Sodium and Carbs

I have been good with lowering my calorie intake daily and exercising but my goodness how do I find foods with lower sodium and carbs? Help please :/

I have been on a low sodium diet for a long time due to high blood pressure and kidney disease. Easy ways to avoid sodium are by avoiding fast food, pre-packaged foods especially pasta meal things (at least check the label), rinse off canned beans and veggies in a small colander before cooking with them or eating them. Those are the easy ones. As far as carbs go, you can look for no-carb options (like spaghetti squash instead of actual spaghetti) if you're feeling adventurous but the only way I have found to lower my carb intake is to make my portions smaller and still eat the stuff I like (I LOVE carbs). Good luck to you!

Thanks for the help! I need to start somewhere

The easy way is to use fresh real food, just stay away from potatoes,flour pasta etc and read a good low carb book. Sugar free jello or ricotta cheese with a flavor extract and a splenda packet becomes desert. The hardest meal for me is breakfast, not a big egg eater. If you can manage to get your carbs down to 30 or less per day calories are not so much something you have to watch, but you can't do high fat and not LC or you will gain. Good luck

Lunch meat is extremely high in sodium. If sandwiches are what you want to eat, try getting a turkey breast to cook and use that for your lunch meat.

I'm with you on the added sodium, really drives me batso. apatrick is right on. I roast whole turkeys, sirloin tips, top rounds, slice it thin in the slicer, and freeze up one pound packages for lunchmeat. Save a TON of money too, especially when you get them on sale. I buy 3 or 4 turkeys during the holidays at ~$0.79/pound and freeze them for later usage.. have one left!

As others have said, eating low-sodium is quite easy if you stop eating packaged food. A while ago I had to ask my doctor if it was possible to consume too little sodium, since I was only getting 500-700 mg/day.

Hoser, what was your doc's answer?

Sometimes I need added sodium and other electrolytes, but only when working hard in the Florida Heat. I have to wear a work suit or 2, and lose quite a bit of fluids. If not, I start getting horrible cramping in my legs, arms and abdomen.

cerobit, his answer was that in theory it was possible to be too low, but in practice it probably wasn't going to happen unless I was doing things that made me sweat profusely.

What is wrong with carbs??? You do know it is extremely rare that carbohydrates are converted to and stored as body fat right?

There is almost no escaping sodium, it realy isnt worth the effort unless you have heart issues. Besides, sodium is necessary for muscle contractions (No sodium=cramps/weakness).

If you just avoid sodium for the water weight it adds, you should know your body will adjust to the higher intake and return to normal water retention after a few days.