Hi everyone! Today, I wanted to talk about why you need to stop using the list of foods that your nurse gave you and to do this instead.
I wanted to talk today because I'm talking about something not to do because it's something that I recently had an epiphany about and what's going wrong and making people like have really such a hard time eating healthy and following their kidney diet is because of this concept of lists.
I realized that this list of foods that the nurse is giving you or the doctor is giving you when you got diagnosed is outdated. You might not have even realized that but that's an outdated concept and it's not the current standard it's not the current evidence-based that it's making you afraid to even eat something like as simple as a cherry tomato because you're afraid of the potassium in it and I think it really has to stop.
Let's go over this. If you are using a list of foods as what not to eat as a way to restrict your diet and keep your kidneys healthy, I believe that that's the wrong way to do it. I tell you not to do something is that not the only thing you think about. I don't know how many people have told me that they can't eat potatoes anymore and that's all they think about so.
I realized that you think that it's the right thing to do because your doctor's office said it or because you read it on the internet or that's what a lot of the old information used to be.
Not everybody's like internal medicine doctors or whatever up to date on the latest KDOQI Guidelines so that's a lot of people giving this concern so that's kind of why I wanted to call it out today. Those guidelines that used to say to restrict potassium would say. They give you this list and they say to restrict this potassium and that's what's on the list is high potassium fruits and vegetables and it's been updated those guidelines and now they're different.
Now, what they say is that you need to manage your potassium only if you have elevated potassium levels which I'm willing to guess that when you got initially diagnosed with CKD that they didn't even test your potassium levels. So, who knows how many times that the list was copied and handed out you know since the 1990s and they didn't even pay attention to you like your specific needs.
If you need to restrict potassium or you need to restrict phosphorus because those levels are elevated you certainly should. Don't take this as you know not to do that but if you haven't been told that your potassium is high then you really don't need to restrict that. What do you need to do? What do you need to manage?
It's that list of foods is not going to help you slow down the progression of your kidney disease. It's only basically slowing your progression of making any progress with your diet.
Let's talk about what you should do. Let's say that the KDOQI Guidelines which are the Kidney Disease Outcome Quality Initiative Guidelines show that potassium and phosphorus are not the first things that need to be limited or watched or managed.
Again, should be managed if your blood levels are high but if they're not then what you should do is this what should you do instead. Watch your protein and your salt intake. Now, really? It's that simple? That's it! That's where you start. You should pretty much you can still eat all the fruits and vegetables you don't need to throw all those outdoors and I eat all these colorful plates and stuff. You really need those to fill in that extra split space on the plate. 
What is protein?
Meat, a lot of dairy like cheese and milk is protein and you should eat you know three to four ounces of meat at a meal at your lunch and your dinner. Three to four ounces, three ounces the size of the palm of your hand and you know maybe about that thick and that way that's the por...