Mostly these people paint with a very broad brush and make very black-and-white type statements like “avoid salt at all costs to improve heart health” or “seed oils are the cause of all your health issues”. Very generic, simple statements like that. Fitness, nutrition, and health are incredibly nuanced. The solution is very rarely a single dietary/lifestyle change.
My general rule of thumb is if someone is telling me to completely eliminate something from my diet, I immediately am skeptical.
Solid.
Same for the “this drug will fix you” people. Work on getting the upstream stuff right before resorting to a drug based solution.
Not a health or nutrition expert by any means but if someone developed a pharmaceutical that made everyone 1. Exercise regularly and 2. Control their calorie intake to meet their goal(s) THAT would be the silver bullet drug. And would resolve a lot of our population’s heart health issues.
People would quit taking it after their first encounter with DOMS or missing their favorite garbage food. Drugs are not the way.
We can’t talk about CICO or personal accountability around weight and health without acknowledging the serious damage the sugar and corn industries have done and continue to do, with full endorsement from the government.
“Control your calorie intake” is nice, and for people like me with insulin resistance, not at all helpful.
100% ag + gov are poisoning us. That’s not all they do, but it’s part of what they do.
May need another thread, feel like this one may get derailed.
Have any of y’all even looked at the DASH diet? This is not some fad diet pushed by influencers.
At risk of doing exactly what I said makes me skeptical of fitfluencers and social media experts… I’d edit my generic statement above to read “control calorie intake to meet their goals and needs”
I think that covers my ass when it comes to individuals with certain conditions, like NA, that require additional dietary considerations.
I don’t actually count servings and all that. It’s probably too many servings for me anyway. When I first started I looked at labels for everything. I got a bunch of salt free seasoning mixes for cooking and I use unsalted broth or bouillon in soups, etc. I occasionally use potassium salt. In a lot of recipes I can cut the salt in half or more with no sacrifice in taste. I give my husband a salt shaker. He would always oversalt his food anyway, so now he can just salt it at the end.
I haven’t had a huge reduction in my blood pressure, but I’m no longer in danger of having to increase my meds again. Hoping more meditation and exercise will have a further impact this year.
“A consistent body of research has found that DASH lowers blood pressure in people with high blood pressure but also normal blood pressure even without lowering sodium intake”
Am I interpreting this line correctly when I say that the DASH diet lowered BP in high-BP individuals and normal-BP individuals WITHOUT lowering sodium intake? So the diet (replacing highly-processed, overly sugary/salty foods with more “whole” or less-refined foods) lowered BP without actually reducing sodium intake?
I had to re-read that a few times to make sure what I initially took from that was what it was trying to say… I think.
This.
I felt like I was doing ok before, but then I started reading labels for sodium. A food doesn’t even have to be “highly processed” to have a bunch of sodium. And there are very few meals I can eat out and keep my sodium at 1500 mg or less per day.
So I try to prepare my own food as much as possible. And I give myself grace the rest of the time.
I mean, idek if most of the people posting here even have bp issues. My bp has never been scary high bc I’ve been on meds for years. But it kept inching up and then I’d get an increased dose or a new med. I started worrying that if I didn’t do something I’d have a stroke. So I did something.
And it’s working. And no, I’m not limiting sodium to the extent that it’s causing other health issues. My sodium and potassium are good.
Nor am I getting health info from influencers, unless you count that guy Dr Terry Simpson who is all about the Mediterranean Diet. I like him. He tells me what to buy at Costco.
Certain canned staples, like beans, are available in no salt added varieties.
I found a recent Japanese study (over 7 years, 4,475 people) that suggested that daily dairy intake decreased hypertension. I’m not sure if it was full-fat or reduced-fat.
Very nice. And sorry for the hijack.
I hear that sodium can be quite corrosive for bolts. Would there be certain types of material that would be particularly resistant for marine environments?
Penzey’s is currently running a sale, $35 for a $50 gift card. Their business has taken a hit due to their position on Trump. I keep meaning to try some of their spices, so I ordered a gift card. Open to recommendations.