# Going out to eat on the Kidney Stone Diet Source: https://kidneystonediet.com/preview/ep/going-out-to-eat-on-the-kidney-stone-diet/ Published: 2023-05-16 --- [![Kidney Stone Diet Podcast](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Podcast-1-1024x1024.jpg)](https://kidneystonediet.com/preview/podcast/) [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d79JoruSxtQ)[Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-out-to-eat-on-the-kidney-stone-diet/id1528474326?i=1000613239787&uo=4)[Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/28WXuDRc1iRGJuHijjjDgd)[Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0868148d-adfd-411d-b3f2-71a0ad1461ec) May 16, 2023 --- ![Jeff Sarris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Jeff-Sarris-150x150.jpg) Jeff Sarris Host ![Jill Harris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Jill-Harris-150x150.jpg) Jill Harris Host This week, Jill answers a question about reducing kidney stone risk while also going out to eat. This podcast is designed to entertain and inform — not provide medical advice. 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For more than 20 years she’s helped patients understand that kidney stones can be prevented with the right treatment plan. It’s one thing to be told to lower oxalate or drink more water, but HOW do you do it? That’s where she comes in. Through the educational resources at [kidneystonediet.com](https://kidneystonediet.com/), stone formers can learn everything they need to know to significantly lower new stone risk. *Some of the links above may be affiliate links which means that we earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!\*\ —— ***Kidney Stone Diet is a SPYR Podcast _****\*\ [*More SPYR Podcasts*](http://spyr.fm/)*_*\ Starting Now / By Amara ## Chapters - 00:00:00 Hydration Habits in Social Settings - 00:03:47 Dining Out on the Kidney Stone Diet - 00:05:32 Restaurant Sodium and Portion Control Strategies - 00:08:10 Managing Alcohol and Appetizers at Restaurants - 00:10:49 Balancing Social Life and Dietary Consistency - 00:13:42 Avoiding Deprivation and Maintaining Energy ## Transcript ### Hydration Habits in Social Settings 00:00:00 Jeff Sarris The following is designed to entertain and inform, not provide medical advice. Always consult your doctor before starting a new treatment. Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris. 00:00:28 Jill Harris And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse. 00:00:31 Jeff Sarris As I'm taking a big swig of my water, we've noticed, just Amara and I, with friends, so many of our friends will spend hours with them and they never drink any water. Like we're going to the bathroom all the time, like peeing, not incessantly, but We drink so many fluids, it's almost always a little off-putting to be like, "Oh, I went to the bathroom two, maybe three times a night. They didn't get up once." It's like it's so funny that Like we are such a, we're so hydration-focused, even before learning about kidney stones. It's wild now when we see people who aren't really like, it's never water, maybe it's a Diet Coke or a beer or something, but like never water. I don't know, it always throws me off. 00:01:21 Jill Harris It's No, it really is interesting, right? So, again, I'll say this till I'm dead, until something goes wrong, people are just not paying attention. And it makes sense. Look, this is human nature. Until something goes wrong, we tend not to focus on it. And also, you know, it's interesting, though. Here's what I notice. I know people that have every damn color water bottle known to man. But God, they're matching it with their outfit, they put their sneakers on, they're bringing it to the gym, I see them all in the gym. Do I see anybody put it to their lips and gulp? That would be no. So, and I have patients, "Jill, I carry my water bottle everywhere." And me being the smartass I am, I'm like, "Okay, but are you sipping from it?" "Well, Jill." I'm telling you. So, it's funny, and when you are, Well, I'm talking about diet all day long, so of course I'm in tune to this. People, you know, might think that, "Oh, I never want to eat," when I go out with people, they'll tell me, "I don't want to order nothing in front of you." I'm like, "Let me tell you what, I don't care what you eat. As a matter of fact, if you order something that's like a fun food, I'm going to enjoy watching you eat it. I'm not going to eat it, but God bless, go forth. I think it's wonderful. I don't care what people do. I really don't, Unless they're sick and they're coming to me, and I'm certainly not going to, you know, school people on nutrition in my private time, because they're not asking me, right? But it is funny that people are like, "Oh, shoot, should we invite Jill tonight, or no?" 00:03:00 Jeff Sarris Yeah, it definitely goes that way. But, I mean, it totally makes sense, too, because people know that we are also so health-focused. So, it's usually like, "Okay, I