Mathea Ford's Blog, page 55

RDHQ Podcast 103: Chat with Nataliia about RenalMate and Kidney Disease

Mathea Ford: Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I’m here with Nataliia Karpenko. We’re going talk today a little bit about RenalMate as you may remember I am an advisory board member with RenalMate and Natalia is the CEO and creator and she’s like the inspiration behind a lot of things. She’s always coming up with great ideas and why don’t you tell us how you got how you came up with RenalMate? And what it is?

Nataliia Karpenko: Yeah. Hi to everyone! Today, we are at ISN, a Medical Society of Nephrology event in Washington DC. It’s Kidney Week 2019. It’s the opening day so it’s really important to be here with Ms. Mathea Ford and thank you Mathea for this occasion. I just really think that it is so important to know why people have that passion for renal space and for nephrology.

I’m a former kidney patient. And beside this, I worked in a Technology Innovations Corporate Values. From the professional side, many people in the United States are dealing with chronic illness and they are overstressed, knew so little about diet and then you go to renal disease and you go to nephrology and you then realized that it is exponentially higher in terms of the amount of adherence and amount of comprehensive compliance patients have to have but sometimes Education is not there with education that is fully understood by patients as well as necessary simple work that will allow patients to feel empowered to start moving, to feel empowered to know that they can change, that they can improve their quality of life.

Since, I was very passionate about my personal craft, looking at that and say, “When I was a child and given is my kidney condition, what would become better?” And I certainly knew that it could be done in better ways that my family would recede back to education. How we can work on effective ways of improving the quality of the diet, improving the quality of life management, and luckily, it is the technology. Yeah. These days, there are so many ways how we can improve the quality of vitals management. Where some medical team would be on board knowing what’s happening to patients with remote monitoring well designed in one side, patients will be able to manage their rate and blood pressure and the medical team could be informed if there are any abnormalities happening to patients.

There is a lot of value in it in passion, science-based approach, expertise, and technology together to really create something innovative but valuable for patients.

Mathea Ford: Yeah. I think it’s what you mentioned is the kidney disease is really a hard diet to follow but it’s got so many other layers that we don’t even realize. You know, there’s the family dynamic, there’s the diet, there’s the medications. Everything changes with kidney disease and putting that all together can be hard. So, we’re here at ASN this week because we have a program called LEP. It was Life Enhancement Program. It’s like a coaching program for kidney patients and we’ve done it a couple of times and we’re presenting to the Nephrology Conference about the outcomes and stuff but what this is is RenalMate is an app and we’re working on building it to make it so it’s helpful to people who have kidney disease regardless of the stage and try to focus on the different areas of kidney disease.

If you’re CKD 3 or CKD 4, before you get on dialysis, then it helps you to understand what is important at that phase because as your phase goes along, as you go along different things become important. You may have different medications, you may change, you’re looking at your labs, you’re you know you may have to have surgical prevention, surgical procedures done.

All those things so you had the passion because you’re a kidney patient and you love technology and so Nataliia is out in San Francisco and she’s around all the technology stuff so I guess that’s why you decided to do an app.

Nataliia Karpenko: That’s kind of easy, right? Yeah! You know, right. My first degree was Computer Science and then I continued with some Corporate Development and I was always fascinated how can technology and innovations can address those necessary gaps that prevented and hide the you know, adoption or deliverance of value. So, what they see what is really important. Building LEP, we took into consideration that it’s a patient-centric approach, so the patients are involved in the design. We are not only working with patients who are participating in the program but patience involved and every staff design as a program and improving modules.

Working it as on the curriculum working it as on the content and guys, to tell you truth, the biggest part that I see was some renal education. Very often, you have to have level of Ph.D. level education to really understand the literature and we see that our patients want to have more pleasant experiences in education, interacting with the coaches and want to have more positive attitude toward their life instead of going back to school. We are taking a different approach. Yeah. And that’s why it was such a great pleasure working with Mathea Ford and her experience because she’s been in different groups of renal dietitians. Renal Diet. 

One of the various ways of managing her RD live. You know, that has been very valuable to work with someone so close who understands how to convey and how to bring the necessary content in the proper ways that patients can understand and willing to take more time eventually to learn more about it. It’s good that it will be broken into smaller pieces and to make sure that you remember what is potassium, what is phosphorus, how much of this I can take in my lunch meal, what in my dinner meal? So, that very important that engagement with Renal Diet HQ has been excellent and we are looking forward for future collaborations.

Mathea Ford: Yeah and well and what I love about it is that there’s not it’s there’s so much more potential to talk to people when you’re using an app that somebody can have on their phones. A lot of people have smartphones, a lot of people have the ability to get this information and we can target it at a level where you can understand it and what I always forget sometimes is that I can give you all the information. I can overload you with tons of information about changing your diet but really what are you wanting to do right now? What do you think is most important? What are you most worried about? What is your lab that was worrisome? So, giving you that access to that information about and making some goals around that which is what the LEP program was is making some goals. So, what is it that you want to change?

What do you want to have at the end? And then what type of goals do you want to have that will bring you the results that you desire because your doctor can want for you to lose 50 pounds and maybe you want to have a better you want to live longer to be there with your grandchildren. Honestly, both of those are probably getting you to the same place but if you want to do it because you want to do it for your grandchildren and stuff, we want to find ways to help you meet that goal and have that why. The deeper why they want to do it. 

I’m so excited to be here and I just wanted to spend a few minutes and let you guys meet Nataliia because I think she’s brilliant and she really has… she loves collaborating and so anyway I’ll talk to you guys later have a good day! Bye!

The post RDHQ Podcast 103: Chat with Nataliia about RenalMate and Kidney Disease appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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RDHQ Podcast 101: 5 Handy Tips For Eating To Remember When You Have Kidney Disease

RDHQ Podcast 102: How To Stay Kidney Friendly While Dining Out

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I wanted to go live and talk about the fun topic of how to stay kidney-friendly when you’re dining out. If you join me please make a comment. Let me know your comments or questions and I’ll be glad to answer them as I’m going along.

I wanted to talk about dining out because we’re getting ready to get into the season where we have a lot of activities, we may have parties to go to, you may have dinners with people, you may be invited to and I want you to think a little bit ahead and plan ahead for those types of events. I know this time of the year I start going out to dinners more with people and I seem to need to be reminded of ways to do a little better. It can be a challenge, especially with kidney disease because you have the added need to follow some restrictions depending on your diet, depending on whether you need potassium phosphorus. All those types of restrictions.

I don’t want it to be as much of a challenge. I know it’s still going to be an individual basis to challenge, but I wanted to talk through some ideas that I have for ways to make it a little easier.

Number one: Foods tend to be saltier at restaurants. They add more salt or people when they bring dishes they use more salty products. They might use regular soy sauce they might use salted butter. They might add salt to foods just without thinking about it and you’re probably a little sensitive to salt so you can taste it and know that “hey, this is a higher sodium food” but if you’re in a restaurant you can ask them how the food is prepared so you might say “how is this food prepared? Is it pre-prepared or is it prepared locally in the restaurant?”

If it’s made locally in the restaurant, they can use a little less sauce. They can not add salt to your meal while they’re cooking and a lot of times they’ll just do salt over the burgers or whatever just ask them not to add salt. You can ask them not to add salt to fries or side dishes. 

