Kidney Disease, Lies and Prediabetes

As I mentioned on this blog before, I had some medical tests done and according to the non-doctor PCP I have, everything was ALL  bad and my life was over and I had to make arrangements for an animal shelter to take in my pet cats when I go. And then the paperwork from my medical tests finally arrived.

I found that my non-doctor had lied to me. She claimed that I now had stage four kidney disease. The tests clearly show that I am still at stage three. Perhaps she exaggerated to force me to go to a nephrologist? I’d go if they ever get around to making the appointment, so long as they don’t send me back to the incompetent nephrologist in the city of Iron Mountain they sent me to before. Iron Mountain is too far a trip to go to see someone who claims there is no way to improve CKD, you just have to wait until you are bad enough to go on dialysis. 

I still do have protein in the urine, which is why my non-doctor recommended that I cut the protein in my diet. I started using the Carb Manager app on my phone to track the protein. It’s hard. One chicken thigh, if it is one of the heavier ones in the pack, can send me over my protein allowance. It’s kind of hard to figure what protein allowance to set because the ones recommended in a kidney disease book I have are less than the amount of protein needed daily. I set a goal close to the needed amount since it IS cutting down. I need to do a lot of intermittent fasting (partial-day fasting) to keep in line. But worrying about my protein seems to make it easier to cut the carbs. I rarely reach anywhere near my net carb limit for the day. 

The good news on my medical tests is that according to my A1c, I am no longer diabetic but prediabetic. And if I can go down by another two-tenths of a percentage point, I won’t even be prediabetic any more. Victory! 

I’ve been stricter with my eating plan since hearing from my non-doctor about the test results. I’ve started using the Carb Manager, cut back on both carbs and protein, am experimenting with going lower sodium, and am doing more intermittent fasting. I did have 2 carb indulgences, but they were small, only put me slightly over my net carb limit, and didn’t kick me out of ketosis.

Here’s wishing you healthy eating,

Nissa Annakindt

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Kidney Test and the Food-Free Diet

Last Wednesday I got the results back on a kidney test and my results were worse. At least according to my PA. She wants me to eat less protein & less sodium. Since I need to be on low-carb to control my diabetes and I’m sure my very conventional PA presumes that everyone needs to be low-fat, that adds up to a food-free diet. Luckily I already have a couple books about that diet.

I have ‘The Complete Guide to Fasting’ by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore, and ‘The Obesity Code’ by Dr. Jason Fung. Dr. Fung is a nephrologist (kidney doctor) and if fasting (or low-carb) were deadly for people with kidney disease, I assume he would know it. Perhaps be in jail for killing patients by now.

I ordered another of Dr. Fung’s books, ‘The Diabetes Code,’ which I intend to read cover-to-cover repeatedly even though Dr. Fung doesn’t write as well when he doesn’t have Jimmy Moore as a co-author. I also ordered 2 books on kidney disease and low-protein diets, both written by doctors. I need information!

Low-protein shouldn’t be THAT hard for people on the LCHF eating plan. Even though commercial sources brag about the grams of protein in meal bars and meal ‘shakes,’ our way-of-eating is supposed to be MODERATE protein. Because our clever bodies can turn protein into glucose. Also, protein intake can raise your insulin levels even if you eat it without carby foods— and that can make insulin resistance worse.

I have had fun calculating how many grams of protein I can be allowed on this new diet madness. First, I had to convert my weight from pounds into kilograms. Since I’m still hoping to lose weight and I don’t want to get in an eating pattern that I will have to make more restrictive soon, I used 160 for my current weight even though I’m at 182 at last check.

That’s about 73 kilograms. So at a .3 grams of protein per kilogram I can have about 22 grams of protein, and at .6 grams of protein per day that comes to 43 grams of protein. So my target is between 22 and 43 grams of protein per day. (Though my protein-needed amount is 50 grams per day I calculated.) I ordered a book of food counts that includes the protein & sodium counts to help with that. I also wanted to look for an app for my phone that did food counts, but I cannot find the darn thing at the moment— even though I put St. Anthony of Padua on the job! (Update: found it when the phone rang. Downloaded Carb Manager app and started using it.)

So— my current intermittent fasting plan calls for reducing my eating opportunities to one meal a day, with plenty of fluids in between time, and perhaps a bulletproof beverage to help me overcome hunger (which counts as a ‘meal.’ I’m going to replace my morning bulletproof coffee with a cup of hot bone broth (recommended by Dr. Jason Fung) and later a black coffee (with cinnamon & turmeric added.) 

It’s doable, and I haven’t been badly hungry so far. Just slight hunger pangs which can be ignored or defeated with a glass of water, tea or black coffee. My blood sugars are better— 101 this morning— and today I had a 123/72 blood pressure which is a big improvement. Plus according to my Ketonix I’m in moderate ketosis. 

