Removing oxalate won’t prevent kidney stones!

In this episode, Jeff Sarris and Jill Harris discuss effective strategies for preventing kidney stones through dietary changes and lifestyle adjustments. They emphasize the importance of hydration, understanding oxalate-rich foods, and setting achievable goals for long-term success. The conversation highlights the need for consistency rather than perfection in dietary habits, encouraging listeners to enjoy their lives while making mindful choices to reduce kidney stone risk.

Takeaways

• You have to take away five foods: almonds, spinach, chia seeds, cashews, and Swiss chard.
• Start with hydration; aim for two and a half liters of fluid daily.
• Lower sodium intake to 1500-2000 mg per day.
• Focus on one dietary goal at a time for better results.
• Consistency is key; it’s not about being perfect.
• You can still enjoy fun foods while managing your diet.
• Understanding food labels is crucial for dietary management.
• The kidney stone diet allows for various lifestyles, including keto.
• Don’t give up; setbacks are part of the journey.
• Resources are available at kidneystonediet.com for guidance.

00:00 Introduction to Kidney Stone Prevention
00:30 Understanding the Basics of Kidney Stone Diet
04:18 Setting Goals for Kidney Stone Prevention
08:37 The Importance of Consistency in Lifestyle Changes

Do You Want to Prevent Kidney Stones But Have No Idea Where to Even Begin?

Jeff Sarris (00:00):
I mean, how do you prevent kidney stones? But the big thing is there’s so much more to it than oxalate. So where does someone even begin? Like maybe they are brand new and if you are, welcome, if you want more weekly emails, go to kidneystonediet.com, but we’ll talk about that more later, but someone brand new here who knows nothing about preventing kidney stones, where should they begin?

The Overwhelming Start

Jill (00:30):
This is probably, you know, I have a Facebook group called the Kidney Stone Diet and there’s thousands and thousands of people on it. And I think this has to be the number one thing. “How,” or when I’m doing private consults, “Jill, I don’t know where to begin.” This is where you guys came from. You got this pain, you didn’t know what the hell was going on. Maybe you thought you were gardening, you pulled something because we’re all old. You’re like, “Well.”

But then it gets really bad. You’re like, “Oh my God, this ain’t normal. I got to go to the ER.” And then the next thing you know, you’re being whisked away into a urologist’s office and you have to have a surgery and a stent and all the things. And now you’re just being thrown a list and the internet has all this conflicting information. ChatGPT is still saying to have almonds for Pete’s sake. So you don’t even know what’s going on.

The Six Goals System

So where do you start? How do you start preventing kidney stones? You go to kidneystonediet.com and you’re going to see there’s six goals to preventing kidney stones. And so there’s fluids, there’s lowering sodium, there’s lowering added sugar, there’s eating moderate amounts of meat protein if you eat meat. You want to get your calcium needs met and you don’t want to overeat spinach and almond products anymore.

So there’s six major goals, but it’s very overwhelming when you came from keto or paleo or low carb or Mediterranean or whatever you were coming from, Weight Watchers, and now you have to learn a whole new program. You really don’t. You can do whatever lifestyle you want if you fit into the goals at kidneystonediet.com. The water, the calcium, the meat, the sugar, the salt and the oxalate. We have specific goals. You can stay on keto. You do have to get rid of spinach and almond products, which is why a lot of keto people get kidney stones. Everything is almond meal, almond flour, almond milk, and so on. Snacks are almonds and nobody’s getting any calcium needs met.

Step One: Remove These Five Foods

So where do you start? Number one, know this. You have to take away, I think, five foods. Almonds, all almond things, almond products, almond flour, almonds, almond meal, almond milk. You must take away those. They’re too high in oxalate. You must take away spinach, hundreds of milligrams of oxalate. You need to take away chia seeds. Why? Because you’re all eating them every single day. Okay, so those are very high in oxalate. Harvard did not study them, but we know from every other list that it’s high in oxalate. Get rid of chia seeds, get rid of cashews. Why Jill? Because you can’t eat just two of them. They’re also very high in oxalate. And get away from, also what else is there? There is Swiss chard, is in the spinach family. That’s very high in oxalate.

Everything else folks, from beets to sweet potatoes to all the other things you can eat within moderation. Most of you got kidney stones because you overate those five foods every single day without getting calcium needs met.

Start One Goal at a Time

So where do you first start? You get rid of those few foods, kiss them goodbye. Everything else, now I want you to start one goal at a time. Start with water. You’ll see that the goal is to drink enough fluid so you pee two and a half liters a day. That’s the minimum. Then you’ll go to salt. Why? Because salt is one of the hardest things. The goal is 1500 to 2000 milligrams a day in sodium. Most of you are eating three, four, five, six thousand milligrams of sodium a day. So I say start with fluids. Get something under your belt that you can do so then you get motivated to do the rest. Most of you cannot change all six of those things. You can’t. It is too overwhelming.

