerous in the brain (aneurysm, anyone?) and in the blood vessels of the heart, as well as causing the heart to enlarge. Increased water retention can also cause pulmonary edema (water in the lungs).

All around, bad news bears. 2000 mg of sodium is not a *recommended* level, and neither is 1200. It's considered a *safer* level. In our society you would have to really work to not get enough sodium in your diet. Most people get enough sodium just through healthy eating. Prepackaged food contains more because it tastes good to us - also an evolutionary thing.

In short, avoid it, and you'll probably still get more than enough sodium in your diet. Get your blood pressure checked on at least a semi-annual basis.

Whew, I'm done. This is a topic I'm passionate about. Wrote a paper on it for one of my physiology classes. Take from my rant what you will....lol

Thanks LuckyDVL! That's awesome to learn more, i've read up on it a bit, but since i'm sure you just barely tapped into what you know your a wealth of a lot of info.

It really IS so hard to limit it, b/c its EVERYWHERE. I mean in my most intense (and i was militant) days of watching it it seemed i had to cut out just about anything packaged, most all dressings (though i did learn a lot of different ways to prepare veggies and salads, i <3 vinegar) so on and so forth.
It's always interesting to me to hear of people who do really watch it b/c i am always on the look out for new ways to try different things that people might add in to their diet when they watch sodium content more. I wanted so badly to add in more hot sauce to my egg whites today. Only days i can get away w/that are when i'm hung over/therefore dehydrated (not suggesting that as a course of action!)

I watch my sodium/salt because if I have too much (which I think we have established is way easy to do) I retain water and I get hypertension/high blood pressure. I can literally feel (and even clearly SEE if I lie still ) my heart beat in my chest when I have too much sodium. I have also found that it tends to keep me up at night when I have too much sodium. I don't know why this is..but it almost never fails.

One thing that really gets me about these new lower sodium products is that they usually have a substitute called Potassium Chloride...They use it in EVERYTHING..especially Healthy Choice I've noticed!!! Potassium levels affect cardiac functions, and is actually to be avoided when you take blood pressure meds. Potassium can affect the heart beat and can actually cause cardiac arrest, which is why they use a concentrated solution for lethal injections and abortions! Yikes! It's used for a lot of other things too..like fertilizer and in batteries etc.. I don't understand why they can't just make some foods with less salt period.. I think we have become used to using gobs of salt for flavor instead of working with the natural flavors that ingredients can give us. Since we all are watching our sodium in my family, my mom uses hardly any added salt in our meals and they still taste amazing.

One of my pet peeves is injected meats, like chicken adn turkey. It's almost impossible to find just plain chicken. They inject it with like 15% salt water..think about it, 15% of what you are paying is for salt water, just so your chicken can be juicier. I know they used to use salt to cure meat and as a preservative, but come one we aren't like trying to make jerky here.

Sorry for the lecture ladies..Salt content in our food is something I have really been outraged by since I started learning more about it and since I discovered my high blood pressure issue with salt. There is a movement in the US government by some people to reduce salt levels in prepared foods in the next years, and I am surprised at how many people were pointing fingers that the government was trying to tell them how much salt to eat. My thoughts are, eat your salt if you want it..you can always add salt..but you can't take it out if you don't want it. If anything it is giving more freedom to control your salt intake. Oh well...that's my 2cents for tonight.