The Sodium Pull…
What’s That Mean?
I’m now almost three weeks out from my show. I’m moving lots, lifting lots and eating… less, but still a good amount. Things are dialed in. So, Coach and I decided to run a test to see how my body would react to cutting sodium from my diet.
Why?
I don’t want to get too technical over the matter because, frankly, I’m not the most well versed. And I’m also not here to bring up the politics of salt consumption. I do, however, have a layman’s understanding of the physiology so I’ll give it to you a nutshell: The body likes to maintain certain concentrations of certain solutes. You’ve probably heard of homeostasis? Your body’s tendency towards maintaining stable internal conditions? Anyway, sodium is one of these solutes. Your body tries to regulate the concentration of sodium outside your cells relative to the concentration inside. So when we eat a ton of salt, the body will activate mechanisms that work towards diluting the increased sodium concentration. One of those mechanisms, you guessed it, water retention.
Maybe a crude oversimplification, but the concept is there.
How to do it right?
Sodium is an essential nutrient for us! We need it to regulate blood volume, pH, osmotic equilibrium and other wacky stuff. Not to mention, it’s also largely responsible for neurotransmission and muscle function. Ya, you can’t move, think or feel without it. Makes sense why we love it so much, huh?
So when I say I cut sodium from my diet I don’t mean that I ate absolutely zero sodium. I’d be dead… Maybe.
For months now I’ve been throwing all kinds of seasoning on my food to get my body used to lots and lots of salt. I’ve been doing this with the intention of conditioning my body to notice when I took even a little bit of that salt away. And thats exactly what happened. Yay science!
How was it?
The drama queen in me was preparing to do die a flavorless death during this test.
To my surprise, all I had to do to get mad results was stop adding extra salt to my food and stop drinking BCAAS (a delightfully fancy, fruity, salty, but mostly useless supplement that I’m completely addicted to) for two days! I almost lost two pounds and it felt like no work at all. I didn’t even bother to read labels of packaged foods in attempts to avoid sodium. I obviously didn’t go for pickles and salted caramel bites, but the point is, effort was minimal.
I did make an effort to go zero salt for one meal and one meal alone: Spaghetti Squash with homemade pasta sauce (again, when I say zero, I’m lying. Even veggies have salt in them). It turned out to be a simple, but brilliant concoction of ground turkey, onion, tomato, garlic, spices and obviously squash.
Overall this was a fun and successful experiment in preparation for the real thing. I’m back on the salt now and lots of it. I’ll be checking back in tomorrow so we can see how much water my body holds onto after gettin real salty.
PSA: If you decide to dabble in the art of water manipulation, be careful not to let yourself turn into a vegetable. Remember, you need salt to be a human… at least to be an alive one.
