The Three-Day Salt Binge That Nearly Sank Me

Who doesn’t love to eat out? It’s one of life’s little indulgences—someone else cooks, someone else serves, and someone else gets the joy of cleaning up the mess. I just show up, eat like I’m on vacation, and leave feeling both satisfied and mildly superior for tipping well. As a chef, you’d think I’d be the first to say “nothing beats a home-cooked meal,” but honestly, my favorite thing to make for dinner is still reservations.

But eating out when you’ve got sarcoidosis and heart failure isn’t just dining—it’s an Olympic event in sodium management. Every menu might as well have a warning label: “May contain salt, regret, and swelling.” I don’t cook with salt, I don’t sprinkle it, and I’ve practically divorced packaged foods. Yet, sometimes, even the best of us snap.

For three days, I threw common sense out the window and went full culinary rebel. Sunday night, I betrayed myself with a frozen dinner. Sure, it was organic mac and cheese made with rice pasta, but I never once glanced at the sodium label. Monday night, I followed that crime with fettuccine Alfredo—rich, creamy, and practically a sodium bath. Then on Tuesday, I rounded it out with an Angus steak burger, because apparently, I wanted to experience what drowning from the inside might feel like.

To most people, that probably sounds like a decent run of comfort food. To me, it’s a disaster trilogy. You see, when you’ve got heart failure, your body holds onto water like it’s saving up for a drought. Add a little extra salt, and suddenly your ankles have their own zip codes.

The next morning, I woke up feeling like I’d been inflated. My legs were tight, swollen, and burning—a sure sign that my body was staging a sodium protest. That’s how I gauge my water retention: the higher the burn climbs, the worse it is. Ankles mean “you’ll live.” Knees mean “you’ve pushed it.” Thighs? That’s “Congratulations, you’ve outdone yourself.” And this time, the burn had reached my thighs. That’s bad.

Breathing wasn’t easy either. It felt like someone had swapped my lungs for water balloons. I didn’t even bother pretending I’d be productive that day. I stayed in, lay flat, and gave a dramatic performance titled Regret, Act I: The Alfredo Strikes Back. Just existing felt like cardio.

And that’s the trap of chronic illness—you start to feel “normal,” and your brain forgets there are rules. You think, “I feel fine, I can handle this,” and then your body laughs and says, “Oh really?” It’s a cruel little cycle. One minute, you’re living your best life with a burger; the next, you’re negotiating with your knees and googling “how long can salt stay in your system.”

So, yes, I learned my lesson. Again. The few minutes of pleasure from those meals were not worth the two days of bloated misery that followed. You’d think this would stick by now, but apparently my memory has the same shelf life as that frozen dinner I so confidently microwaved.

Still, here I am, humbled once more by my own taste buds. My stomach got what it wanted; my body got revenge. So next time someone asks me where I want to eat, I’ll say, “Anywhere that serves food seasoned with regret-free herbs.” And maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually mean it.

If you’ve ever let your cravings win and paid for it later, you’re in good company. Drop a comment below and share your own “it was worth it until it wasn’t” moment—or hit subscribe so we can keep laughing and learning together through this chronic chaos.