Renal Diet HQ Podcast 054 – Managing Kidney Disease And Diabetes

Managing Kidney Disease And Diabetes

Podcast #54 Released on August 3, 201

Welcome to the Renal Diet Headquarters podcast with your host, Mathea Ford, CEO of Renal Diet Headquarters. This is our weekly talk about how you can succeed with a kidney diet brought to you by renaldiethq.com, a website whose mission is to be the most valued resource on kidney disease that people can use to improve their health.

Hey, this is Mathea Ford with renaldiethq.com. And today I want to start off with a request. So, if you're watching this on the replay, you're probably most likely to see this. But I want to request I'm working on a program called Zestify Your Diet. So, starting in September, you'll see some YouTube videos with recipes for people with kidney disease that I've basically taken the original recipe and I've adjusted it to work for kidney disease. And my request is this, I don't have a lot of dessert recipes.

So, if you're watching this and you have kidney disease or you have somebody that you're caring for with kidney disease, and I'd ask you if you could send me what is your favorite dessert or what is their favorite dessert. Doesn't have to be kidney friendly, doesn't have to be already adjusted. I am just looking for recipes that I can then take and fix for myself, not for myself, but for the web series Zestify Your Diet. So, if you will email me or even just leave a link below, just put a note below in the comments and just tell me the name of the recipe.

And if you have, you know, specific thing like strawberry shortcake or angel food cake or, you know, baked alaska. I don't know. But whatever you like, just put it below the video. That would be best for me. And then I can just go back and I could start using those. And I'm going to publish those every week, and it's not going to be desserts. It's going to be side dishes, entrees all different kinds of things. That's my request for those of you who are watching the video, if you can do that.

And then today I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about kidney disease and diabetes. So let's see swipe left. Okay, I want to talk about diabetes and kidney disease because a good majority of people who have kidney disease started out with diabetes and the diabetes damaged their kidneys. So now they have the double whammy of having to deal with the diabetes that may be more difficult to control now. And kidney disease. So, that's one of the most popular meal plans that I have.

And if you'd like a free sample of a meal plan for people with kidney disease and diabetes, if you go to renaldiethq.com at that page, there's a link you can click on that says I have kidney disease and diabetes, and you will be able to get a free seven day dinner meal plan, which is basically seven different dinner recipes. Dessert so dessert, side dishes, and you'll be able to try it out for a little bit. Okay. I wanted to talk to you about renal and diabetes because I wanted to kind of give you an idea of why kidney disease and diabetes goes together so well in a bad way, I guess you have very small capillaries in your kidneys that actually filter your blood.

So even though your kidneys are a large organ, your blood goes into those kidneys and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller filters. I mean blood vessels. And then it eventually gets to the point where it's just a very thin layer between your blood and the area of the kidneys that actually filters. And that's where the that's where the waste come across. So the process of that happening when you have diabetes, your blood sugar is high on if you're controlling it. Well, hopefully not very often. But, a lot of people have diabetes for a little while before they realize or don't.

It's harder to control. So that blood barrier that you have gets damaged by too much blood sugar. So as you damage that, you lose kidney function each time that your body loses a little more, it makes up for it. You have a lot of capacity. You have two kidneys usually, although if you just have one, one can work just fine. But it basically enlarges and expands to be able to see what you can get through those. And then as you damage those, you lose more capacity.

So really, it starts showing symptoms when you're down to about 30% capacity. So, that is what causes the problems with diabetes and kidney disease. Controlling your blood sugar is one of my first recommendations to anybody who has diabetes or high blood pressure or any other related condition with kidney disease to control that condition. So, with diabetes you need to start checking your blood sugar for about a week, about four times a day. First thing in the morning, right after breakfast, right after lunch, right after dinner or not after 2 hours after dinner, 2 hours after your meals.

So, you can then see how your blood sugar is trending, and then you start portion controlling. But, first you have to understand. Okay, I'm taking my medication, what my doctor prescribed, and I'm checking my blood sugar and then go back either to the dietitian or to the nurse and say, these are what I'm doing, what needs to change because that in itself, giving you diabetes under control is going to help you mostly limit the damage that you're doing further to your kidneys. So, the second thing I want to talk about is that you need to learn what foods are high in carbohydrates and low in fiber.

Foods that are higher carbohydrate, like whole wheat pasta or whole wheat grains are actually good for you in a controlled amount because the carbohydrate you need in your body. But the fiber helps the whole grain fiber helps lower your absorption of the blood sugar, so it slows it down the way your body absorbs the sugar. And it takes a little longer and allows your body to basically manage it a little better. But when you eat something like a donut or a cupcake or things that are high in sugar, high in carbohydrates but low in fiber, then your body just can't absorb that really quickly cause a big rush of sugar in your blood.

Your insulin reacts or doesn't react depending on what type of diabetes you have and you might have blood sugar elevated for a period of time and then over time that causes that damage that then additionally contributes to both eye problems, neuropathy, kidney disease, those types of things. So eating more foods that are manageable, you know, higher carbohydrate but have carbohydrate but have higher fiber in them. So you're wanting to look for two or more grams of fiber per serving, preferably five and trying to add those with your protein and then your lower vegetables are a good example.

They have like, a manageable amount of carbohydrate, but they also have a decent amount of fiber, whereas fruit is good for you because it has fiber in it. Whole fruits, but not fruit juice. Fruit juice has a lot of fructose and sugar that raises your blood sugar, but it doesn't have that balance of the fiber. So last thing is exercise. So, you need to exercise. You need to walk, talk to your doctor first, obviously, but see if you can walk a little bit every day and just increase it.

I myself got an injury earlier this year and I ended up taking several months off where I had been walking a lot before, and I was just actually very frustrated by not being able to walk at the same speed and the same amount of distance that I had before. But it only took like a week, and I was back to close to where I wanted to be. Exercise is something that's progressive and it's also cumulative. So, when you exercise, you help your body use that sugar better.

You help teach your heart how to react to a higher amount of exercise, and that all helps you to feel better. So, today I just wanted to talk really quick about kidney disease and diabetes and some of the things you can do and why kidney disease affects your diabetes. So, thanks for listening again. You can go to our website, renaldiethq.com on the front page. There's a button you can click that says I have kidney disease and diabetes, and it'll take you to sign up to get a free seven day meal plan and no strings attached.

It'll just get an email to you. You put your email address in there and then you can try those recipes out. So, I wanted to thank you again for today. And don't forget at the beginning of the video I mentioned putting a recipe for dessert in the comments below. And that will greatly help me because I'm going to start looking for those and doing the adjustments and getting ready for the Zestify your Diet. So thanks, guys. I will talk to you tomorrow.

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