Sometimes the information is on the website so sometimes you can look ahead. I know Panera is great for this. You can go to Panera. You can look at the nutrition and you can also go in and tell it to remove certain ingredients. And then that way when you go into the store you know the nutrition value for the food that you’re taking in, for the food that you’re asking for. You can tell them you know “No. I don’t want bread on the side. I want an Apple. I don’t want this” that type of thing and you’ve already prepared it. You already kinda know what’s going to be on that and so you’re ready. So, the foods on the website you can also look for some salt terms like sauces may say that it’s soy sauce or fish sauce or you just need to ask like how much salt is added and if like I said if they can prepare it or fix it in the store, improve it a little bit.

Number two is kind of a combo. Drink water. If you drink soda or like clear sodas or clear diet sodas then you want to drink water in between. Start out with water maybe drink some water before you go to help you feel more full. To help you stay hydrated especially knowing you’re going to have more salt and choose smaller plates. 

I like to look at the appetizer dishes although they can be a little too salty. I mean it seems like they’re mostly pre-prepared but appetizers, side dishes so you may want to start looking at like your meat as a side dish and sometimes even when you go out just eating side dishes instead of having the meat that may add to the protein that you don’t need. Add those.

A lot of places also have lunch menus so they’ll have like the lunch menu on the back and even if it’s dinner time you can ask for those lunchtime portions, you can take part of it home so if the lunchtime portion if it’s after hours a lot of times, they will just charge you an extra dollar for the lunch size portion. You have to decide what’s the best choice but those lunch size portions are going to be smaller and the same rule goes where you ask them, you know “what is made with? How do you make it?” But you might look into salads, you might look into the appetizers, the side dishes, soup is almost always going to be really high in sodium so you probably wouldn’t want to eat this soup at a restaurant but may look into if you want to do a full plate like a lot of times, my husband likes Fajitas but we’ll split the Fajitas so we won’t buy them two people but you get the Fajitas dish and you split it and then that way you’re not eating the full portion of it. Those are things you can do to try to decrease the amount of calories that you’re getting and the amount of salt and the amount of protein.

That kind of goes with number three: take some home and don’t overeat. I like the idea of cutting it in half pushing some of it to the side and taking that part home and then eating what you have on your plate. If you truly feel and listen to how hungry you are after you’ve drink water after you’ve you know emotionally stepped aside and said “this is what I think I should have,” eat that if you’re still hungry 10-15 minutes later go ahead and eat the rest but feel into how hungry you actually are versus the emotion and the “I need to be here and I deserve this” and all that. 

You’re not rewarding yourself by eating poorly and hurting your kidneys worse. So, it’s time to put that first and so think about how hungry you are, eat slower so try to stop when you’re full within your meals.

Number four: Check out the menu online before you go. Choosing what you’re eating before you go is great. Like I said Panera has the menu online. A lot of companies if you look on Yelp or other websites they’ll have their menu online. You can look and decide what you want to eat. You can go and look at pictures of what those foods look like to try to see what you want and ask your companions whoever you’re going with if they don’t mind not getting like the “free” chips or the free bread that comes early. That way you’re not overeating. You’re still eating what is going to be on your plate and you’re going to get what you need from that and you’re not going to overdo it and then also you know you talk to your friends. You enjoy your time out and you’re not mindlessly just putting that food in your mouth. Those are just a couple ideas.

Then number five: Push your plate away. Eat what you think you’re supposed to eat, push your plate away so it’s not like right there you know and or also set your fork down between bites. So, when you’re eating, you’re done eating them out that you told yourself you were going eat push your plate away and then also while you’re

eating put it back in your mouth put your fork down and chew it and then talk and that keeps you eating slower, helps you to enjoy the company which is probably the reason why you’re out to eat and you’re managing your diet better.

It’s really important. I know a lot of times you don’t want to leave food because you paid for it, so, I would recommend you like I said earlier put that into a dish or a plate to put to the side to take with you but your body, you need to take care of your body so that’s where the eating smaller portions, eating smaller plates, cutting it in half, all those things because you don’t want to leave food on the plate. You need to take it off of the plate and then you eat what you have allotted for yourself and then feel into if you are still really hungry.

A lot of times, if you listen you’re not really hungry. You’re just eating kind of because it’s there and so that’s why I’m putting it in the dish, putting it away, pushing the plate away helps you to manage that a little better.

Today, I wanted to just kind of go over that kidney-friendly eating out. Another thing you can do for parties is you can like I said drink water before you go or you can stay away from the table with food. So, get yourself a little plate and if you’re going to eat something make better choices but even if there are no good choices take half of what you think you should have and so if you think want two cookies, just take one. Eat it. Enjoy it. Stay away from the table, feel into if you’re hungry, drink some more water and let your body feel that fullness.

Sometimes we eat out of nervousness or “I deserve this or I’m tired,” planning that a little bit ahead of time. You deserve to feel good. You deserve to be healthier and you thinking that you deserve to eat sugary or high sodium foods. It’s actually harmful to yourself and that’s not what you deserve. You deserve to be in the best health possible. So, I want to encourage you to do those things for yourself and view it a little differently. View it as you’re taking care of yourself.

I want to thank those of you who are listening today and I look forward to talk to you again soon. Thanks!

The post RDHQ Podcast 102: How To Stay Kidney Friendly While Dining Out appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

RDHQ Podcast 101: 5 Handy Tips For Eating To Remember When You Have Kidney Disease
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RDHQ Podcast 101: 5 Handy Tips For Eating To Remember When You Have Kidney Disease

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I wanted to do a live and talk to you about some handy tips for eating to remember when you have chronic kidney disease and I’m going to go over five tips that I have for you but I want to remind you that it’s really important to try to manage some of your eating and to do it kind of slowly not like pull off the band-aid kind of quickly.

When you try to follow a kidney-friendly diet, it isn’t always just as simple as like eating the healthiest options because sometimes your seemingly ingredients that are good for you can have high levels of phosphorous and if you’re worried about phosphorus, if your lab levels show that you have high levels of phosphorous, then those can be bad decisions or you know maybe something you should choose less often or potassium amounts. If you’re worried about your potassium and your potassium levels are high, then you certainly should manage the amount of potassium that you eat. Not everyone has to limit their phosphorus or potassium so don’t just automatically reduce that or don’t automatically change that.

The things that we know that you should change that would be the most helpful when you have chronic kidney disease are eating less sodium and eating lower amounts of protein. Those help with your creatinine and other levels in your body. These five tips should help you remember what to eat when you’re kind of making that choice.

Number one: Back away from Beige. If you’re worried about potassium you need to choose things that are not whole as much whole grain. Now, I for one want you to eat some whole grains because I know they’re healthy for you. You need the fiber, you need the extra that’s got extra vitamins and nutrients in it but you need to watch out for eating too much whole grain.

Now, in the US, I don’t know that that’s a huge problem but you can get fiber in other ways as well. You can get it from vegetables, you can get your oatmeal or other like hot cereals but just watch out for those like whole-grain bread and brown rice if you’re worried about potassium.

If you’re not worried about it you certainly should steer towards those things because they have more fiber and more natural vitamins and minerals that are very helpful to you and healthy for your heart.