So take away the highest oxalate foods. You’ll be done with the oxalate part of this. Get your fluids needs met. Get your fluids needs met. Then go to salt. Then go to calcium. Then go to the added sugar part. Then go to meat protein if you eat meat. And then go to oxalate. But see, you already took care of oxalate because you’re getting away with those few foods.

So if you do it in that order and just focus on one goal, say every two weeks, just focus on a goal, or you may say, “I could do more than one thing at a time, Jill.” Okay, here’s what I would say. Get your fluid needs met and start looking at sodium. Turn it around, Buster Brown, and look at those labels so you can even understand where your sodium is coming from.

Reading Labels Is Crucial

You go out to McDonald’s for breakfast, there’s a thousand milligrams of sodium in that sausage egg McMuffin. You don’t even realize it. It’s a little bitty muffin, but there’s a crap load of salt in there. So even just looking at your labels, starting with water, then looking at your labels so you can see what you’re putting in your mouth. A lot of you have just been trained, especially with low carb, just to look at sugar. Most of those products that are really low in sugar, they stuffed a heck of a lot of salt in there because they got to taste good otherwise people don’t buy it. And if you have a low salt product, typically they’re putting a little bit more sugar in there. So look at your whole label. That label will tell you everything that you’re putting in your body so you know, look at ingredients. It’s very helpful.

So starting with one goal at a time, instead of feeling like you have to change your whole life, is going to be much easier for most of you. And go to kidneystonediet.com. We have the blog, we have articles. What is the kidney stone diet? How do I do this? Where should I start? We have a whole start page. So you don’t have to guess anymore. But if I were looking at all of this, I would start with one goal at a time. I would practice that goal for a couple of weeks, then start a new goal.

Portion Not Perfection

And here’s the thing too folks, you’re not gonna be perfect at any of this. Get that word out of your mind. This is all about portion. This is not about being perfect. Consistency looks like this. Consistency is not like this. And if you’re not looking at me because you’re just listening on Spotify or whatever, consistency does not always go up. You’re not always excelling. It goes all over. Monday you had a great day. Tuesday you were at a party and so you ate like crap. But Wednesday you got back on track. That’s consistency. Thursday not so much, Friday not so much, but Saturday back on track. That’s consistency. Not giving up is consistency.

It’s when we say, we had a ding-dong and we just like, “I’m disgusting. I can’t do anything.” And we just throw the baby out with the bath water. Don’t do that. Consistency is not perfection. When it comes to lifestyle, you’re going to have ice cream, folks. You’re going to have potato chips sometimes. You’re going to have these things. That’s part of living life. You’ve also got to enjoy fun foods. The only thing I ask is you get back on track. We don’t give up at Kidney Stone Diet. We do not give up. If it’s one thing Jeff and I don’t do in our life, we don’t give up. We don’t. I don’t believe in that. And I know Jeff well enough to know that he doesn’t either, because there’s plenty of times that he and I both could have given up.

Jeff Sarris (08:29):
Mm-hmm.

The Key to Long-Term Success

Jill (08:37):
I promise you with whatever we’re trying to change. But if you really do want change, in your case, I know you do because you never want to have another stent again. You never want to have another surgical bill. You never want to go through that pain. What I’m telling you, I think the biggest, the most, the best advice that people take from me is portion not perfection. Have a little bit of something. You know, on all these diets that we’ve tried our whole life, they say if you have this “boop” it’s over with and then we give up. That’s not true. Birthdays, Christmas, holidays, all the things, vacations. What are you supposed to eat cotton for seven days on a cruise? What the hell people? We got to live our life and as soon as we can we get back on track. That’s how we do lifestyle change. We practice it for the rest of our life. For the rest of our life.

The reason you get fat, you lose weight, you get fat again, you lose weight, is because you can’t sustain these lifestyle choices. So what I’m telling you is you enjoy your life, have a great day, eat some fun foods, get right back on track, not wait until next Monday, right back on track. And I’m telling you, the reason people are successful is that clicks in their mind for the first time. They don’t vilify food. Yes, I take away about five foods for the oxalate portion, but everything else is on your plate.

Notice I don’t take away one fruit. You all are limiting yourselves too much. So you have to start small. Start with water, then go to salt, then go to sugar, calcium, whatever. Do one goal at a time. Master it as best you can and know that you will be practicing these goals for the rest of your life. Go to kidneystonediet.com. Everything you need is right there free for you. And then, of course, the paid services too. You’ll get there a hell of a lot faster, but everything is at kidneystonediet.com.

Jeff Sarris (10:38):
Yeah. And if you’re ready to prevent them for good and want the premium care right at the top of the site, you’ll find a link to premium care. You can find the all access pass. It gets you access to absolutely everything, including direct access to Jill. So it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re new here and have not been there yet. But I think with that, we will wrap. Thanks again for tuning in and we’ll see you next time.

Jill (10:50):
Yes. Make it a great week everybody. Bye!