know there's not a lot you can eat. Can you eat this?" We can eat basically anything. Like, for me, it's like no gluten, that's the big thing, just because of me, just how I'm built. And Amara, it's no gluten, no dairy, but It's funny because as soon as you connect those dots, then people do think like, "Okay, well, how, how challenging? This must be impossible to get food." Which actually goes right into what we were going to talk about today, but going out to eat on the Kidney Stone Diet, and sort of like how people can do that comfortably. Because you don't have to never go out to eat again. ### Dining Out on the Kidney Stone Diet 00:03:47 Jill Harris Yes. So, you know, a lot of people call me and they'll say, "Listen, I'm going to tell you straight up, I'm a foodie. I'm a foodie, and my husband and I, we retired and we're out. We're going out every day. We're meeting our friends. This is our social life now you're screwing with." And I say, "You can still go out to eat. I don't know about being a foodie. I think that's going to have to change. Because foodie doesn't mean you're eating lettuce all day. Foodie means you're trying the sauces and you're going out to the latest, greatest restaurants, and foodie means you're into it, it's a hobby, it's a passion. And so, you're going to have to back it up a little." And I will say to patients, "Look, you can be a little baby foodie maybe, but you can't be a full grown-up foodie, because it's all salt and junk. It really is. Those restaurant meals are so much salt, so much extra of everything that's delicious, that's why it's good. But you can, of course, go out to eat on the Kidney Stone Diet. Now, am I going to tell my quote-unquote "foodie" patients, Five days a week are you going out? You know, you're just going to have to learn how to choose wiser, that's all. People in New York, they're not cooking. My nana used to have her bills in the stove. That was just her filing cabinet. There's no cooking in New York, people. They're going, they just pick up food. So, a lot of my job is very difficult because I have to tailor what a healthy diet is for every single person that comes to me. So, what do I tell people who want to go out to eat all the time? I'm going to say these types of things. ### Restaurant Sodium and Portion Control Strategies 00:05:32 Jill Harris If you're going out to dinner on a lot of nights, can you, number one, can you choose lower-salt items? Could you tell the chef or person cooking your food not to extra salt it on the way out? Could you share your entrée with your partner? Could you not have appetizer, dessert, two glasses of wine, and dinner, all of those things? The whole appetizer-dinner thing has always killed me. Nobody at home is having cheese plates and meat plates and All this. We don't do that when we're home, but when we go out, we do it. And then we have dessert, too. So, it's very interesting to me how much we overeat when we're going to dinner. So, if somebody says, go ahead, go ahead. 00:06:19 Jeff Sarris Oh, I'll just jump in on that. It just reminds me, I forget who the comedian was, but he was saying exactly that. He's like, "When are you at home about to eat dinner, and you're like, 'Give me a loaf of bread. Let me eat the whole loaf of bread before I eat the meal.'" It's just like so funny, but we have these different ways that we go about things when we're going out to eat. 00:06:39 Jill Harris 100%. And I think that's a wonderful example. Right. Who has two baskets of bread before they're eating? And then again, or all the chips before Mexican food. I mean, come on, we don't do this. Nobody's bringing three baskets of chips and guac, and then we're going to have our Tuesday tacos, Taco Tuesday. We don't do that. So, when we go out to eat, we tend to overeat, because maybe it's a celebration, maybe because we're, you know, we had a hard day, so whatever, we're going to treat ourselves. And I'm going to push this, too, and I told a patient this today. "Well, Jill, I had a bad dentist appointment, so I treated myself." This was a real patient. And so, then she said, "But, you know, why would That's what I call it, but it's actually not a treat for myself, is it?" "No, but it's to uplift your mood, right?" So, we do all kinds of things with food. That's separate. That's a whole other video. But going out to eat, of course you can go out to eat. How I would do it is like this: if I knew I was going out to dinner, I would make sure that I'm eating a relatively low-salt breakfast and lunch. That's what I would do. I'm not telling you need to do this, I'm telling you what I would do, and this is what I do tell my patients. So, I would say to myself, "Okay, I'm going out with the gang tonight, we're going to go out to eat, so I'm really going to pay attention to my salt and sugar intake leading up to that." That's one way to control it. ### Managing Alcohol and Appetizers at Restaurants 00:08:10 Jill Harris Number two, like I said, you can