Number two: If you are concerned about phosphorus you probably want to switch out your dairy. If you have high levels of phosphorus. If you’re in late stage 4 or early stage 5 or on dialysis, you’re probably going to switch out your milk to something that is more has less phosphorous like unflavored rice milk and it’s really something that you probably would want to do as you moved towards later stages of kidney disease but not when you’re in stage 3 and stage 4 kidney disease you can still drink regular milk. You just still need to pay attention to the amount of protein that’s in regular milk because 8 ounce glass of regular milk has as much protein as an ounce of meat or poultry so you have to balance that when you’re trying to control the amount of protein that you’re eating.

Number 3: Red is best when it comes to fruit. This one’s really kind of easy for you. A handy rule of thumb for choosing fruits is to generally stick with the red options like red berries, strawberries apples, watermelon. Yellow fruits like bananas or orange like oranges can be higher in potassium and so people tend to steer away from those. I always think of it as a great balance between how many you… Balance.

Eating a little bit of some is not going to be a bad thing. Eating too much is going to be what’s going to cause the problem. If you find yourself overly eating you know bananas every afternoon, you might want to balance that out with eating some berries or some apples that can or grapes that are also healthy, also have fruit, have fruit or fiber and yet are not as high in potassium.

Fourth: Opt for the least salty meats. Most fresh meat isn’t too salty, just really need to watch what you’re putting on it. You know if you’re using like a rub or marinade, make sure you don’t have extra salt in that. You can read the label and look at the ingredients list but think of your meat options in terms of how much salt. You have your higher salt things or more processed foods like your hotdogs, your deli meats.

You might steer clear of bacon or eat less bacon or sausage because it’s not only high in sodium but it can be high in fat and so you want to manage how much of that you’re getting but think of eating less salty meat so don’t be adding salt to meat and use more fresh cuts or frozen. You know you could have frozen chicken breasts when you thought it’s like it’s fresh and as long as it hasn’t been injected with extra salt, sodium preservatives then you can feel pretty healthy eating that.

And number five: Portion control counts. Now, when you’re thinking about managing your chronic kidney disease the things you want to look at are protein and sodium. I’ve already said that but when you read the label, it’s going to quote to you based on what the amount of the serving is so you want to know how much that is but if you want some general guidelines you’ve probably heard this before but I’ll repeat it. A three-ounce portion of meat which most people can eat between 3 and 9 ounces of meat a day is the size of the palm of your hand and about you know that thick or the size of a deck of cards. It doesn’t seem very big and you should definitely fill your plate with those vegetables and fruits and grains that allow you to feel full but aren’t overdoing it with the protein.

I want to think about cheese. Some people like to eat little cubes of cheese as a snack or whatever so about one cube is usually about an ounce the size of a dice that you can roll. And most juice portions are four ounces and the fat portion is typically like the amount on your thumb – that thumb pad. So, if you think about you know a portion of butter or margarine that’s what you would think of it as.

Overall I wanted to just remind you that there are some ways that you can make kind of some healthier choices in the minute. If you’re at a restaurant and you’re looking at a salad, if it comes with you know apples and some walnuts and chicken breast that’s not fried that’s going to be a healthy choice and then look at some oil and vinegar or vinaigrette type dressings. 

You want to try to manage how much protein you’re eating and how much salt you’re eating by choosing less salty meats, less processed foods, watch out for those red items and the bananas and the oranges eating a little less often. And when you’re transitioning it’s easy to have kind of these guidelines.

I also want to remind you that as time goes on you’ll find your balance where you want to how much you can eat and I don’t want you to go overboard so I want you to kind of slowly start to incorporate more healthy things and get rid of those things that seem to be less healthy for you based on your lab results.

If you’re interested in learning more about like understanding your kidney test results, understanding what your labs are you can go to RenalDietHQ.com and click on the Understanding Your Kidney Test Results menu item and that’s where you can find out more information about the course that I have about understanding your kidney test results and it tells you what it goes over there but it goes over all these different labs that you might be concerned about when you first find out you have kidney disease and I’ll also put a link to that below this video.

Thanks for listening today and I’ll talk to you soon!

 

 

 

 

The post RDHQ Podcast 101: 5 Handy Tips For Eating To Remember When You Have Kidney Disease appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

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5 Handy Tips For Eating To Remember When You Have Kidney Disease

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I wanted to do a live and talk to you about some handy tips for eating to remember when you have chronic kidney disease and I’m going to go over five tips that I have for you but I want to remind you that it’s really important to try to manage some of your eating and to do it kind of slowly not like pull off the band-aid kind of quickly.

When you try to follow a kidney-friendly diet, it isn’t always just as simple as like eating the healthiest options because sometimes your seemingly ingredients that are good for you can have high levels of phosphorous and if you’re worried about phosphorus, if your lab levels show that you have high levels of phosphorous, then those can be bad decisions or you know maybe something you should choose less often or potassium amounts. If you’re worried about your potassium and your potassium levels are high, then you certainly should manage the amount of potassium that you eat. Not everyone has to limit their phosphorus or potassium so don’t just automatically reduce that or don’t automatically change that.

The things that we know that you should change that would be the most helpful when you have chronic kidney disease are eating less sodium and eating lower amounts of protein. Those help with your creatinine and other levels in your body. These five tips should help you remember what to eat when you’re kind of making that choice.

Number one: Back away from Beige. If you’re worried about potassium you need to choose things that are not whole as much whole grain. Now, I for one want you to eat some whole grains because I know they’re healthy for you. You need the fiber, you need the extra that’s got extra vitamins and nutrients in it but you need to watch out for eating too much whole grain.

Now, in the US, I don’t know that that’s a huge problem but you can get fiber in other ways as well. You can get it from vegetables, you can get your oatmeal or other like hot cereals but just watch out for those like whole-grain bread and brown rice if you’re worried about potassium.

If you’re not worried about it you certainly should steer towards those things because they have more fiber and more natural vitamins and minerals that are very helpful to you and healthy for your heart.

Number two: If you are concerned about phosphorus you probably want to switch out your dairy. If you have high levels of phosphorus. If you’re in late stage 4 or early stage 5 or on dialysis, you’re probably going to switch out your milk to something that is more has less phosphorous like unflavored rice milk and it’s really something that you probably would want to do as you moved towards later stages of kidney disease but not when you’re in stage 3 and stage 4 kidney disease you can still drink regular milk. You just still need to pay attention to the amount of protein that’s in regular milk because 8 ounce glass of regular milk has as much protein as an ounce of meat or poultry so you have to balance that when you’re trying to control the amount of protein that you’re eating.

Number 3: Red is best when it comes to fruit. This one’s really kind of easy for you. A handy rule of thumb for choosing fruits is to generally stick with the red options like red berries, strawberries apples, watermelon. Yellow fruits like bananas or orange like oranges can be higher in potassium and so people tend to steer away from those. I always think of it as a great balance between how many you… Balance.

Eating a little bit of some is not going to be a bad thing. Eating too much is going to be what’s going to cause the problem. If you find yourself overly eating you know bananas every afternoon, you might want to balance that out with eating some berries or some apples that can or grapes that are also healthy, also have fruit, have fruit or fiber and yet are not as high in potassium.

