Salt and Weight Loss

Most people know that too much salt is bad for your health, one of the main problems being it can lead to high blood pressure. But how, if at all does it affect weight loss?

You may notice if you weigh yourself regularly that your weight fluctuates up and down significantly without any real reason why. For example many of my clients can put on 2/3 pounds over a weekend by simply having a day off healthy eating and treating themselves a little. A pound of weight is 3500 calories so to gain 3 pounds of fat you would in theory have to take in 10 500 calories more than you should. It is highly unlikely that 99% of people have done this. Maybe you go 1000 or even 2000 over if you have been particularly bad, but that’s it. So where does this weight gain come from?

Simple – it’s mostly water being stored in the body. This water is being stored due to an increased salt intake. Most things that people treat themselves tend to be high in salt; crisps, bread, ready meals, takeaways, restaurant meals, being a few examples. Oriental food types such as soy sauce, fish sauce, miso soup are also really high in salt.

This is also why you can lose a fair bit of weight quickly if you ‘detox’ you body of salt and water. It is highly unlikely most people will be able to create a large enough deficit to lose 4/5 pounds of fat in a week. But if 80% of it is water then of course it’s possible. That is why you always lose more weight in week 1 of healthy eating than any other.

So all in all take 2 points away;

1/ If you have a bad day/weekend and get on the scales and get a shock, don’t panic most of the gain will not be fat. Get back on the wagon and the gain will come right back off as you lose the water you have stored.

2/ If you want to be healthy and see consistent results on the scales keep the salt intake in your diet to a minimum.