Sodium? Weight Retention? Impossible!
No diet is perfect, but vegan food has a hidden agent that could be stifling gains.
Good Afternoon!
As a lifelong omnivore (who the hell eats animal products only, anyway — besides this weirdo?), I have strong opinions on the cultism that comes with certain food group-based diets.
I feel particularly qualified to speak on the topic of veganism today not because I’m for or against it (disclaimer; I have tried it for a sustained period months), but because I have cycled through multiple phases of multiple diets in my 20’s.
I’ve also consulted hundreds of clients on the best dietary choices for their fitness goals, and have helped many achieve them, in my six-year coaching career, all the way from A to Zinc.
I’m not a registered dietitian, but I’ll bet even an RD will confirm the facts of what I’m telling you today anecdotally, if you’re skeptical.
Sodium, Weight Retention, And Impossible Burgers
Since 2020, my fiancé and I have subscribed to a meal delivery service called Purple Carrot. We’ve really loved the convenience of their service, the creativity behind the meal-crafting, and the diversity of vegetables it offers as a vegan delivery service.
The two of us aren’t vegan (my fiancé recently ditched pescatarianism and is back to eating meat), but something felt nice about eating 3-4 veggie-heavy meals during the week without having to shop all across store to find meals like that.
Until it didn’t.
In early 2022, I went for a physical and the sphygmomanometer showed I was incredibly hypertensive (140/90), which baffled me. I was training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon, eating in a high-protein calorie deficit, and sleeping well (past physicals in college also showed hypertension, but I was sleeping awfully all throughout my college years (as most students do, on average).
Even more puzzling was that I had dialed back caffeine intake in an attempt to shed the stereotype that busy personal trainers are coffee addicts, so that couldn’t have been driving up my blood pressure, either.
My doctor pondered for a second, then asked:
How is your sodium intake?
This was something I didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t really know,” I remember saying, puzzled at the idea that a nutrient like that could have any effect on my blood pressure given how active I was.
We decided I would monitor my intake of salty/sodium based foods, and that’s when I started to look a little deeper: Purple Carrot’s meals (and many other vegan dietary options, for that matter) were driving my sodium intake up over 3500mg a day.
I was prompted to do more research into sodium after this.
Sodium plays an essential role in our body's normal function, including maintaining proper fluid balance. However, when we consume too much sodium, our body responds by retaining water to dilute the excess salt concentration in our bloodstream.
This leads to a temporary increase in blood volume and blood pressure, which can strain our cardiovascular system and increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and other health problems.
Although I hadn’t suffered from it directly, excess sodium intake can also contribute to weight gain through water retention.
Surprisingly, just one gram of sodium we consume can bind up to 100 ml of water in our body, and since water weighs about one kilogram per liter, even a small increase in fluid retention can lead to a noticeable increase in body weight.
So naturally, I began to look at the weekly processed veggie burgers, the tempeh, and the tofu I was eating and began to have second thoughts.
A Common Thread In Vegan Options and Processed Junk
I used to think only processed foods — Kraft Mac’n’Cheese, Frozen dinners, airport food — were the cause of weight gain and water retention. But in all of those foods, guess what lies at the core of them?
Sodium.
In the vegan meals we ate (and served everywhere at vegan-only restaurants), sodium exists as a means of amping up flavor, keeping us full, and possibly even fueling further cravings. It shares an eerie connection to most “junk” food as we know it — even when portioned modestly, there is an excess of sodium, and thus there are bad ramifications for anyone trying to stay skinny.
The above Instagram post by Dr. Lyon is a pretty damning review of plant-protein alternatives, even considering that the caloric measurements are similar.
The vegan option in the above post has more than five times the sodium of its meaty counterpart, which is quite honestly alarming and disconcerting, especially since certain dietary restrictions mean some can only eat vegan.
As Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explains, "Consuming too much sodium can cause water retention, which can make you feel bloated and uncomfortable. In the short term, this can lead to weight gain and make it more challenging to manage your weight in the long run."
Alternatives And Sodium Management
If you’re reading this and thinking you’re doomed to either starve, sacrifice flavor or suffer with eternal IBS, not all is lost.
If nothing else, I hope this illuminates the farces — or in some cases, just outright caught-red-handedness of plant-based diets masking themselves as healthy alternatives. To eat plant-based is not inherently wrong (although we’re ending our Purple Carrot subscription this week), but it requires even more careful attention to nutrition labels and serving sizes than a regular omnivorous weight loss diet would.
To maintain a healthy sodium intake, the American Heart Association recommends consuming less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, which is about one teaspoon of salt.
However, the average American consumes more than double that amount, with most of it coming from processed and restaurant foods. Therefore, reducing sodium intake by choosing whole, unprocessed foods, cooking at home, and using herbs and spices to add flavor instead of salt can help prevent water retention and weight gain and improve overall health.
Although we’re ending Purple Carrot, I think it is a good source of whole, organic foods, and isn’t quite always as sodium heavy as the typical Impossible Burger or processed junk food.
But if you’re on a similar meal delivery service and letting it run on autopilot, don’t make the same mistake we did — pre-pick your meals instead of letting the deliverers assign you weekly meals.
In addition to being selective with your food and nutrition labels, pick certain protein sources that are low in sodium and eat lots of them, so that you can stay full longer and not be as inclined to snack or sauce-up later meals.
Paid subscribers will have access to my shortlist of top low-sodium protein options below.
I hope you have a great weekend.
See you on Tuesday!
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