Other people go over the moon for chocolate or other sweets, but it’s always been the bag of potato chips or bowl of pretzels that’s been my weakness.  Being on this damned diet hasn’t changed that in the least. If I’m having a craving, 99 times out of 100 it’s for something salty rather than sweet. That has been a unique challenge while trying to keep my daily sodium intake somewhere close to the AHA’s recommended daily allowance. You don’t realize how sodium heavy everything is until you really start tracking it relentlessly. 

I find I’m just now arriving at a place where I can have a bag of Doritos or salt and vinegar chips in the house and reliably hold myself to a one ounce “serving.” Some days – yesterday, for example – all the counting in the world doesn’t make much difference. Between my morning bagel, 100 grams of ham salad at lunch, and a cup and a half of beef stew, my sodium content for the day was shot to hell. Believe me when I tell you it doesn’t take much for the day’s allowance of salt to slip entirely off the rails.

Fortunately, I don’t seem to be one of the people whose blood pressure responds absurdly out of proportion to sodium so my reading this morning didn’t go stupid. I have, however, noticed that weighing in after a high sodium day easily packs on 1% or more of my previous day’s body weight. That’s an absurd increase while still being in a nominal calorie deficit. Sure, I know in the next day or two I’ll literally piss that water weight away, but goddamn if I’m not feeling just a little salty about it.

Anyway, I’ve been doing this for almost a year and a half now and there’s honestly none of it where I would look back fondly and say, “yes, I was having a good time.” As long as the status quo holds, I continue to be willing to trade flavor for a promised increase in yardage. Should the status quo change, rest assured, all bets are off.