2,789 mg of Sodium? Seriously?

I just completed the first five days of the 28 Day Action Plan from Whole Living and I learned some incredible things this week.
I woke up Monday morning with the beginnings of a migraine headache - possible due to the fact that I had no caffeine for the last twenty hours. I ate a healthy breakfast and lunch then totally blew it during dinner.

However, it was for purely medicinal reasons.

You see I have the perfect headache cure....McDonald's BigMac. I know you are wanting to vomit right now but I promise you it works. I NEVER let me repeat NEVER eat at McDonald' unless physically forced to but I have found that a BigMac and Fries along with a Coke cures my headache. I do not know why (never does my doctor) but he says as long as I don't use it for a headache cure every week I should be fine.

I got back on track Tuesday and was feeling pretty good. Wednesday I forgot my lunch so I ate at Lenny's Sub Shop with my co-workers. We figured that would be healthier than Taco Bell or Wendy's right? I ate the plain turkey with cheese on wheat bread and baked regular chips.

After about three bites I opened up the sandwich to see if they had mistakenly poured salt on my sandwich....this thing was really SALTY! This sandwich had never been this salty before --but come to think of it the chips tasted really salty too. I mentioned this to one of my co-worker's and she looked up Lenny's nutritional information on myfitnesspal.com.

The sandwich has 2,789 mg of sodium. Two THOUSAND seven HUNDRED and eighty nine mg of salt! The baked chips only had 189 mg. The sandwich had 15 TIMES more sodium than the chips-and I had EXPECTED the chips to be high in sodium.

I couldn't finish the sandwich ....it didn't taste good.

A couple of weeks ago the doctor said my blood pressure was elevated. I had been eating Lenny's at least three times a week because I thought it was somewhat healthy before I started this 28 Day Action Plan. No WONDER my blood pressure was up! This Action Plan may have saved my life just in the first week.

Some other things I noticed...

I had to use the bathroom a lot. Like every two hours - desperately. I know this is gross but I had promised to be brutally honest in these blogs. It was irritating to stop what I was doing every two hours but every morning my 'budda belly' felt JUST a little smaller. I think decreasing my sodium content acted like a diuretic and decreased some of the bloat I had been lugging around.

When our family eats a proper meal at the dinner table instead of fast food in front of the television we actually talk. The other night we stayed talking at the table for a half hour -even after we were done eating.

I have developed a new addiction to celery. There is something totally therapeutic about crunching down on a couple stalks of celery. I tried to put Almond Butter on the stalk but dropped the bottle (which was glass instead of plastic) while attempting to open it - which sucks since I paid $6.58. So I put a thin layer of peanut butter on instead and it is very tasty. Plus chewing it is so noisy you can drown out the voice of your husband while you are eating it - if you so desire.

Thumbs up to baby argula, bok choy, scallions and cilantro. Thumbs down to red cabbage, collard leaves and beets. Could not find Tahini, golden beets or millet seed- do you think I could get the millet seed in a pet food store? ;)
Did not get to taste the Almond Butter because it did not survive the plunge off the cabinet to the kitchen floor and I will have to save up my pennies due to the $7 price tag.

The plan also gave us daily steps to 'detox our minds'. 
Day one was to avoid media and television.  I did not totally stop television but only watched taped shows that were entertaining. I avoided news and 'gloom and doom' programs.
Day two was to go to bed earlier - no problem there. 
Day three involved keeping a log of all the things that stress us.  The stress log was stressful to keep because I realized how stressed out my days are.
Day four was to avoid gossip and day five was to catch yourself complaining. Me? Complain? Never!

Tomorrow's challenge is to declutter your home.  I have strong OCD/perfectionist tendencies there is no clutter in my house except my family but I love them.

So I am thinking week one was a success. I tried foods I have never eaten, learned to research the nutritional content in the foods I eat, figured out I live in a sesspool of stress and that there is an incredible 2,789 mg of sodium in a turkey sandwich.