Fourth: Opt for the least salty meats. Most fresh meat isn’t too salty, just really need to watch what you’re putting on it. You know if you’re using like a rub or marinade, make sure you don’t have extra salt in that. You can read the label and look at the ingredients list but think of your meat options in terms of how much salt. You have your higher salt things or more processed foods like your hotdogs, your deli meats.

You might steer clear of bacon or eat less bacon or sausage because it’s not only high in sodium but it can be high in fat and so you want to manage how much of that you’re getting but think of eating less salty meat so don’t be adding salt to meat and use more fresh cuts or frozen. You know you could have frozen chicken breasts when you thought it’s like it’s fresh and as long as it hasn’t been injected with extra salt, sodium preservatives then you can feel pretty healthy eating that.

And number five: Portion control counts. Now, when you’re thinking about managing your chronic kidney disease the things you want to look at are protein and sodium. I’ve already said that but when you read the label, it’s going to quote to you based on what the amount of the serving is so you want to know how much that is but if you want some general guidelines you’ve probably heard this before but I’ll repeat it. A three-ounce portion of meat which most people can eat between 3 and 9 ounces of meat a day is the size of the palm of your hand and about you know that thick or the size of a deck of cards. It doesn’t seem very big and you should definitely fill your plate with those vegetables and fruits and grains that allow you to feel full but aren’t overdoing it with the protein.

I want to think about cheese. Some people like to eat little cubes of cheese as a snack or whatever so about one cube is usually about an ounce the size of a dice that you can roll. And most juice portions are four ounces and the fat portion is typically like the amount on your thumb – that thumb pad. So, if you think about you know a portion of butter or margarine that’s what you would think of it as.

Overall I wanted to just remind you that there are some ways that you can make kind of some healthier choices in the minute. If you’re at a restaurant and you’re looking at a salad, if it comes with you know apples and some walnuts and chicken breast that’s not fried that’s going to be a healthy choice and then look at some oil and vinegar or vinaigrette type dressings. 

You want to try to manage how much protein you’re eating and how much salt you’re eating by choosing less salty meats, less processed foods, watch out for those red items and the bananas and the oranges eating a little less often. And when you’re transitioning it’s easy to have kind of these guidelines.

I also want to remind you that as time goes on you’ll find your balance where you want to how much you can eat and I don’t want you to go overboard so I want you to kind of slowly start to incorporate more healthy things and get rid of those things that seem to be less healthy for you based on your lab results.

If you’re interested in learning more about like understanding your kidney test results, understanding what your labs are you can go to RenalDietHQ.com and click on the Understanding Your Kidney Test Results menu item and that’s where you can find out more information about the course that I have about understanding your kidney test results and it tells you what it goes over there but it goes over all these different labs that you might be concerned about when you first find out you have kidney disease and I’ll also put a link to that below this video.

Thanks for listening today and I’ll talk to you soon!

 

 

 

 

The post 5 Handy Tips For Eating To Remember When You Have Kidney Disease appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

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Kidney Disease Friendly Mocktails and Drinks For When You Cannot Drink More Water

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I want to talk about Kidney-friendly drinks like mocktails which is an alcohol-free version of a cocktail and some other things that you can drink when you just can’t drink water anymore.

With kidney disease, it’s important to understand that you can drink a few different beverages. There are some limitations depending on what stage you’re in of course but alcohol and fizzy sodas aren’t necessarily the best

thing for you although you can drink them on occasion but in summer or any time of the year actually when everybody else is around you and they’re cracking a cold beer or drinking a margarita by the pool or you know at a party, you don’t have to just drink water. So, I wanted to give you some ideas for beverages that might work as a good advantage and help you kind of put something together maybe that would be delicious.

My first recipe is called a Spiced Mimosa which is obviously a Mimosa. It is orange juice and champagne and this drink you would use sparkling apple cider kind of as your champagne and maybe some cranberry juice which is a little bit healthier, a little bit less potassium than orange juice and alongside with other flavorings. You could put a little bit of ginger in there you can put a little bit of rosemary, crushed ice for sure. So, making something that has a little bit of ginger in it.

Ginger is actually very calming to your stomach but it’s also got a little bit of zing to it so you might enjoy that in

the Spiced Mimosa.

My second thought is a Strawberry Lemon Slush. Blending up some frozen fruits with lemon-lime soda can make a great slushie in place of like a Daiquiri or other frozen drink so you can use it. A lot of people are limited on phosphorous and regular colas, dark colas have a lot of phosphorus in them but actually clear sodas like lemon juice I mean like lemon-lime sodas Sprite, 7up that type of thing is going to have almost no phosphorous so you can drink that and mix it with a little bit of some frozen fruits and have a delicious drink and not have the not have to just do water.

Number three: Piña Colada which is a good drink but you could do some pineapple juice and gives you that little bit of Piña Colada flavor with again the lemon-lime soda which I explained before and some crushed ice and maybe a little bit of like coconut milk or a coconut flavoring if you had some little drops to give it some creaminess and that tropical flavor and adding a little bit of you know basil could be good for that. It makes a really good drink.

Number four is infused waters. There are so many options for this and it’s taking plain water and stepping it up a notch so you can buy bottles or dispensers that you can put these you know fruit or whatever into the middle of and it’ll automatically do it or you can just add it. One of my favorite drinks ever is just water with cucumber.

I just love the refreshing flavor of cucumber. You can pair cucumber with water, you can put raspberry, watermelon, some mint in there, lemons and strawberries. Anything that fruit will give it a little bit of that essence and it’ll be a refreshing change without a lot of extra calories or you know potassium, phosphorus any of that or

sodium.

Number five: An Espresso Martini. Some brewed coffee whether it’s decaf or regular coffee and then adding a little bit of non-dairy milk if you’re concerned about your potassium or phosphorus – non-dairy milk or a little bit of creamer – and lots of ice to make that delicious a little bit of flavorful drink and iced coffee is everybody loves those right now so just even make it a nice coffee can be a good change. I know you’re going to say coffee has some potassium and phosphorus and it does which is why you kind of blend it with a little bit of a non-dairy creamer or cream to give it a little more flavor without as much coffee. 

One more thing, I love these products. They’re True Lemon and they are actually little sleeves that you can put into your water and you get like 10 in a pack and I just take a 16-ounce bottle of water and put these in there and so they do contain a small amount of carbohydrate. They do have Stevia instead of Nutrasweet or Splenda and it’s really just a little bit of lemon oil, a little bit of sugar, a little bit Stevia and then it says natural flavor. I don’t see anywhere where it says phosphates so I think these are perfect to put in your drinks and actually they make them in peach lemonade, they have a watermelon lemonade, they have strawberry limeade. I love all those flavors and I actually drink more water because I put those flavor packets in there so I just drink a little sip out of the top pour that in there shake it up and it’s good to go. Very delicious.

But I want to remind you that doing all of this, you’re going to want to watch your sodium that you’re taking in but you also need to review your lab so you may have heard “I need to cut out potassium. On a renal diet, I can’t eat potassium.” Really, the only two restrictions that are for everybody on a renal diet are sodium, you need to limit to 2300 milligrams are lower and protein you need to limit to about 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight and I’ve talked about that in other videos and but you want to look at your labs, if you don’t have high potassium you don’t need to restrict it. If you don’t have a high phosphorous, you don’t need to restrict it.

