Galahad's

     Do you like salt? Well you’ll find plenty of it already in the foods that you eat, a lot of it actually. It doesn’t matter if it’s table salt, sea salt or rock salt, you don’t need to consume so much of it and you needn’t add it to most things that you cook. There are much better spices and things to add to your foods for flavor.

 

     Sodium and the additives used to make table salt are necessary for human body function, so don’t cut them out entirely. Go to your cupboards and start reading the labels on prepackaged foods. Look at their sodium contents. I bet some of them are pretty shocking.

 

     Keep salty foods and beverages to a minimum with your diet. You only need about 1000-1500mg of sodium a day and can easily get that from eating healthy choices. I would even aim lower than that. You have to keep an eye on this one. A lot of lower calorie and lower fat foods have a higher sodium content to enrich the lack of flavor caused by eliminating those extra calories and fats found in the regular versions of the product. Sometimes, just due to the sodium levels, the regular version is actually the better choice.

 

     I’m not going to get into all of the negative health effects that too much sodium has on a person.  I'm just deal with the weight factor.

 

     Salt increases water retention. It makes the body store water within fat cells. This expands the cells so they not only have the added weight of the water, but it increases the volume of those cells, making you bigger and bloated. This will add to the number you see on your scale and your body fat percentage. Interestingly, outside of watching your sodium intake, the way to reduce this effect is to drink more water. The excess water works to flush the sodium through your system and keep the body supplied with H20 so it does not hold onto the fluid as much.