split your entrée, you can not have appetizers, you could say, "I'm going to have a glass of wine, but I'm not going to have dessert." So, you don't have to do all the courses plus alcohol. Now, I'll tell you what, I don't go out to eat that much because of my bowel issues, because of my cancer surgeries, but If I were to go out to eat, I'm having the wine. I will forgo desserts. I'm always having the wine. I'm having a cocktail or a glass of wine, that's happening. So, I know that about myself, because it's part of going out to me. I like being in the ambiance, I like having a glass of wine or a cocktail, that's part of going out to eat for me. The food, I could give a damn less, but the alcohol, I'm going to have it. So, I make my mind up. I don't lead myself to be starving. A lot of people do this. "I know I'm going out to eat tonight, so I ain't going to eat all day." But when that menu comes, you're ravenous! So, you're like, "I'll have side, the right side, and dessert. Let's get five desserts, and, you know." We just overeat. The other thing about booze: when we do drink, I'm not saying you can't drink, but listen, when we do drink before our dinner, we get a little buzzed. We're like, "Ooh, I'm feeling fine. I'm going to eat! I'm going to have an appetizer, I'm going to have " Your, your inhibitions run wild. Now, you're not as diligent because you're a little buzzed, so you're like, "I'm going to have this and this and this." And at the moment, you really don't give a darn about it, so that happens, too. So, if I were going out to eat, I would pay attention to what I would eat during the day. I would make sure I'm being extra diligent with my salt and sugar. I would, have my meal, but I would have my little glass of wine, knowing that I'm going to also pay attention to what I order. I am going to ask for, "Do not salt my food on the way out." I would ask for sauces on the side. I would pair out, for me because I'm low-carb, I would get some vegetables, get rid of the starch. And so, there's many different ways to skin a cat here. And so, what I do is I talk to each person on the phone and figure out what's going to work for them. But you can go out to eat, you just have to pay attention to it. And I will say, being a foodie is not going to be the best plan. You might have to You have to, you might have to dial it down a little, dial it back being a foodie, because that automatically means high salt. It just does. It just does, there's no way around that. ### Balancing Social Life and Dietary Consistency 00:10:49 Jill Harris Does that mean you can't Maybe you and your husband or you and your wife, you and your spouse, you and your partner, you go out on a Saturday night, but you're not going out as much. You had a call with me and you're like, "You know what, babe? We're not going to go out as much. But when we do, we're really going to enjoy ourselves." And then get right back on track Sunday. So, Saturday night we're going to go out, we're going to do all the things, we're not going to beat ourselves up for doing it, and then Sunday morning we get right back on plan. On our plan. You can do that, too. But the trick is finding the balance of feeling satisfied with your social life and going out to eat, but still being compliant. And that balance is hard. You can do it, my patients do, but it may take a little planning, and it may take a little commitment extra, and it may take A little bit of willpower, and knowing what will make you happiest. I think when you go out to eat, it's important. Like, for me, I'm having a glass of something, okay? I give a damn about dessert, but I'm having the glass of something, that's part of socializing for me. And I'm a lightweight, so I never have more than two drinks, never, because I would be drunk. I'm too little. But if I do have the second one, I do pay attention to, you know, there's no bread, I don't eat anything before my meal, I just have my main meal. You can also, especially for lunches, if you're going out for lunch, you can also always ask the server to cut up half, you know, portion it, take it away, you know, the other half. Maybe you're served half, and they automatically put the other half, and you can have that for lunch the next day. You don't have to eat everything on your plate, so there's that. Because restaurants tend to over-serve, unless you're at a real fancy one where the plate is 100 bucks and the food's as big as my eyeball. I hate that. But, but most places, you go to the restaurant and people are like, "Oh, my god, honey, This is amazing!" They're not even talking about the food, they're just talking about the portion. People like to see a lot of food on their plate. So, do you need to eat that whole plate? Because typically it's a couple times more than what you would serve yourself at home. So, again, can you go out to eat on the Kidney Stone Diet? Absolutely. It requires a little bit more planning, a little bit more commitment, And getting right