Quick weight fix - lay off the salt

Filed in archive Diet and Nutrition on July 25, 2007

If your vacation is coming round in just a week or two, and he bikini you bought two months ago is still a size too small, although you promised yourself you will workout four times a week - it's high time you did something.

And even though I for one am against quick fixes to any problem, sometimes there just isn't enough time for anything else. So, if you want to lose up to 6 pounds in a week, you should lay off salt. This is because excess salt consumption causes fluid retention which in turn causes swelled tummies, puffy eves and weird looking skin.

This means - no pizza, ready made meals, salami, olives, chips, soy sauce, cheeseburgers...and all other salty items, especially table salt. Be careful to check the ingredients list - look for NaCl, sodium chloride or simply sodium, because there are many items with hidden sodium. For your reference, a simple McDonalds salad can have up to 1,1 grams of sodium in it, and that's without the dressing! Find useful information about sodium levels in common foods here.

I tend to use less salt in my food for over a year now. At first all the food tasted bland, but after a week I began tasting other flavors, which were usually hidden with all the salt I used. I learnt that many herbs add salty flavor - such as rosemary and thyme. Also, I would suggest against using salt substitutes, since they exchange sodium for something else (such as potassium), which is not really healthy.

At last a warning: for your well being and the proper functioning of your body's electrolytes you should take at least 2 to 4 grams of salt a day, which translates to 1,5 grams of sodium. This is not much if you know that an average American takes at least 9 grams of salt a day. So, you should take 2 grams per day for a week to get rid of all excess water and than bring the level up to 4 grams, so that the fluid retention does not come back.