Secrets of Success

Sodium Tracking

I track sodium on the Sparky nutrition tracker. Avoiding or at least limiting salty foods helps the Sparky water wash the pounds away with greater consistency.

No longer a secret: How to get your Potassium RDA!

It took over 20 hours of personal research to produce the "High Potassium - Low Calories Food List". You won't find anything else like it on the internet. I hope it helps you achieve your daily potassium goal. It's helped me where I'm no longer concerned about getting enough.

http://www.sparkpeople.c
om/mypage_public_journal
_individual.asp?blog_id=
4845542
Copy and paste the above URL into your browser, or visit my Spark page and view the FIRST blog!

Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

Watch the number of frozen MEALS you eat. Limit it to no more than 2 or 3 a week.

Salt is at fault

Most americans have a sodium intake way above the charts

Drink all your water - but not all at once.

Drinking a lot of water (4+ cups) within a short period of time (~30-60 mins) will prevent your body from using it properly. It is MUCH better to spread your water intake over the whole day. This allows your kidneys to use it properly, instead of releasing unprocessed water and dehydrating you. If you drink throughout the day while eating, you replenish both sodium and water in your kidneys to keep them functioning properly.

Don't cut out salt!

Cutting out salt will actually increase your chance of heart disease and fat retention and slower metabolism, among other things. I used to do no salt than did some research and now eat a lot of salt. (see additional note for women)

Check out what this microbiologist has to say: http://raypeat.com/articles/
articles/salt.shtml

Peanut Butter Substitute

Almond butter is a great substitute for peanut butter. Amazingly enough, it has 0g of sodium!

Warning: It may take a couple of tries before you get used to having less sodium. However, your taste will change. Mine did and now I can't get enough of the stuff!

Use frozen, not canned vegetables to cut sodium

I added up the calories, nutrients, etc. for my own recipes and entered them in my nutrition tracker. What a shock! Although I add no extra salt, my own soups had more sodium than Campbell's--because I use bouillion and canned ingredients. Even switching to the low sodium broths didn't help all that much. I read a SparkPeople Article that suggested avoiding canned vegetables and beans and using frozen vegetables and dried beans instead. What a difference it made in the sodium count.

Track more nutrients - EFFORTLESSLY

On your nutrition tracker page, there's a link near the top to "change nutrition goals". Clicking that link takes you to a page where you can add any of dozens of nutrients for your nutrition tracker to calculate. Examples are calcium, iron, magnesium, sodium, potassium, glucose, sucrose. The additional nutrients show in the chart at the bottom of your nutrition tracker page and help you watch your daily intake.

Put a Lid on the Salt

Cooking w/o salt means softer beans and more flavorful seasonings. Using canned foods means you'll be getting plenty of salt without adding your own. Let your spices be your friend.

Cut the salt!

Cutting the salt in your food will reduce water retention, your blood pressure, and reduce your chance for heart disease.

Don't forget to track sodium!

In addition to tracking calories, fat, carbs, and protein... keep track of your sodium intake too. It's very easy to stay within your calorie range but majorly exceed your recommended daily sodium allowance. By monitoring this, I have doubled the amount of weight I have lost in half the time!

Cut Down on Sodium

For my husband's health we had to cut down on salt. I've lost almost 30 pounds in the last seven months. Cutting out foods that had high sodium also meant healthier choices, too (e.g. no fast food or frozen dinners), so that helped in the weight loss also.

Watch the Salt

When you watch your salt intake, by definition you should be cutting the amount of processed foods you eat and probably not going out as much. This can often lead to breaking a plateau.