My Low Protein Diet For Kidney Disease | What I Eat in a Day

This video is a sample low protein diet for kidney disease, to very low protein diet that I follow. This is a sample day from yesterday. I’m going to go over it and just go over issues that could be with a low protein diet and covering different points.

This type of diet of very low protein I’ve spoken many times about it before. It’s one of the most therapeutic diets out there. It may not be the right diet for you depending on your situation, but this is a diet that’s really helped me to improve my my kidney health. When I eat more protein, I see it right away in my lab work and my blood work. My creatinine grows up, gfr goes down, and bun goes up. This diet is what works for me, and this is my typical day.

I started off with two cups of a low sodium Trader Joe’s brand Cheerios. I started off with two cups of that lower sodium cheerios with some rice milk and an apple. So that was part of my breakfast. A little later I had two cups of blueberries and we came to about lunch where I had vegetable wraps. I had regular wheat wraps, not large ones. they have about four grams of protein each. I had three of those. In it I did a saute of a couple of vegetables like carrots, zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms and I used a low sodium salad dressing to give it some flavor. It was a tuscany ranch, but it was a low sodium one that I picked. It had about 110 milligrams of sodium for two tablespoons and so I use small amounts to give it flavor.

Those were three smaller in size vegetable wraps. I was pretty full afterwards. A little later in the day then I had a piece of bread with no-salt butter. It was a lower lower sodium lower protein bread with about four grams of protein each. I also had an orange. Later on that day I had a Cliff Bar. Cliff Bar is like a meal replacement bar. You’ll find it everywhere. It’s not bad, but it’s not the best for kidney disease. It doesn’t have a lot of sodium. It’s got about 9 grams of protein. Later on I had some buckwheat with broccoli. Buckwheat is kasha. It is kidney friendly for the most part.

Now with my diet I don’t have to watch potassium and phosphorus levels because they’re really well controlled. If that’s an issue for you, you may want to modify things. This may not be the exact diet you want to follow because it’s a little higher potassium, but just giving you guidelines of everything. I don’t have to watch potassium or phosphorus.

At night I had a little square, two squares of dark chocolate about seventy percent high cacao content. I had a cookie. I don’t even know what the cookie was but it wasn’t a healthy cookie, it was something from my in-laws– a little thin chocolate-covered cookie. It was not healthy, but I only had one. After that I had about 10 nuts with craisins and then I. had a couple no salt crackers.

That was my day. That’s a very low protein day around 25 30 grams of protein which considered a very low protein diet. If you were doing a low protein diet, you can have more protein and you can add in other sources of protein. One of the problems with this type of diet is over time you may become protein deficient. In order to get your protein with kidney disease and so to support those protein levels you can take an essential amino acid supplement or keto analogues of essential amino acids. I take essential amino acids on and off depending if i’m doing a very low protein diet for a while or if I just do low protein which seems to keep my protein levels in order. That’s something you want to be mindful of if you’re ever going on this type of diet.

We monitor your blood work by your albumin in the blood. Ideally you should be 4.01 or above so that’s what we really like with kidney disease. 4.0 and above. If you’re not at those levels you can either eat a little bit more protein or take those essential amino acids or ketoanalogues of essential amino acids. Let’s say one of the complications you might feel hungry, maybe you feel like you need more protein to have more energy. You can still add in protein and still keep a low protein diet.

Ideally you’d want to add in some vegetable, vegan sources of protein like beans, peas, whole grains, some nuts and seeds ,some soy products which have shown very helpful to the kidney. That’s one way to get your protein. If you’re looking for animal products you’re better off having eggs, egg whites, chicken, turkey, small amounts of dairy, and that’ll pretty much give you the extra protein you need. You’re still can be low protein as long as you don’t have a lot of that protein. Don’t go for that big eight ounce piece of chicken, go for a three to four ounce piece of chicken.

My typical day I came in around that 25 30 grams of protein. The potassium was still within a good range, sodium was about 15-1700 milligrams per day, so it’s within a good range. That’s what works for me and that’s one option out there for people with kidney issues. It’s not the only option, but it’s definitely an option that you can try.