And dry weight: salt

Dry and fitness salt and its pitfalls

In terms of salt, we are all in excess! Here's how to remove sodium to refine his physique.

Brian Rowley, MS

If you have somewhat neglected your training and your diet recently, but you have to stand still look great for your tryst on the beach, a few last minute tips could be useful. To grow your chest, your arms and shoulders, you can still do pushups at home. By cons, if you want a slimmer and more defined physique, you need to get rid of excess sodium.
While a reduction in your body fat will also be needed if you want to look "dry." But as you say any bodybuilder, salt can make all the difference between a plump body and wrapped, and skinned in a physical the sharp musculature. Fortunately, you only have about a day to solve the problem of sodium, so you can parison be thinner by tomorrow with our selection of the best strategies to eliminate unsightly puffiness. We will advise you when and how to use sodium to improve your endurance, your performance, your hydration and your health.
Your sodium intake is probably excessive, since our average consumption from 5 000 to 7,000 mg per day, while the needs of an adult could be around 500 mg. In the U.S., the recommended dietary sodium was fixed fairly "diplomatic" to 1400 mg per day. It is not so much a need as an attempt to maintain a reasonable level the amount of salt in our diet, so we do not avalions in one day's ration of sodium a whole week!

The anti-sodium level: strategies last minute
It is certain that sodium is an essential nutrient, but in case of excessive intake, it traps under the skin layer of water that looks like a layer of fat: it is not the most beautiful effect for your "shelf chocolate "or to the line of your legs, even if your body fat percentage is already low. Hence the need to have at its disposal an anti-sodium level - like the one we show here - not to appear puffy.
One caution though: avoid desperate measures! Too drastic a reduction of sodium by the use of diuretics or other "hard" methods can cause cramps, low blood pressure, fainting, or constitute a risk to health. Therefore, we limited our list to five healthiest and most effective safest means to strengthen your physique in 24 hours by removing only the excess sodium.

Strategy 1: drink more water
When it is dried, the body secretes the hormone aldosterone and kidneys retain the sodium content in the urine so that excess salt may remain in the blood. Part of this excess sodium can lodge under the skin and thus retain water more easily, resulting in a wrapped look then sought to have a physical refined.
However, drinking in the day 16 glasses of pure water or more (approximately 4 liters per day) tends to prevent a rise in aldosterone levels and removing the excess sodium. Bodybuilders often drink eight liters of water (or more) the day before or
the day before a race just to be sure to have chased the maximum excess sodium, and they drink anything the morning of the contest to avoid physical does seem saturated with water. To be sure that you drink bottled water does not contain salt, read the information on the label.
Tap water may well be the case depending on where you live. Generally, it contains very little salt relative to the average power. In New York City tap water contains about 1 mg of sodium per liter (or 4 glasses) while that of Los Angeles contains about 31 mg litre.1
So, drinking 16 glasses a day, a resident of Los Angeles absorb 56 mg of sodium per day against 8 mg for a New Yorker, figures that are hardly significant when you consider that the average American consumes about 100 times more sodium daily. Tap water can therefore sometimes agree, unless it is preparing for a bodybuilding contest, in which case it should be left to chance and drink only distilled water nothing.
It is different from the non-distilled water bottle. Some mineral waters are rich in sodium (1,000 mg or more per liter) so read the labels carefully to avoid buying a very soda water.

Strategy 2: Reduce foods high in salt
Although the most obvious of all, this approach is not necessarily the easiest when you know that many foods with no salty taste can be very high in sodium. For example, virtually any canned tomato sauce contains added salt and it goes even baking mixes and other and seasonings of all kinds. Highly refined products are even worse, frozen preparations are often extremely high in salt: this is not ideal as a meal just before a "meeting" as expected!
This is why we must avoid most processed foods preferring their fresh and natural products. Often the aisles of supermarkets are full of refined foods high in sodium (frozen pizzas, canned soups, canned foods and by-products), while at the periphery, there are fruits and vegetables, fish, poultry and milk, as many commodities whose salt content is low to moderate.
To remove salt before a meeting Photo , reunion on the beach or a meeting at the pool, decrease food (refined) strongly sodic 24-48 hours before, and evacuate the excess sodium in the body by drinking plenty of distilled water.
It is particularly important to ban salt when you make a system carbohydrate because such an association would be bad. Indeed, elevation of insulin induced by sugars can increase sodium retention, which gives a soft and muscles wrapped appearance. Instead, focus on poor sources of sodium and carbohydrates such as fresh produce, oatmeal, potatoes, yams and pasta unsalted. Among other poor dietary salt options include the chicken and turkey, untreated and marinated fish and no more than 2 to 3 servings of low fat milk or yogurt. Most cheeses are too salty to be included in a diet low in salt.
See the salt content of foods in the table "The hidden salt." You will find that sodium tends to be insidiously present in canned trays (spreads, for example), ready meals and bottles (sauces and seasonings).

Strategy 3:'re exercising!
Another way to reduce salt: exercise more. Fanatics training are less likely to suffer from an overload of sodium simply because they lose in sweat in an hour of cardio, it eliminates about 3,200 mg of salt per liter of sweat (the equivalent 4 glasses). It is for this reason that the loss of sodium has been suggested as contributing to the protective effect of exercise against heart disease.