There are lots of things that your labs can tell you about your diet and actually how you’re doing with your kidney disease and I want to remind you that starting next Tuesday, I’m going to have my course Understanding Kidney Test Results available.

A couple months ago I had it ready and I did like a preview course with some people and they loved it and so now it’s going to be open to the public. It’ll be on the website, it’s called Understanding Kidney Test Results and I want to remind you it opens next Tuesday, it’ll be open you know going forward. If you’re interested in learning more about that head over to the website and I will put the link below for the waitlist and you can get on there and then I’ll get you an email as soon as the course is open. I’m just finishing up a few little things so don’t forget about that and I want to thank you for your time today.

4 Step System To Improving Your Kidney Test Results

Leave any questions below and I’ll put a comment below with a link to the Understanding Kidney Test Results course. Thanks!

The post Kidney Disease Friendly Mocktails and Drinks For When You Cannot Drink More Water appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

RDHQ Podcast 93: Easy Renal Diet Swaps
Meal Planning for Kidney Disease
Drinks for Renal Diet Patients

RDHQ Podcast 99: Herbs and Spices – The Renal Diet Secret Weapon For Delicious Food

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and I want to talk about herbs and spices. The renal diet secret weapon for  delicious food.

A lot of people when they find out they’re on a kidney disease diet or renal diet, they think it means no flavor – no salt, no spices – nothing that is going to make your food delicious. All of a sudden you have to eat bland, dry cardboard and that’s not true and if you’ve read any of my recipes or anything on the website you know that I believe that spices are very important to a kidney disease diet.

I want to talk through some ways that you can add some spices and flavor without a lot of heavy sauces or dressing so you’re not going to have to wave goodbye to flavor. You really can have a lot of flavor in food and as a matter of fact, the flavor is almost better than the salt once you get over that hump of getting rid of the salt and that’s this new secret weapon that I’m going to talk to you about with are herbs and spices.

Herbs can add so much flavor to a dish. Just think about this. Okay? If you’ve ever had salsa which I know

it’s tomatoes and you’re thinking you can’t have tomatoes but stick with me. If you’ve ever had salsa and you’ve added a little bit of cilantro, you know that that adds flavor it’s more flavorful, more delicious than without cilantro. Now, if you cut the cilantro wrong, granted it tastes like soap but for the most part in salsa you have onions, you have tomatoes, you maybe have some jalapenos, you have a little bit of lime juice but you add that cilantro and it gives it the right flavor. You can even add a little cumin. I love cumin. You’re adding flavor without adding all the salt.

These are five ways you can use herbs and spices:

Make a marinade. Olive oil is a great companion and a condiment for kidney disease because it’s heart-healthy, it’s got those mono and polyunsaturated fats in it, it’s liquid at room temperature it’s good for you. Adding some herbs to olive oil in a ziploc bag to marinate meats before you grill them is a really good way to get some extra flavor. You can even pour that marinade on your steak although you want to make sure you know you’re cooking it you don’t want that raw marinade on there when you’re done. But marinating your meat before you cook it, adding those spices soaks in you know you can stab the steak or whatever with the fork for a little bit and then add that flavor. So, make it in the marinade, adding spices and I’m going to go through some spices but adding spices is delicious to a meat.

Number two is making a dry rub. If you love barbecue food, you know that a dry rub is one of the ways that they make a barbecue so there’s the wet barbecue sauce which has got a lot of salt in it or there’s a dry rub that you could use that would be a way to get extra flavor without so much extra salt or sugar of the regular barbecue sauce. So, you might add some you know a little bit of pepper and a little bit of cumin and some other spices to

make it a good delicious barbecue rub. 

Use number three: Put it on a salad. While it’s tempting to pour on the dressing that can have a lot of salt in it and I want to give you an idea of a way it can be just as tasty with some fresh herbs so think about adding like basil, dill or chives to a little bit of olive oil and some balsamic vinegar to liven up the salad. You don’t have to get the start with the dressing.

Another thing I wanted you to know about in the store at Nickannyskitchen.com which is N-I-C-K A-N-N-Y-S K-I-T-C-H-E-N.com Nickanny’s Kitchen up at that below, I have what are called these salad spice and they come as ten packs or yeah ten packs so this is spices that you can just put on your salad. You leave your salad a little bit damp and then you can sprinkle this on. This one’s ranch so it has a little bit of dry dehydrated onion, a little bit of buttermilk and some spices and it gives it that Ranch flavor without actual Ranch dressing which is high in sodium. These do have sodium in them so it has 180 milligrams per packet but typically that’s better than a Ranch

dressing that you might use so you might want to head on over there you can get ten packets and I think it’s like $12.99 and these are easy to take with you places so you can have them in your purse or in your bag. So, just that. That’s great for a salad. 

Other things like I said like basil and dill, a little olive oil, vinegar is a great way to have on a salad.

Number four: you can use them as a sauce. You can create a sauce with them so Dannette you asked does it have MSG and it does not contain MSG, it does contain milk these right here on this salad spice. So no MSG. They do have a little bit of milk and it’s just buttermilk, dehydrated onion, sugar, sea salt, spices and dehydrated garlic. So, okay, as a sauce, you can create a renal friendly version of like a basil pesto which using some salt free nuts. Pine nuts you can grind up or some walnuts that you can grind up you can do those things or like using some mustard powder to make a vinaigrette. All those things I love balsamic vinegar and I love the flavor that it adds. You may not like it you, may find that you like apple cider vinegar more or rice vinegar but vinegar is perfect because it’s not salty and it does have that zing to it but you can use lemon juice, lime juice that type of stuff. But mixing those nuts salt-free nuts with some spices you can make the flavor really good and make like your own sauce for like a butter sauce for noodles with a little bit of flavor in it and you’re reducing the sodium that you’re taking in.

And number five: in your drinks. Think about putting some herbs into an ice cube tray and giving yourself some fun flavors for drinks so maybe a little lemon or rosemary or cucumber stick it in there freeze it. You can put a little cinnamon in, some ice cubes for some cider and all of those things can add a little flavor kind of as they’re melting so they make really good. I love basil and I love cucumber so I would take some, chopped up some cucumbers and some basil put them in the ice cubes and that way as I’m cooling my drink I’m adding a little flavor so that’s a fun way to add it.

I also want to let you know about another product that’s in the store, the Nickanny’s Kitchen store, so I just added this if you go over there, we have full sizes on these different… We have a full size it’s called Garlic and More, we have a full-size Toasted Onion and we have a full-size Texas Twist and Texas Twist is actually the most popular one. It’s a peppery blend of four different peppers, it’s pretty spicy but it takes away the need for salt and I think that’s why people buy it over and over. But I wanted you to know we have a three-pack if you just get these three spices they’re about an ounce each and then you also get all five… you get 15 recipes printed recipes with this and none of these have salt these are all salt-free and they are gluten-free and non-irradiated. You can go over and you could buy a sample pack try these see which one you like the best and these are made and they also have the potassium and phosphorus on the listing so on the Nutrition Facts label it tells you a potassium and phosphorus amounts in the servings so you can stay on track if you’re watching those. But I wanted you to know that’s available over there at nickannyskitchen.com, you just go to the front page it’s got the little packets of spices so I send you that plus the 15 recipes, five each for each of these and you get the opportunity to try them out and see which one you like. I actually used the Toasted Onion in my ham, in my meatloaf the other day and it was delicious.

