How much dark chocolate can I have as a kidney stone former?

SPYR.

Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your risk for kidney stones and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I am your very friendly nurse,

Jill Harris. Jeff, it's so funny because when I watch you do the intro, you're so adorable and you're you're just good at what you do, and I always want to make you laugh because I'm always like that perpetual 12 year old little girl.

Like when you're in study hall and the teacher's like, "Everyone be quiet." That's of course the only time you want to talk. So every time I see you do the intro, I'm like, "Jeff, shut up! Just shut up and don't bother."

Hey, go for it. It's all good.

Oh, my goodness.

No, but see, this is why this is why it's fun. 'Cause yeah, I'm I'm trying to like I'm like in my head trying to make sure, okay, I want to say it correctly, I want it to come off right, but yeah, it never hurts to

Well, you're the Desi you're the Desi to my Lucy. Come on, everybody knows that.

Nice.

I mean, come on.

I'll take it. I like it.

So, this week, I was thinking we would do a couple different questions. They're they're quicker ones, so the first one is from Bruce.

Oh, great.

My name is Bruce. I'm in the USA. And my question is: How much organic, dark chocolate can you safely consume in a day?

Okay. So, now, you know Jeff gives me these questions and I never know what they are until we do the podcast, so I just happen to have my "Eat Responsibly" shirt on and it's going to go real well with this question.

So, people always ask me about chocolate and oxalate and, you know, chocolate is higher in oxalate, but I'll tell you what. I don't take away chocolate from people because people would never listen to me if I did. And, also,

You know, for some people it's like, "Oh, what? I can't ever have a chocolate again, Jill? I might as well get a shovel, dig, and jump right in because there's no point in me ever waking up again if I can't have chocolate." So, chocolate is not evil.

Potatoes are not evil. Spinach is evil, people, for the kidney stone formers, it's evil, so stay away from it. So are almonds.

But chocolate, of course you can have some. Eat it responsibly. Bruce, you can't eat it all damn day.

I know you weren't thinking about that, but I got to say it so I can sleep well tonight. I want everyone to eat a lot of different foods in normal portion sizes. We are not 12 years old anymore, we need to eat responsibly.

It's very, very important. So, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, any kind of chocolate, I have no problem, have a couple squares a day. I have some in my cupboard.

I use I get my chocolate I get my chocolate from Trader Joe's

Or wherever I can find Lily's. I don't get no nickel talking about Lily's or any product, but Lily's I like because it's no added sugar. They sweeten it with stevia, and stevia has no oxalate once it's processed because I know people are going to be like, "Oh, what are you talking about, Jill?

Stevia is high in oxalate." The plant is, not once it's processed, so you can have that. So, have a square or two a day, fine.

But you may be like, "You don't know me very well, girl, because if I have two, I'm going to have 10." Well, then if you cannot eat responsibly, like I said, it's funny that I just happen to wear my shirt today, then you can't have it. Just like we all know, anybody who knows me, knows there's no Cheez-Its in my house, can't have them.

Can't have them because I could never control myself with them. If I had two, I'd have the box, so I'm an addict with them, so they don't come in my house.

So, you can certainly have chocolate. Most important in the Kidney Stone Diet is getting enough calcium every day. For you, Bruce, you need 1,000 mg a day because you're a guy.

So, 1,000 mg a day up to, not over that 1,000 mg a day. And you can certainly fit chocolate into your diet if you stick to a couple squares. Exactly how much oxalate is in all those squares, all those different brands of chocolate, that hasn't been studied.

I don't know. We know generally that it's on the higher side, but it's not breaking anybody's bank. And once again, I know sometimes I sound glib in giving my advice,

But it is based upon decades of looking at follow-up urine collections, so Bruce may do his follow-up collection, have a couple squares of chocolate, get his calcium that day, and he will see his oxalate is still low. So, it's what we do in the portion size that we do it, that's what matters, and getting your calcium every day.

How's that, Jeff?

Yeah, I think that's perfect. And yeah, it is so hard because you don't know. A square of chocolate from one company versus another, it's really hard to judge, and unless we're weighing all of all the chocolate we're consuming, it's really yeah everything's a little different, and different ingredients, and whatnot.

Right, and also I'm going to say, "Look, should we be eating chocolate?" Bruce, again, I'm not saying you are doing this, but generally speaking for everybody, I'm not going to advocate everyone eats as much chocolate as they want. We all know that from what I do for a living, so it's candy.

And, "Oh, dark chocolate, Jill, it's healthy." So, what do people do? They eat 10. Dark chocolate, bitter dark chocolate is still a lot of sugar, people, so when somebody says something healthy, again, we need to eat responsibly.

Don't think that means you can eat as much as you want of something. We all want to eat as much as we want of something, but please don't do that. That's basically why you're coming to visit me in a lot of cases.