Strategy 4: eliminate sweating
If 10 minutes we spend six times (or more) in a sauna, a steam room, jacuzzi or steam room, you lose several grams of sodium. Sauna (preferred method Kevin Levrone, vice-champion in Olympia 2000) is excellent for removing by sweating, sodium deposits of greatest concern, namely those which are housed under the skin and retain water . It is wise to weigh themselves before and after each sauna session, because it indicates how much water was removed with salt by sweating caused this (remember to urinate before each weighing). Thus, the loss of 450 g mean it should drink about 460 cl distilled water to compensate for the deficit of water. [NB: The above methods can eliminate salt and water loss must be compensated immediately. The use of various techniques to end dehydrate the body (in order to "make" a weight class for a sport) or lose weight for other reasons, can be dangerous, even deadly: we formally recommend to get a physical skinned.]
Do not exaggerate in the use of heat. In general, sessions should not exceed 10 minutes, especially if you are dehydrated or if you have a heart problem between each pass, get out and stay ten minutes at room temperature. If you suffer from heart, high blood pressure or any other health problem, consult your doctor before imposing your body stress of intense heat. Pregnant women avoid completely hammam, steam bath and sauna. It is generally recommended to follow these sessions a cold shower or a dip in cold water: it causes a sudden rise in blood pressure and may increase the risk of stroke.

Strategy 5: prefer potassium chloride
If you like your food sprinkle of salt and also use for baking, try potassium chloride (KCl) instead of table salt (sodium chloride or NaCl) for one or two days before the "big moment "you expect. Since potassium is not put in the skin such as sodium, there is no loss of muscle definition.
In addition, potassium chloride has the same taste as ordinary salt and applies equally well in bread or other baked food: low-sodic regimes have therefore no reason to be too bland. Also knowing that most people consume too much salt and not enough potassium (which is the inverse of the regime food from which humanity has evolved), we understand that it makes sense to replace the sodium chloride potassium chloride.
We note with interest that potassium increases cell volume as well as creatine and glutamine: This is what may explain in part why many bodybuilders spend potassium before competitions. For safety, do not exceed 4 grams (400 mg) of potassium per day extra. In addition, medical advice is needed before taking potassium if you are undergoing treatment for s heart: your GP know the quantity of potassium interact with what he tells you to.

Sodium and health
Excess sodium is harmful? Some experts actually believe that salt contributes to hypertension, heart disease and attacks. But many other factors related to lifestyle play a much larger role in these conditions: it is the smoking, excessive consumption of saturated and hydrogenated fats, diabetes and insufficient exercise .
As for sodium, the information provided by the DASH study (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) suggest that a deficiency in calcium and potassium in the diet are more of a factor than salt hypertension. The subjects in this study followed a regime provided in fruits, vegetables and dairy products reduced. Interestingly, although they did not request to reduce salt intake, there was a lowering of blood pressure, even in those where it was within a normal range.
That said, it is clear that some people have everything to gain from reducing their salt intake. The most obvious example is approximately 20% of hypertensive "salt sensitive," but this decrease could also benefit healthy individuals. For example, a recent update of the DASH data revealed a Low Sodium version of the diet DASH better lowered blood pressure and even healthy helped in getting their power in the low to normal values ​​subjects, those with heart health Vascular is best. Decreased sodium represents one of many ways to strengthen cardiovascular system already healthy.
Finally, limit the salt preserves the skeleton by reducing calcium loss in the urine, resulting in a lower risk of bone fractures as you get older ... or we do squat with 180 kg.

Sodium, water and the endurance athlete
Most people are surprised that sports drinks contain sodium. However, according to a report, the replacement of sodium lost in sweat for three hours pedaling in a hot environment (33.3 ° C) helped athletes to prevent a sharp decline in their performance.2 This is perhaps what as sodium contributes to better retention of water absorbed. If you do not hydrate enough or there is not enough water holds because we lose too much salt through sweat, the performance will be affected.
Even marginal about 1% to 2% of body weight loss of water may be sufficient to impair aerobic capacity and endurance in a hot atmosphere. It may need more than a diet healthy and low sodium to go to its limits when sweating. If you are an athlete who participates in an endurance event (marathon or ultra-marathon type), it will replace both water and sodium by drinking salty sports drink every 15 minutes before, during and after the event . Otherwise, the water you drink will only dilute the blood and reduce your thirst it will also be lost in urine soon after. Here is a recipe for making your own sports drink salt:
1/3 c. Coffee (1 pinch) of table salt 100 g sugar 4 glasses of water Lemon juice to taste
This preparation is ideal to replenish the sodium, water and carbohydrates during an endurance of an hour or more, as it is fragrant, was more willing to drink a sufficient amount to restore this has been lost. If you exercise in hot and humid conditions or that the meeting is particularly difficult, dilute the drink by adding four extra glasses of water. Otherwise, plain water is the best drink for events less than an hour, as well as the weight in general. Usually, a sodium intake is not necessary in bodybuilding sessions due to the intermittent nature of the effort, 48 minutes of actual training is conducted over a period of two hours.

Brian Rowley has a degree in Dietetics and a Master of neuromuscular physiology and pharmacology. He has conducted research in the framework of his Ph.D. in biochemistry State.

Bibliography
1. Fleet, JC DASH without the dash (of salt) can lower blood pressure. Nutrition Reviews 59 (9) :291-293, 2001.
2. Vrijens, MD, Rehrer, NJ Sodium-free fluid ingestion Decreases plasma sodium falling on exercise in the heat. Journal of Applied Physiology 86 (6) :1,847-1, 851, 1999.
3. McArdle, WD, Katch, FI, Katch, VL Exercise & Sports Nutrition . New York, NY: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 1999.