back on your plan the next day. But you can absolutely go out to eat. I'm not taking away people's joy with that, okay? Of course you can go out to eat. Did I leave anything uncovered there? Does all that make sense, Jeff? 00:13:26 Jeff Sarris Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, because it's not, this isn't about deprivation. It's just about being aware. And, I mean, your shirt says it, "Portion, Not Perfection." It's it's not about being perfect, it's just about ### Avoiding Deprivation and Maintaining Energy 00:13:42 Jeff Sarris Being cognizant of what we're doing and trying to do our best, just because we're talking long term. We're not talking one meal, and then you're going to have a kidney stone. We're talking months and years of eating a certain way, that's going to build these really Painful reminders that we haven't really been on track for so long. 00:14:03 Jill Harris Yes. And so, I think, you know, I think, well, I know, this is why diets don't work, because we feel like we have to give up all the joyful things about food. And it's not just about food, it's about what food represents to us. Like, you know, for me, you know, getting together with my mom and everybody there, and her making her braciole, and her, you know, the pasta, and even though I don't eat a lot of this food, I like seeing it, Because it represents what my family is, right? So, that, I mean, your culture and how you've been brought up, food represents so much. So we can't we cannot deprive ourselves. We can not have ice cream for the rest of our lives. We just can't, because life is short. And once we as human beings feel deprived, We don't stop the longing and craving for it. And eventually, we just cave and we binge. That's what we do. And when we have that binge, we get so down on ourselves, we just cascade deeper and deeper into that. And then, before you know, 6 months goes by, and you've gained all your weight back, you formed a new stone by that time. I mean, you know, If you just enjoyed yourself and got right back on your plan with your next meal choice or the next day, you're going to find out that if you do that enough, you're you're not going to want to splurge as much, because you get really used to a lower sodium well, lower sugar, you never, meaning sugar always tastes amazing, but salt, you will notice within a couple weeks, you'll be like, "Oh, my god, that's so salty. Yuck!" Believe me. I know y'all are like, "Whatever, girl." But for real, that's what happens. Sugar, again, is a whole different ballgame. Sugar is always delightful. But salt is not. It tastes bitter on your tongue. So, once you start getting right back on your plan every time you do have a little bit of something, you just get a different perspective. It feels good to feel good. It's amazing. You feel strong, you feel energetic, you feel People are like, "How are you so old and this energetic?" Because I eat well, I exercise, I am creating energy for this body to move, baby, to think, to do, right? So, when you feed your body junk All the time, well, you're not giving yourself energy. It's simple input ex- ex- whatever, input, output, right? Right? So, I'm inputting really healthy things into my body most of the time, and I'm moving my body. That creates energy. And then I sleep well, because I've done all those things, right? And that creates energy. So, all of my I surround Myself with people that bring joy to my life. All of those kinds of things. So, that's where my energy comes from, okay? So, all I'm saying is it's very important and we should be eating responsibly. We can't take We can't take this for granted. So, can you go out to eat on the Kidney Stone Diet? Please do. The only thing I ask is, please get back on track after you do that. That's all. That's all I'm asking. That is very doable. I can expect that from you guys. 00:17:21 Jeff Sarris I think that's a perfect note to end on. So, if you have a question, the number is 773-789-8763, and we would love to hear from you, feature you on a future episode. And if you want to dive deeper, you can go to kidneystonediet.com where you can find everything, all the free resources, the weekly email newsletter, the meal plans, the Course, the new project little project that's coming out soon that we're in the process of finishing up, but everything is at kidneystonediet.com. And yeah, we really appreciate each and every one of you, all of your support on Patreon, on the on YouTube with the comments and subscribing and liking, just everything across the board. It means the world to us. We really appreciate it, and every little bit is helping us reach more people with the scientifically valid Information that people deserve, especially when they're dealing with something so severe and scary as kidney stones. But I think with that, we will wrap for this week. Thank you again, everyone, for listening and watching, and we will see you next time. 00:18:27 Jill Harris Bye, everybody. Thank you!