You took the whole almond, spinach thing, unfortunately, to an extreme, and you didn't know, plus you didn't get your calcium. So, and I swear I just happened to wear my shirt, but, you know, there's so many questions that I would point right to this shirt, right? You know, all day long.

People like, "But, Jill, I want to eat those." Well, you can't, you're not 12 no more, come on, get it together, we're all old here, we're all grown ups, you can't eat whatever you want anymore. Eat a wide variety of food in normal portion sizes.

You go to the produce section, people, don't think you don't have anything to eat. We only take away very few foods away from you, and that list is on my website, at kidneystonediet.com, go to the start page. It's everything there that I want people to start because it's always the same questions people ask, and a whole bunch of free resources for you there.

Yeah, it's a perfect place to go. Okay. And I thought we'd dive into just one more question for this episode.

Okay. Okay, good. Hit me.

So, this is from Sylvia.

Sylvia, okay.

Hi, Jill. This is Sylvia. I have a question for you for your podcast.

Can you tell me what you recommend for a snack or meal pre-workout and post-workout? Thank you.

Oh, I love talking about workout stuff 'cause I'm a huge fitness person. Love it. So, thank you, Sylvia, that made my day.

Okay.

So, pre-workout, I'll tell you what I do. So, before I go work out, I like I do like having there's a couple different things I do depending upon what I'm going through that day physically, 'cause I have my share of medical conditions from my cancer stuff. So, sometimes I'm like I think protein's going to be a little where I need to go today, so I will have maybe I'll eat like, and I never eat more than 3 oz at a time of protein, so I'll eat like I always eat lean protein.

I don't eat red meat, very rarely, maybe a couple times a year, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't, this is just what I do.

So, I'll eat like a little turkey or a little chicken. Sometimes I'll have a little bit of rice, it just depends. Sometimes I'm looking for a carb to get my energy up.

Carbs are not evil, people. Eat the right carbs and you'll be fine, and again, the right portion size, right? So, and also, if you eat carbs, if you're a diabetic, if you do have a little bit of a carb, eat it with a protein, it will stabilize your blood sugar.

So, sometimes I'll do that, and that gets me going. Sometimes it's, like I said,

Little bit of protein, no carb. Sometimes it's just a little maybe I'll have half a sweet potato. "Well, what are you doing, Jill, sweet potatoes are high?" But it's only half, and I'll pair it with some Swiss cheese, so I'm not worried about it, it's a portion thing, so I'll do that.

After a workout, I want to remind everybody, you know, the diet industry because they're so keen on selling all those bars and shakes, they're making billions of people bill- they're not making billions of people, they're making billions of bucks, people, they really are. So, it really doesn't matter, it's not like you have to come home from the gym and say, "Holy shit, I need that protein shake!

Honey, get the shake, get the protein, hurry up, we got a window." No, you don't. You don't have to eat it right away. I don't want people getting a speeding ticket coming from the gym to get home to have a chicken breast, you don't have to do that.

Have a little protein after your workout. It doesn't have to be an exorbitant amount, that's again, a lot of fitness people come to me because they overate meat protein, now have a uric acid stone and/or a calcium oxalate stone, so be careful of that.

So, absolutely, whatever you want, I mean, have a little protein, your muscles will enjoy it, doesn't have to be overboard. When you're able to, have a little snack. Also, people,

I want to remind you of this, I have people write me, "Oh, my god, Jill, I need a snack, we went hiking, what kind of trail mix, what kind of things can I pack?" "How long's the hike?" "Oh, it's like half a mile." Really, Sally? You really need a freaking snack to go half a mile? "Honey, I'm going to the mailbox, pack some trail mix." I mean, really, people?

I mean, you're just taking this to an extreme. So, look,

Think about what you're hearing in the industry, think about how many calories you're taking in a day, too. Do you know how many people go for a workout and then eat four times the calories they just burnt? I do a lot of weightlifting, you don't burn that much calories in lifting weights, okay, but I will make sure I have a snack after I do my 15,000 steps, that I will do, you know, because I want to replenish my energy level for sure, but always recognize, most people, people will say,

"You know what, Jill? I'm exercising my ass off, but except it's not coming off, so what's going on?" "Well, what are you eating?" Nobody wants to talk about that, it really is about calories, people. So, you can go work out, when I go work out, I'm not coming home and eating 500 extra calories because I worked out.

Long term studies show we keep weight off longer with diet more than exercise. Why? Is it exercise per se?

No, it's people's mentality after they exercise, they think they exercise, now they can go to Burger King. You can't do that. You still have to watch your calories when you're exercising, whether you need more because you're exercising a lot or you need less because you're not exercising and losing the amount burning the amount of calories you think you are.

