I am talking about the salt in your diet. Having salt in your diet is not the problem. Salt is a necessity of life. But, it is the amount of salt that is in most peoples diet that makes salt so deadly. Salt is the silent killer in everyone’s diet. It is the silent killer that lurks and not spoken about. Unless you have high blood pressure or hyper tension you don’t think about how much salt is in your diet. If you are overweight and trying to loose weight then your diet is useless if you are not watching your salt intake.

A few years ago I developed a syndrome known as Meniere’s Syndrome. Meniere’s Syndrome affects the inner ear. Very little is known about Meniere’s. In fact there is no way to tell if you truly have Meniere’s; until you die and an autopsy is performed and the inner ear is examined.

Some people with Meniere’s only have minor problems like slight tinitious and hearing loss. Others, like myself, afflicted with the syndrome, have severe hearing loss and vertigo. I could care less about the hearing loss. I am only afflicted in one ear, so when Meniere’s is active I can still hear out of the other ear. It’s the vertigo that gets me. I get vertigo so bad that it feels like the hand of god has come down from heaven and smashed me to the ground. When the vertigo is active it lasts about 4 hours. It’s like torture.

There are varied methods for controlling Meniere’s. But, most doctors and other experts
agree that a strict diet controlling salt is key to successfully reducing the impact of Meniere’s Syndrome. There is no cure. A strict diet allowing for only about 800 to 1000 miligrams of salt per day. For a normal healthy person it is recommended that your diet contain no more than 2400 miligrams of salt. That’ 2.4 grams of salt. Try pouring that on your tongue all at once.

The Affects Of High Salt Diets

A diet rich in salt causes your body to retain water. High water retention can cause massive weight gain. Our bodies are already 70% water. We need water to live. But, too much water can over burden the body. Having massive water retention over taxes the heart, lungs, kidneys and liver, not to mention the lymphatic system. When your body retains too much water you are in essence drowning yourself. Every system is over whelmed by the extra work required to work through the extra fluids in your body.

Take for instance congenital heart failure. Basically the heart fails because it cant pump blood through all the extra fluid in your body

Simply put high salt diets can kill you.

Dieting to Control Salt

Have you ever tried to control the level of salt in your diet? Going on a diet with little or no sodium is one of the toughest things you can ever do. Just about everything you eat is some how processed. Whether that processing is frozen or canned, invariably salt is added. And, added in huge quantities.Those products labeled healthy are some of the worst culprits. They have reduced calories and are balanced. But, invariably they have massive amounts of salt. Next time you are in the grocery store pay a visit to the frozen food aisle displaying all the frozen diet dinners and diet meals. Look at the quantity of salt, pay attention to the serving size. Most of the time serving sizes are ridiculously low. Serving sizes are often manipulated to make some brands of food seem healthier than they really are.

Those foods labeled healthy, aren’t always so healthy. Just because it says diet or healthy on the label does not mean that it is good for you. Most people have no idea how much salt is in their diet. If they are dieting to loose weight and eat Weight Watchers, South Beach or some other brand of diet meals they are taking in huge quantities of salt. In just 2 tablespoons of ketchup there is just under 200 miligrams of sodium. In one serving of some canned soups there is over 900 milligrams of sodium. I can almost guarantee you that if you were to count up how much sodium you take in every day, most people would be well over 5000 - 10000 milligrams a day. People aren’t overweight just from over eating. People are over weight because they have too much salt in their diet.

Weight Loss And A Low Sodium Diet

But being on a low sodium diet can be accomplished. And the natural side affect of being on a low sodium diet are amazing. Being on a low sodium diet I lost a lot of weight. I went from 215 pounds to about 182 pounds, in less than 2 months. I lost over 30 pounds just by watching the amount of sodium in my diet. Can you say water weight?

So if you are dieting to loose weight in my experience the best place to start is to reduce your salt intake. look for diet foods and diet programs that have low sodium. For me weight loss was not biggest benefit from being on a low salt diet. For me the biggest benefit was reduced fluid in my inner ear which reduced the pressure on the nerve that controls balance. Which means the vertigo is more under control now.

Salt is the silent killer in your diet. Too much salt in your diet can have all sorts of bad affects on your body. It is unhealthy to totally eliminate salt from your diet. But, reducing the amount of salt in your diet will have amazing affects on your health. Dieting to loose weight without watching your salt intake is just setting yourself up for failure. Dieting for other health problems and not watching the salt in your diet is just setting yourself up for other health problems. So whether you are dieting to loose weight, reduce your blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, or to stop vertigo watch your salt intake and you will be healthier and happier.