Like everyone in the world, chronic kidney disease sufferers make goals for themselves when it comes to living healthier. As far as New Year’s resolutions are considered, did you know that 85% of people have forgotten, failed, or otherwise given up on those goals by February?!
Don’t get too discouraged, however. Those with CKD do need to make their health a priority, and a great New Year’s resolution may be the perfect way to end a bad habit or create good ones.
Read on to find out more about how you can set a CKD-friendly New Year’s resolution you will actually stick to!
Choose one big problem.
Assess your renal diet and other activities. When it comes to chronic kidney disease, and health in general, where do you struggle the most. Is it your fluid intake? Lowering your consumption of sugar or other diet restrictions?
Break the main goal into smaller goals.
Create yourself a series of steps you must achieve in order to meet the larger goal. This will allow you to feel proud of yourself as the milestones are reached. Plus, it’s easier to tackle 3-4 small tasks than it is one large, daunting task!
If fluid intake is your resolution, start monitoring how much you are drinking each day. Slowly increase the amount until you are drinking the optimal amount for your situation. The slow increase of a few ounces a day will make it easy for you to reach your goals, rather than expecting yourself to do jump to drinking 3-4 more glasses of water than usual in one go.
Another example, is lowering the intake of your renal diet restrictions. Maybe you want to do this by cooking more meals at home. Start small; finding an easy CKD-friendly recipe you can make yourself. Gradually locate more recipes to try, keeping a cookbook of the ones you enjoy. Over time, you’ll notice you are eating more at home than dining out on unhealthy foods.
Have a clean plan to reach your goal.
Now that you have the goals in mind, how do you plan to reach them? For fluid intake, you can keep a refillable water bottle handy. Better yet, get three and keep them all filled at the beginning of the day. Once you’ve emptied them all, you know you’ve gotten enough water.
Seek support and accountability.
No one ever said you have to work on your New Year’s resolution alone! Reach out to your family and friends, asking them for support while you work to better yourself and your health.
Ask them to refrain from bringing over soft drinks, juices, and other beverages because you want to stick to water. You can also ask them to refrain from inviting you out to dinner or bringing around desserts that you should not be eating.
Find an accountability buddy so you can share your success, failures, and struggles with your CKD-friendly new year’s resolution. Talk to them at least once a week, seeking advice or praise for your process.
Don’t let one bad day ruin it.
No one is perfect. Most people will have a little slip every now and then when working on their goals. As a chronic kidney disease patient, it’s important that you learn to view every day as a new chance to reach your New Year’s resolution.
Just because you caved and had a piece of pie doesn’t mean you should continue to eat the rest of it. Brush off the error and keep charging ahead to better health.
Not sure what to eat on a CKD meal plan? Let us do the meal planning for you! Learn more here.
Also published on Medium.
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