Hi, I've just been diagnosed with stage 4 CKD. I'm learning about nutrition and it's a steep learning curve. I've been trying to find a good, easy to use tracker for my smartphone. The ones I've looked at either want money or they are too complicated. Does anyone have a suggestion for a simple tracker to help me get started?
Peanuttier
You might try my fitness pal. It's free but does have an upgrade. I use the free and there are ads but it fills my requirements.
I use MYFITNESSPAL for years. I built up quite a library of my favorite foods. When you first start, be ware that the nutritional valus are often entered by the users and are not accurate. So for foods you eat often, create your own library. Check the nutritional value on a better site by typing in the "nutritional value of..." and look at several different answers. It is work, but if you do it once and then put it in our library, its done and accurate.
my dietician suggested Lose It but I like My Fitness Pal better.
Fitbit has a section on the app for recording what you eat and how often you drink water but I can't be bothered to keep entering info and so I am not sure if it is even relevant. I do have a very good blood pressure registering app called BP journal which I find interesting to use. It's free.
The National Kidney foundation has an app called Kidney diet.
It tracks the nutrients that you need to manage when you have CKD, sodium, potassium and phosphate as well as protein and water.
Depending on what stage you are in of the disease values are different.
Most nutritional labels don’t include phosphate. I found a book that lists these foods and these values
It’s a start I’m looking for a better source for finding the values as the book I found has a lot of junk items I’m in the process of creating a list of foods that I need for myself
The app’s database doesn’t have all foods. It will take time to add your foods in but once done I find it easy to use.
I found it eye opening to understand how much of these minerals are in the packaged foods that I consumed.
The first few days of eating normal I went over the allotted daily amounts, especially on sodium
The good news is that once I was aware of that there are low and no salt options available. I now use other beneficial herbs and spices to flavor my meals and don’t miss the salt.
I recommend starting a little bit a day the process of finding foods you enjoy and looking for low salt alternatives, creating meal plans, and making larger portions so you can create meals in advance takes time. In the long run it will pay off
Understanding which foods to avoid and finding alternatives is key.
Finding knowledge about what to change definitely motivational me to choose foods that I like to create meal plans.
I started feeling better after a few weeks restricting my intake of the minerals that contribute to kidney damage.
The app doesn’t track calories so if you need to track them fitness pal or your favorite app is required.
After just recently discovering that I have CKD stage 3A I found it good to understand that there are steps that I can take to slow or reverse the progression of the disease based on numerous Scientific studies.
It is important to understand that it is possible to slow the progression.
A lot of doctors don’t seem to be aware of some of the studies that show that proactive changes in your diet can help.
The primary goal is to slow progression. Kidney disease leads to increased risk of cardiovascular death. More people die from heart disease due to kidney disease before they reach dialysis.
So while a good goal is to reduce the risk of being on dialysis the more important goal is to reduce the chance of your kidneys contributing to death by heart disease.
These points are from research that I have been doing from fools by reputable kidney doctors and the national kidney foundation.
I also recommend finding a book about CKD and reading about current research and what foods , spices and supplements are beneficial to you kidney and begin incorporating them in your diet.
Drinking enough water is key. Depending on what stage of the disease you are in, there are different amounts of daily water intake recommended. As the disease progresses your kidneys have more issues eliminating water.
Learn as much as you can about the disease and best practices that you can incorporate into your daily routine.
It’s unfortunate but many doctors, care providers and people are not aware of changes in ongoing research and don’t have the time to educate their patients about the disease.
As such do your best to learn as much as possible to help yourself.
Start by going to the National Kidney foundation website. They are considered an excellent resource.
If you purchase kidney diet or books about related topics be sure to check the credentials of the author of the book and sources of research and studies that their recommendations are based on.
I’ve found that there are several books and groups out there that are scams, contain inaccurate information and/ or harmful information.
The apps cannot do the urine or blood tests so what is the point other than looking up tour results manually and staging g. You can make a spread sheet if course but mist labs and on the Epic electronic records they have a pull down menu to see historical results as a line graph
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