A perhaps related question:

I have had severe reactions to MSG in Chinese food [restaurant, not homemade!] and a modest water retention problem with salt. [My wife is salt-limited due to HBP, but no effect on me in that area.]

I have noticed some additional water retention as I get older; I was advised that exercise should get rid of it. So far, vigorous walking avg 1 mile/day is not changing it; no worse, no better, although I do work up a bit of a sweat. A short-term fix is caffeine and overdrinking of water [both diuretic] but unless I curtail NaCL some water retention will return. [I normally avoid the caffeine as it REALLY buzzes me; my wife is a regular long-term decaf coffee drinker and apparently gets no real buzz from the stuff.] If exercise should relieve water retention, what is a reasonable time frame to see some effect? [Again, I may be short-circuiting the process with additional salt; I don't cut it off completely, just use arguably about 1/3 of what would predictably cause the problem in the first place.]

Any recommendations on Calcium and Magnesium supplements that might help this?

cjl

ps: The exercise is doing something useful: It's enhancing that warm feeling afterwards for hours that's nice, and thus need less fat to get about the same effect. I'm willing to eat the fat and exercise too if that helps. I'm certain I also have to be using more carb avoidance than ever while exercising; I don't want the return of hypogylcemic episodes and cold sweats, etc. Clearly, the exercise is "shaking up" something inside of me, for good or for bad!