So, it's a lot, there's a lot to unpack. Be careful of the quick fixes in the diet industry and fitness industry. I have a lot of patients with kidney stones because their trainers told them to eat, you know, 200 g of protein, you don't need it, you just don't need it.

I have fine little muscles for an old lady and I'm not overeating meat protein. You do need protein, you do, your muscles need that, but you don't have to eat all the shakes and all the bars that you guys are doing, it's a it's a real billion dollar industry, it really is, so pay mind to that. I have a lot of patients

After they've worked out with trainers, and I'm getting certified right now to be a trainer, so it's nothing against trainers, I think they're wonderful, but some of them haven't had the best education. Also, a lot, it's not the best education, I want to retract that, ooh, it's not that, a lot of their patients do very well with their suggestions, it's just that some of you will also get stones, not everybody gets stones eating the same diet, why do some people not?

Because they have a genetic propensity to make them, okay?

So, I don't want to I don't want to poo-poo on my own industry. Oh, yeah. But I'm just saying, right, we've got to be careful with this generic advice we give to patients.

So, as a nurse, as a personal trainer, if I wasn't a nurse, maybe I'd be saying that, what would I know? I don't know about kidney stones as a personal trainer, "Eat the spinach shakes, eat the this, the that, the that, almonds all the time with a snack, to keep hunger at bay." But as a nurse I know that's not, what?

Yeah, I knew nothing about kidney, like I'm a certified health coach, and I knew nothing about kidney stones whatsoever until we met, and that's why like I thought this was so important to get this information out there, so like, it's not malicious of a trainer to be like, "Oh, have a bunch of almonds and spinach." They have They just don't know.

And like you say, you don't know what you don't know.

Right, many nutritionists and dietitians when I lecture, go to conferences, th- they don't know, they're dealing with so much, they're dealing with obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, weight loss, all of that, so they're not taught about kidney stones. I wasn't taught about kidney stones in nursing school, this is a very niche sector, and I just happened to work at Litholink many moons ago and Dr.

It was Dr. Coe's lab, so he became my mentor and the next thing you know, 21 years later, this has been my career in nursing and I love it and it's great because there is not enough information, correct information, and there's not enough there's just not enough time to help patients

With this in urology offices because those guys are surgeons, we need them, they're taking out our stones. What, they don't know about diet, and even if they do, they certainly don't have an hour to talk to you about it. Look at how much free information we give, Jeffrey, I mean, hours and hours and hours of it, you know, what do you think, your surgeon has that time?

He has to go take Tim's stone out, what the heck, right?

Yeah, I mean I think we're what, 30 episodes into the podcast and there's still more to talk about. There's It's never ending. So, that

Oh, my god. It's never ending.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's you know, that's why you do this. It's you want to connect with as many people as possible, which I mean on that note, if you know anyone, if you're listening right now and you know anyone who has suffered with kidney stones or is suffering through them now, please share the podcast with them, let them know, if you're enjoying it leave a review, a 5-star review always helps us just connect with more people.

Yeah.

And, yeah, share the YouTube channel, and any sort of a deeper dive, you can find all of the information at kidneystonediet.com. Everything Jill talks about, you can dive into the course, the free email weekly email that she sends on Saturday mornings, you can join the Kidney Stone Prevention Group on Facebook, there are many resources available, but yeah, we just want to help you as best we can.

Yep.

Yeah, so, I think that'll do it for this week, again, if you

Eat responsibly, people, eat responsibly, come on.

Yeah, for sure.

Get it together, everybody.

Yeah, I like that shirt.

I had it made.

Oh, you did?

Yeah.

I didn't realize, nice.

Yes, 'cause I'm saying that to my patients. No, it is not, I made that personally for me when I'm talking when I'm in when I'm doing my show in the course.

So, they can read it, yeah.

Yeah, later we should definitely put that on the site, we can put a little a little Kidney Stone Diet logo on it as well, if you want. Yeah, I mean, actually, there is some apparel, not It's not like there's much. It's not like a business or anything, it's just fun, little stone shirts, and yeah.

No. It's fun stuff. Yeah, the Facebook people wear buy them and wear them, they love it.

Yeah, and you can find that at kidneystonediet.com once again. So, if you have a question you want us to answer on the podcast or want Jill to answer on the podcast, the phone number is 773-789-8763.

And, yeah, I think that'll do it for this week, so thanks again for listening.

Wonderful. Thank you, I love that question, I think it was Sylvia, right?

Yeah, there's Sylvia and then so we had the two, Sylvia and Bruce today.

Bruce, yes, and Bruce. Thank you, guys, those were great questions, I love them. I love workout stuff, too, that's fun.

Oh, yeah, and there might be something in the future with that, but

Yeah, you never know.

More on that later. See you guys next week.

Thanks, guys.