Sodium intake and water weight

tossedup · 10-08-2007, 04:47 PM

I am following Adams diet very strickly but seem to be holding onto a good bit of water. It seems odd because my carbs are either for breakfast or lunch. And preworkout and postwork. I was wondering what type of impact sodium has on holding on to water water. Any ideas?

JoshDunn · 10-09-2007, 06:56 AM

Whilst sodium does make you retain more water the body has systems that will get rid of the excess water and the excess sodium. It does take some time but shouldn't be any more then a day.

Low carb diets usually drop a heap of water weight early so it sounds strange to me that you are retaining more water since on this plan.

Not sure if fitday or something does it but maybe find a place to track your calories and sodium for a day or two and see if you go over the RDA.

If your not and still worried about it then maybe a trip to the doc as there may be something more sinister at play.

tossedup · 10-09-2007, 07:03 AM

Thanks for the reply Josh. I am not really retaining more water weight than my normal diet I am just not shedding it like I have in previous low carb diets. I am going to watch my sodium intake for the next couple of days and see where to go from there.

JoshDunn · 10-09-2007, 07:08 AM

How long you been on adams diet?

How many carbs have you needed to cut?

Table salt has bugger all amount of sodium in it compared to processed meats so if your eating say salarmi (sp?) and other deli meats it could be your reason for water retention.

In previous low carb diets did you still have carbs once a day or cut completely because you might not have cut enough in order to flush out that water.

Do you drink much water. The more water you drink the more you flush out.

Or anything else that may be relevent that I haven't asked.

tossedup · 10-09-2007, 07:32 AM

I have been on Adams diet for the last two weeks. I did a CKD diet with on 20g of carbs per day coming from veggies. It worked well but I could only stay on it for 3 months or so because it was so strick. I have been eating a good bit of shrimp (fresh) and crab legs (frozen) wich I think the crab has a lot of sodium in it. That might be the culprit right there because they were steamed with Old Bay season that I am sure it has a hell of a lot of salt in it. I am drinking about six 20oz bottles of water per day plus another .75 liters on my workout days. I am going to lay of the crab legs and start looking at labels again to check for excess salt that I might have been missing previously. If need be I will go back to 50g of carbs per day on nonworkout days just to make sure I do loose the water weight and if not go see the doctor.

tossedup · 10-09-2007, 07:39 AM

I just looked up crab legs on fitday and I do belive that is what it was. I king crab leg has 120 calories, 713mg of sodium 30% RDA, 23g protein, 0 carbs. This combined with the Old Bay I am sure I was way over my RDA for sodium. That is eye opening to say the least. Would it help any if I picked the crab meat out of the shell and rinse it with water before I ate it to get rid of some of the salt? Because crab legs are awesome man.