So— good health and good low-carbing to you,

from 

Nissa Annakindt and her ‘unhappy’ kidneys

Keto is not a 'High-Protein Diet'

Sometimes they like to describe the Keto/lowcarb/Atkins dietary lifestyle as ‘high-protein.’ A diet meal-replacement bar that’s sold to the low-carb market is called a ‘protein bar.’ Protein, protein, protein. Why do they say it? Because the real truth is too shocking.

The acronym LCHF shows us the way. Low carbohydrate, high fat. Yes, fat. Fat, fat, fat! Which is a direct contradiction to the current fad diet, the low-fat low-calorie semi-starvation diet. (LFLCSS?) We eat FAT because natural (not artificial trans-fats) fats are healthy and necessary. There are vitamins we need that come in fat. Eating a zero-fat diet, were that possible, would soon make us vitamin-deficient, sick and dead. 

Our dietary lifestyle is MODERATE, not high, in protein. If we are ‘being good’ on our diet, we are not TRIMMING the fat on our meat, but choosing meat portions that are NOT pre-trimmed and low-fat. This can be hard to find. I shop mainly at a very small local grocery, which assumes everyone is on a low-fat diet and wants their meat trimmed of all visible fat. I wanted a little beef the other day and could not find ONE piece that had a bit extra fat. I guess I have to shop further afield, or buy more meat from the meat guy at the farmers’ market next season. I DO have a freezer. Just don’t have the disposable income to fill it.

There are a lot of hybrid diets out there, some even calling themselves a version of Atkins, that try to combine low-carb and low-fat ideas. This leaves you with little but boneless, skinless chicken breast atrocities to eat. Which  can lead to the dreaded high-protein diet. 

There are two reasons why high-protein is bad. First, your body can turn extra protein into sugar. This happens more as you grow older, and is more of a risk factor if you are obese, prediabetic or diabetic. (And ‘old’ is a relative term now that obese teens are getting the older-adult disease of T2 diabetes!)

Second, if you have kidney problems, a high-protein diet is not recommended. Your body can not handle excesses of protein. In my own case, I’m T2 diabetic and have had a bad kidney test or two (it’s better when I’m on strict Keto.) I use fat to stay unhungry while keeping my protein portion not too excessive. (Choosing meat with more fat in it naturally helps, and using rich sauces aids in the case of leaner meats.) 

Another problem with the necessarily high-protein LCLF (low-carb, low-fat) is that it mimics rabbit starvation. Rabbit starvation happened among clueless pioneers and men lost in a wilderness. They could hunt plenty of rabbit to eat, but couldn’t find other foods or a bigger variety of game. Rabbit is very low-fat meat. With it as the only food, people would die. I believe in one of my sources on this they said that people died on rabbit-starvation diets quicker than they would if they ate nothing at all. 

We don’t want that! It’s cheaper to just starve to death than to kill yourself on an all-lean-meat rabbit-starvation-mimicking plan. Or why not just have a couple of nice chicken thighs, followed by a bulletproof hot chocolate?

How gluconeogenesis can be a low-carber's problem

In the original Atkins diet book, unlimited amounts of meat were allowed. And for younger dieters this could be a help. Any time you were hungry you could eat something.

But lots of us have grown up since then. And found that Atkins doesn't work as well for us as it used to. Why? Gluconeogenesis.

Gluco
Neo
Genesis

What is that? It comes from the fact that when you aren't eating sugars any more, and are staying low-carb, your body can make its own sugar out of the protein you are consuming. So if you eat too much protein, that can give you all the problems that come with eating sugar. Because your body is turning it in to sugar.

Jimmy Moore says that a good keto diet is: high in (healthy) fats, moderate in protein, low in carbs. Protein isn't a health food! It is actually healthy fats such as grass-fed butters, coconut oils and olive oils that we should be eating more of. (And scientific research backs up this claim.)

But if you cut back on protein--- eat a smaller steak--- won't you be hungry? Well, you have to make sure you are getting enough fat. You can't do low fat and low carb at the same time, it's not healthy.

Fasting and intermittent fasting are one way to help with gluconeogenesis. I don't have much appetite in the morning anyway. So I do Intermittent Fasting and don't eat in the morning at all. If I don't eat anything for breakfast, my body can't turn the protein I didn't eat into sugar.

Morning is also when Type 2 diabetics like me have the highest blood sugars. So not eating at this time when I'm not hungry anyway helps get those morning numbers down.

And not eating in the morning means that I'm only getting the amount of protein from my lunch and/or dinner, and so that brings down my protein total naturally.

It's kind of sad, though. When I first tried Atkins I was attracted by the fact that I could eat something at any time that I was hungry. But now that I am older and diabetic, life is tougher. I have to say no to eating sometimes, and I have to say no to larger portions. But it's the only way I have found to keep my diabetes problems under control.
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My stuff.
Weight: 197
I did my IF until noon. Ate a small helping of carb foods because I had to go to the store and couldn't resist temptation. At least I kept the cheat smaller than usual.