In conclusion, I wanted to talk today about herbs and spices not because I make them, not because they’re anything else but a way to get less salt in your diet and have a healthier diet. So, they can unlock a world of tasty recipes in a world of flavor when you take that salt out that are in line with a kidney-friendly diet. 

Tell me in the comments below or on the blog page what is your favorite herb or spice that you love to put with

things. So, what do you pair together? I’ve told you a few of mine but tell me about your favorite herb or spice in the comments or on the blog page. Thanks!

The post RDHQ Podcast 99: Herbs and Spices – The Renal Diet Secret Weapon For Delicious Food appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

RDHQ Podcast 94: Condiments Do’s and Don’ts
Renal Diet Headquarters Podcast 035 – Using Herbs and Spices To Improve Flavor in a Renal Diet
Renal Diet Headquarters Podcast 029 – Learning How To Improve Your Meals With Herbs and Spices Plus Special Salads

RDHQ Podcast 98: Does the type of protein matter for CKD? Plant based or omnivore diet for kidney disease?

 

 

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I wanted to do a quick live on whether the type of protein that you eat matters in chronic kidney disease, whether you should focus on a plant-based diet or something that is omnivore using animal protein so I wanted to talk about a couple things and one of them is that the kidney diet restrictions for chronic kidney disease prior to dialysis your protein limitation is typically from stage three to stage five 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So, you need to figure out how many kilograms you weigh and then multiply that by 0.8 and that gives you the total grams of protein. Most of the time on a label you will find grams of protein listed so just overall for that if you’re on dialysis it’s usually double that so it might be like 1.5 to o1.6 grams of protein per kilogram and that’s because you’re losing a lot when you do dialysis you lose a decent amount of protein so it’s important to replenish that. So, that was number one.

Number 2, I wanted to remind you that lots of foods have proteins so you may be thinking about protein products as things like meat or fish maybe even cheese and dairy or milk and those do have protein. You also have beans and legumes, you have pasta and bread so the wheat flour in those products and other types of flours have protein things like quinoa have protein. 

You can get protein from lots of sources. Vegetables can have protein you know a small amount but if you’re counting all of it it’s important to pay attention. The third thing is that when you’re thinking about protein that you eat you need to kind of divide it in half and make sure that you’re getting at least half of your protein from high biological value proteins. Those are things like your milk or your animal sources if not animal sources at least good sources of protein in a vegan diet which might beans and legumes but just make sure that you’re getting about half of your protein from that and then the rest of your protein you’re going to get in other places in your diet like vegetables or pasta or those types of products so.

Okay, so you kind of have a contrast – do you do omnivore or do you do plant-based, vegetarian?

Vegetarian protein sources again to remind you those are like beans legumes depending on what type of vegetarian you’re talking about it can be milk and dairy products and those are when you eat a vegetarian or a plant-based diet you’re less likely to do protein overload and that is because when you are getting your protein from beans, legumes, milk, cheese those products have other parts to them so a piece of animal meat may only have protein and some fat whereas like beans and legume have fiber, they have carbs, they have protein so you’re going to get full and you’re not going to want to eat as much of that. An ounce of beans still has the same amount of protein as an ounce of beef or animal product but you also got in that several grams of fiber and carbohydrate and that’s going to help you to feel more full so people don’t tend to overload on the protein on that diet on doing plant-based.

If you’re concerned about phosphorus on dialysis or later stages of kidney disease, phosphorus amounts in foods you need to be aware that when it’s organic so the type that’s just naturally in the food so beans, legumes have organic phosphorus in them that is not absorbed as readily and in your body so you only absorb maybe 50% of that whereas your inorganic phosphates or your animal product phosphates. Animal product phosphates tend to be absorbed at the 80 to 90 percent range and inorganic which is just added phosphorus which you would find on your label and you’d see the word Phos in there. That type of phosphorus is absorbed at like 95% or higher so when you’re eating plant-based products you see that they have a little bit more phosphorus but they don’t necessarily didn’t necessarily absorb as much of that because of the components of the plant-based diet.

Again, your potassium amounts vary I would encourage you not to restrict potassium unless you have a high potassium blood level and I talked about that in the labs course that’s getting ready to come up out here in October but it’s really important to restrict sodium and protein amounts but not necessarily other labs unless you

have a reason to. 

And also it’s found that protein-based plant sources, when eaten, have a lower and create less inflammation in your body so you don’t get a reaction to that as far as an inflammation affects your albumin levels which are your nutritional status but it also affects your kidneys and everything else so you want to have lower inflammation levels.

Animal-based diet so your meat, your chicken, your poultry, your fish those are all going to be things that you about an ounce of meat is about 7 grams of protein so typically you can eat you know 4 to 6 ounces of protein a day but you’re going to make sure that you watch your portion size on those just to be really cautious. Animal-based products are something that we’re used to eating but you may want to eat less of them so you may want to start doing things where you’re combining them with other sources of nutrients like you may make a casserole with some meat and vegetables and pasta versus just eating a piece of meat or eating a hamburger so it kind of makes it more filling of the meal.

The phosphorus and other CKD-MBD which is Chronic Kidney Disease Mineral Bone Disease Labs are improved with a plant-based diet and they don’t find that same improvement with an animal-based diet. So, as of right now the recommendation is moving towards more plant-based but what I would tell you is that you should consider what you’re going to eat.

If you are totally  against being a vegetarian or you’re like I can’t stand to not eat meat then what you may want to do is pick a day of the week where you do a plant-based meal that day and have that as your vegetarian meal of the week and see how you can incorporate that into other things so instead of always having meat at two meals a day you may want to consider having meat at one meal and more of a vegetarian plant-based diet at the other meal so that you can kind of work it in and have that balance and that will reduce your inflammation, reduce your reactions and give you less phosphorus get you a little less protein but I would recommend that you certainly

do that and I also on my blog I wanted to tell you that I have a couple of plant-based recipes one for like a Bean Burrito and another one for some couple things so I’m going to put those in the links below the video and I want to encourage you to try to add a little bit more plant-based meals to your diet.

If you’re already eating mostly plant-based then I would really encourage you to continue with that but just make sure that you’re trying to watch the amount of animal protein that you eat and total protein that you eat just to help reduce the effects of your renal diet.

Thank you.

The post RDHQ Podcast 98: Does the type of protein matter for CKD? Plant based or omnivore diet for kidney disease? appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

VEGETARIAN RENAL DIET: WORTHY OR NOT?
Do Meatless Meals Help Or Hurt A Renal Diet?
Renal Diet Podcast 078 – Vegetarian Meals For Kidney Failure

RDHQ Podcast 97: 4 Easy Bagged Lunches For CKD Patients

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford and today I want to talk about Four Easy Bag Lunches that you can use when you have CKD.

This is really a straightforward little talk about how to kind of plan ahead a little bit and have a better lunch. When you’re thinking about what you can take with you somewhere either you go to work or you go to the doctor’s office or you’re out. These are some easy options that are outside a little bit of the normal of what you might think.

Cooking and eating with a renal diet has some struggles and challenges when you’re working from home and you have the ability to control everything and it only kind of becomes a little bit more complex when you’re doing it when you’re traveling. So, I want to help you plan some lunches that you can take with you and if you have a refrigerator you can put them in there or they’re good for usually a couple hours so you can take them with you when you travel.

