How Much Sodium Should Be in Your Diet?

Experts agree a low sodium diet is important.  But what are the benefits of a diet low in sodium?  How much sodium is recommended? And what foods are recommended for a low-sodium diet?  Let’s answer those questions.

Benefits of a low-sodium diet

There are several reasons why the low sodium diet is considered to be so helpful, both for general health and weight loss.

Heart health – One of the most important reasons is that it is good for your heart. Why? When you eat a diet with a lot of sodium, this can raise your blood pressure — and blood pressure, also called hypertension, is one of the main risk factors not only for heart attacks but for strokes.

Weight loss – A low sodium diet can also help with weight loss. Why? To put it simply, water follows salt. If you have a lot of salt in your diet, your body will be more likely to retain water. The result is bloating, discomfort and increased overall water weight. The good news is that a low sodium diet will correct this problem naturally and allow you to drop these excess fluids.

How much sodium is recommended?

The American Heart Association recommends that most adults eat fewer than 2,300 mg of sodium per day, which is the equivalent of 1 tsp. of salt. Packaged foods sometimes provide nutritional information in grams or percentages of the recommended daily allowance for sodium.

On our Personal Trainer Food Menu, you can see the amount of sodium in any item by going to our food menu page and clicking on any individual menu item. For a low-sodium diet we recommend staying away from some of our breaded menu items.

PTF makes it easy to find lower-sodium menu items.  Just look for the tape measure next to any item on our food/menu page.  

 

Just look for the tape measure in the lower right hand corner of any lower sodium item on our food/menu page. 

NOTE:  All of our vegetables are extremely low in sodium with the one exception of our Lima Beans. If you really want a low-sodium diet we highly recommend our REV program which is high in vegetables. Also, if you are ordering snacks, try the unsalted nuts.