Number one is a Turkey Pita Sandwich. A Pita is like a bread that has a pocket in the middle and then some low sodium deli meat like turkey and some lettuce some onions. If you’re not restricted in potassium, tomatoes. You can use a little mayo or mustard in there and add some other of your you know peppers. Any sort of renal approved veggies that you might want to see now add some flavor. A little pita pocket would be great. You can usually find pitas in your bread section at the grocery store.

Number two is a Veggie Pasta Salad. A pasta salad is really easy to make. You boil your pasta whatever kind you want – the Zitti, the you know spiral noodles whatever – and you can make a bigger batch on one day of the week maybe when you have a little more time. It’s always good to make it like a day ahead because then you can let the dressing sauce kind of soak into it. You could portion that out once you make it. What you do is you boil your pasta and then once you drain it and it’s cooled you add a little bit of red and green veggies like chopped green pepper, chopped red pepper, cucumbers you know if those types of things that you can add to it and then you add a vinaigrette that’s low-sodium. It doesn’t have to be low fat it really needs to be more of a low sodium.

If you’re working… you know if you want to just add a little bit of oil and some vinegar that would be perfect too. That’s where you can make kind of like a bulk amount of salad. Mix it up and then you can portion it out for your days.

Number three is it’s what’s called a Bento Box. I love Bento Boxes because they’re almost like little kids’ Lunchables but they’re for adults so it kind of has each you put each thing in a different section of your tray or a different container and then when you get to wherever you’re going you put it all together. The awesome thing about that is if you have a sandwich it doesn’t get soggy. If you have a couple of cold things you can do a little ice pack with them like your lunch meat and then on the other part of it, you wouldn’t have it cold so it wouldn’t affect the bread. You can easily take with you some veggies, some meat and maybe some bread or crackers but just make sure when you’re looking at your deli meat like I was talking about a couple of deli meat options make sure that you’re looking for the low sodium deli meat or you’re watching your portion size but that should be a good way to go. And I love them because you can take peanut butter, you can take nuts, you can do all different kinds of things and kind of make like a little meal that you can then add either mix together when you get it or just eat one piece at a time.

And number four is kind of a little bit of a change up on number two which is this is a Cold Noodle Salad. You had a pasta salad which is like this smaller noodles typically elbows, little spirals. This would be more like ramen noodles but obviously ramen noodles are can be high in sodium so you would take and you might boil some longer noodles, some you know you can do Asian rice noodles, you could do spaghetti, you could do Linguine, Angel Hair. Any of that and then you would just add again a vinaigrette or oil and vinegar and some salt-free seasoning. You can add some herbs, we have Texas Twist, we have Toasted Onion Garlic and more in the Nickanny’s Kitchen website but you can do just a salt-free seasoning a little Mrs. Dash type thing Cold Noodle Salad and it gives you the noodles give you carbohydrates which give you a little bit more energy over a longer period of time and then the oil helps you to kind of give you satiety helps you to feel full for longer and then you have your vinegar which gives you that little thing that you’re probably looking for from the salt.

So those are the four options. A Turkey Pita Sandwich, a Veggie Pasta Salad, a Bento Box and maybe like a Cold Noodle Salad and you can swap those out some of those you can make ahead of time a couple of days but I just want to remind you that you still can have a lot of variety and flavor in your back lunches. You don’t have to go with just White Bread and Turkey. You can add mayo, you can have mustard you know look at the sodium amounts in those but you can add those you add some renal friendly veggies and you’re good to go and I always encourage you if you’re going to take a sandwich for a period of time to pack the bread separate from the meat and then when you’re ready to eat them put them together that way it’s not soggy but I hope that helped you out and those can work for you when you’re traveling or taking a meal somewhere that you’re not going to be necessarily at home for.

Thanks and have a great day!

The post RDHQ Podcast 97: 4 Easy Bagged Lunches For CKD Patients appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

RDHQ Podcast 95: 5 Foods to Remove from your Kitchen Following a Kidney Disease Diagnosis
Renal Diet Podcast 062 – Low Sodium Picnic and Potluck Recipes
RDHQ Podcast 93: Easy Renal Diet Swaps

RDHQ Podcast 96: Explaining Your New Renal Diet To Friends and Family

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and I’m coming to you live. Today, I wanted to talk about explaining your renal diet, your new renal diet to your friends and family.

Maybe you just got diagnosed or maybe you have had it for a little while but you really haven’t talked to anybody and I want to talk about some of those conversations that you might have with your friends or family that a little bit of way to make them a little easier.

Your kidney diet can be a renal diet can be a pretty big overhaul. Maybe you’ve been diabetic but now all the sudden you’re watching your protein, you’re watching your salt or maybe you didn’t have any concerns before but suddenly you had kidney cancer and you had a kidney removed and now you have to watch your diet so I want to go through some of these because it can be a big change. 

This is kind of a guide for how those conversations can go and for how you can explain things to your friends and family easier.

I want to encourage you number one to provide an opportunity for questions. When your friends or family have questions, they may feel uncertain about asking you first of all and so I want you to think, encourage them say you know “if you have questions about it ask me or let me know what you want it what sort of questions you have.” They may be afraid to bring it up. They may not be sure how to talk about it. Maybe they’ve googled some things but they aren’t really sure. So, just encourage them when you tell them about it to ask you some questions and that you’re perfectly fine with that if they have any questions.

Number two is to discuss social occasions. When you’re talking about like going to events or going out just explain to them if you don’t want them to invite you out to dinner for a couple of months but then maybe after. I know it first it can be a little hard to eat out on a kidney diet but you don’t necessarily have to stop eating out you just maybe need a little bit of time to adjust. Maybe you want to learn a few more things. You want to see how your labs do with what you’re doing at home. So, maybe you just encourage them “hey! I don’t really want to go out to eat with you for social occasions but I can come over and you know enjoy food at the house” and that’s just good to help you figure this all out. 

Number three is to let them know that you might bring your own food. Even if they invite you over to their house you might bring something that as a dish to a potluck or whatever that you know you can eat that you know is healthy. You might even encourage discussing with them if they invite you over saying “hey, here’s a few of the things that I’d rather not eat or watch the amount of salt and foods” – that type of thing that they may not realize is pretty significant.

Sometimes it’s easier if you just bring your own kidney-friendly diet options instead of making them feel like they have to redo the whole menu make it salt-free and they don’t maybe aren’t used to preparing those types of things so in that case, I would just encourage you to tell them “hey, I’ll just bring my own snacks or food” and that might make them a little more comfortable too.

Number four is to let them figure it out a little bit so you don’t have to explain the whole thing. You don’t have to go into all the details, you don’t even have to share your lab work with them. You may just encourage them to go to some good websites like renaldietHQ.com or other websites that provide information. Not that maybe are some government websites, Mayo Clinic or National Kidney Foundation, kidney.org. You can encourage them to go to those types of websites to learn more about kidney disease concerns and issues that you will have and that way they can come with more questions. Maybe they have some questions after they figure some of those things out but if they care enough and they want to learn more about it let tell them good places to go to learn more.

I know that it’s a huge change to find out you have kidney disease to start following the changes and you may not always realize that your friends and family would like to know more, would like to be helpful but they don’t necessarily know what to do so this is a way that you can encourage them to ask questions.

Know that you’re going to make some changes that you’re going to maybe bring your own food. Sometimes, you’re going to need a little bit of, maybe you want to eat it a little different restaurant than you always have eaten at because you can make a few more adjustments to your meal. But all those things your friends and family can help you with and that family support are huge and so I would just encourage you to bring them into the fold and let them know “hey! it’s not a touchy subject. This is not walking on eggshells. I am glad to talk about it and I’m glad to help you to learn more about it.”

So, that’s what I wanted to share today. Thank you so much. I’ve been so busy working on the Understanding Kidney Test Results course and everybody’s in there now and working on it and so I really love that but I also just wanted to share with you some thoughts today about how you can explain your new kidney diet 

to your friends.

Thanks! Have a great day! Leave any comments below and I will answer them when I see them. Thanks!

The post RDHQ Podcast 96: Explaining Your New Renal Diet To Friends and Family appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

Renal Diet Podcast 072 – Planning For Success with Kidney Diet
Renal Diet Podcast 001 – Introduction
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RDHQ Podcast 95: 5 Foods to Remove from your Kitchen Following a Kidney Disease Diagnosis

 

Hi! This is Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ. I wanted today to talk about five things to remove from your kitchen following a kidney disease diagnosis.

Now, there’s a lot to learn about a renal diet and I want to talk today about some major changes, major things you can do right after you find out that you have kidney disease to help you transition easier. If you’ve recently found that you have kidney disease and you need to do a renal diet then there’s a lot to learn.

There’s a lot of yes/no foods, can/can’t and I’m not big on yes and no foods but I am big on kind of some major changes that you’re going to need to make look going forward to improve your health. One of the easiest first things you can do is remove some of these big offenders from your diet starting out.

Let’s start out talking about canned soups number one. Canned soups so canned soups are basically liquid salt and you should really try to make your own soups. I have a lot of recipes for soups on renaldiethq.com. On the right hand side you can see all the recipes and there are several different soups in there but really you can do your best to make your  own broth and then try to make your own soups with that broth to improve your health and those are easy because even though they’re inexpensive they’re really just salt they’re not a whole lot of nutritional value.

Number two would be processed meats. Things like canned meats like spam, hot dogs, cured meats like pepperoni or prosciutto. Now, fresh meats like chicken or fish sometimes deli meats you can get lower sodium. Deli meats so you might look into that and you can also do like some look at some of the cans like canned chicken it may have lower sodium you may be able to find the lower sodium version of that but if you really can just cook a chicken breast. Chop it up and make your own little chicken salad or something that’ll be real easy but just watch out for the canned process meats and in general highly processed foods you’re going to want to look at the amount of salt that’s contained in them because you’re trying really to reduce the amount of salt in your diet.

Number three tomato sauces. I’m not a never tomato person. I know there’s a lot of people that say “you know oh! I can’t eat tomatoes” but in the beginning trying to improve your diet things that are tomato sauces can be high in salt and they can be high in potassium so things like ketchup as well as pasta sauces. Things like marinara you may want to eat less of or use a little less of. I also like so if you’re using marinara on a spaghetti, for example, you can do like a butter sauce or a lemon sauce maybe a little higher in fat than the tomato sauce which you can make it lower sodium.

I’m seeing a question about what about pickles? Can I find no sodium pickles?

No. Maybe I have never seen lower sodium pickles but I’ve honestly never looked for them but basically, the process of creating pickles is using a salt brine so it’s definitely never going to be that you’re going to find no salt pickles but cucumbers which is what pickles are made of are perfect. Raw cucumbers chop them up, salt you know put them in a little soak them in a little vinegar and they’re really good but in general, you might have to look to see if they have any no salt pickles. I haven’t heard low sodium pickles I’ve never looked for those.

Number four instant ramen. A lot of times it’s inexpensive and easy to make things like instant ramen and noodles are generally kidney-friendly. You usually can eat those just fine but the flavor packet in any of those pre-prepared pasta dishes are going to be really high in sodium just like all the processed foods that I was talking about. So, you might try cooking your ramen noodles and maybe putting like a light vinaigrette on them you could make your own.

We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. Making your own salad dressings with oil and vinegar and a little bit of different spices. You can do that or you can just pick like a balsamic vinaigrette or something like that but to put on your ramen noodles they can be a little high in fat but you’re just really trying to reduce the amount of sodium. You also may start with just regular noodles like some egg noodles or something like that.

Potato chips. They’re high in salt and they’re kind of a double whammy because they can be high in fat, high in salt and even a third thing they can be high in potassium if you need to limit potassium. Again, not everybody needs to limit potassium but they can be high in salt and everybody needs to limit salt so you might try to see if you can find some low sodium or unsalted tortilla chips or make some of your own pita chips at home or tortilla chips at your home and tortilla chips are going to be corn tortilla chips so those are usually going to be okay when it comes to potassium.

And I just want to remind you that a renal diet doesn’t mean giving up everything that you love, it’s definitely not more about moderation, more about limiting portions so if you want a little tomato sauce you can have a little just don’t eat as much as you may be used to definitely moderating the sodium. And you want to remove some of the biggest offenders like I just talked about so try to work through that.

Donor coordinator.

So, are you on dialysis? You are told you need to lose a little weight because your BMI was a little high told to start this diet.

Losing weight is a little different than just removing these items but really losing weight is about deciding what you’re kind of going to eat for the day so in some times we tell people to write down what you ate and then to follow that and look at it and count your calories and stuff.

I kind of take the approach where you plan your day. So, you’re going to look at your day and you’re going to say “okay, today I am going to eat breakfast this item, these items. Lunch these items. Dinner, these items. I don’t think you need to plan out a whole week. I think you really need to do it one day at a time either first thing in the morning or at night before you go to bed and look at “okay, tomorrow morning for breakfast I’m going to have X. I’m going to have an egg and you know a piece of toast with a little bit of butter. And so you would start doing that and then basically, you’re planning a good meal. It doesn’t have to be perfect because it takes just baby steps to lose weight so start that and try to plan your day ahead of time and then as you get better at that you start to see portion sizes and then you start to see “okay, I need to get a little lower this or look at a little lower fat” and so you can try to do some of those things. So, I would encourage you to do that. If you’re thinking about losing weight is to plan your day one day at a time a little bit ahead.

You’re not on dialysis but you’re looking ahead thinking about a transplant and you want to lose a little weight which is totally completely fine and then with exercise just work it in there when you can and whatever your doctor says is appropriate but you may be able to do a little bit of exercise if you can’t go outside because it’s super hot right now especially here in Oklahoma. Then you may want to do some chair exercise or arm you know exercise where you can get that activity going.

I want to say thanks and I don’t want you to give up all the foods you love but I do want you to pay attention to kind of lower sodium, lower potassium, and help and really the sodium is going help you with a lot of things. Thanks for sticking with me today. Talk soon!

The post RDHQ Podcast 95: 5 Foods to Remove from your Kitchen Following a Kidney Disease Diagnosis appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

Foods To Avoid When You’re on Dialysis
Top Foods to Avoid for Chronic Kidney Disease
RDHQ Podcast 92: How Chronic Kidney Disease has Changed my Life {My Story}