Tag: Maintaining weight

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Maintaining Weight with Chronic Kidney Disease: Every Pound Matters

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Yesterday, I stepped on the scale and discovered that I had lost nearly three pounds.

For many people, that might sound like good news. Maintaining weight with chronic kidney disease can be challenging.

For me, it is exactly the opposite.

Maintaining a healthy weight has become one of the more challenging parts of living with chronic kidney disease. The difficulty is not simply eating more. It is eating more without eating the wrong things.

If I had no dietary restrictions, the solution would be fairly straightforward. After running, strength training, and mowing our steep backyard, I could simply increase my protein intake to help my body recover.

Unfortunately, protein is one of the nutrients my kidneys struggle to process.

That means every meal requires a balancing act.

Last year, after struggling to maintain my weight for quite some time, my nephrologist gave me permission to increase my daily protein intake slightly. Before then, I ate only about 36 grams of protein each day.

It was a welcome adjustment.

Even so, moderation remains essential.

Protein is only one part of the equation. Potassium, phosphorus, and sodium also require close attention. Foods that many people think of as healthy—such as bananas or melon—can become foods that I have to enjoy only occasionally.

Living with kidney disease often means making decisions that seem backward to everyone else.

Our current approach comes from years of careful adjustments.

When I suffered my brain hemorrhage, doctors also discovered that my kidneys had already deteriorated to Stage 5 chronic kidney disease—the point where dialysis or a kidney transplant often becomes necessary. No one could fully explain why my kidneys had declined so severely. I had always exercised regularly and paid close attention to my diet.

My wife and I refused to give up.

Working closely with my doctors, we gradually adjusted medications, refined my diet, and monitored my health as carefully as possible. Over time, my kidney function improved enough that I moved into Stage 3. Today, I generally fluctuate between Stage 3 and Stage 4.

That may not sound dramatic, but to us, it represents years of consistent effort.

My long-term goal is simple.

I hope to preserve my kidney function for as long as possible. Medical research continues to advance, and every year brings new possibilities. If I can keep my kidneys functioning well enough for long enough, future treatments may offer options that don’t exist today.

That thought gives me hope.

This morning brought some encouraging news.

I had regained nearly two of the three pounds I had lost yesterday, putting me right at the lower edge of my target weight range.

I would still like to gain a little more, but I no longer feel as though I am drifting into unhealthy territory.

Sometimes progress isn’t dramatic.

Sometimes it is simply watching the scale move in the right direction while knowing that you protected your health along the way.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll step on the scale again.

Hopefully, it decides to continue cooperating.

After all, the scale and I have been negotiating for quite a few years now, and I would appreciate it if it finally became a little more reasonable.

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Maintaining Weight with Kidney Disease: A Small Victory After Lawn Mowing

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

After finishing today’s lawn mowing, I stepped onto the scale and was greeted by a pleasant surprise. I had finally climbed back into my target weight range. Maintaining weight in kidney disease can be challenging.

Admittedly, I am still hovering near the lower end of that range, but after several weeks of watching the numbers drift downward, I’ll gladly celebrate a small victory.

Summer has a way of turning my weight into a moving target.

Our backyard is built on steep hills, so mowing the lawn is far more demanding than simply walking behind a mower on level ground. If I attempted to finish the entire yard in one session, it would take somewhere between five and six hours.

That is less “yard work” and more “accidental endurance event.”

Before I took over the mowing, my wife managed it herself using a hand-push mower. Looking back, I honestly wonder how she did it while working full-time. She often had to divide the job over several days simply because there weren’t enough hours or enough energy in a single evening.

As my own endurance gradually improved, I began taking over the mowing.

My schedule is considerably more flexible than hers. Although my wife also works from home, her workdays leave little opportunity for yard work except on weekends and holidays. In fact, she used to spend much of her vacation time catching up on outdoor chores.

Now that I handle the mowing, she finally has more time to devote to other projects, and perhaps even enjoy a weekend once in a while.

Of course, mowing the lawn introduces another challenge for me.

Because of my kidney condition, I have to limit my protein intake, making it much harder to replace the calories burned during strenuous activity. At the same time, years of regular exercise have gradually increased my muscle mass. I now carry more than 120 pounds of muscle while my total body weight stays between about 145 and 148 pounds.

Muscle, unfortunately, is wonderfully demanding.

It happily burns calories all day long while politely ignoring the fact that I cannot simply eat everything in sight.

Managing my diet requires constant adjustment. Last year, I even discovered that eating too much melon negatively affected my lab results. Since then, I have become much more careful about rotating foods instead of relying too heavily on any single item. Living with kidney disease often means thinking several steps ahead of every meal.

For quite some time, maintaining my weight has felt like trying to fill a bucket with a tiny leak.

Progress comes slowly.

Sometimes very slowly.

That is why today’s number on the scale felt so satisfying.

It may seem like only a few pounds, but those pounds represent careful planning, disciplined eating, regular exercise, and learning how to work with my body instead of against it.

Now I have one small hope.

That tomorrow’s morning run doesn’t immediately erase all of today’s hard-earned progress.

If it does, I will proceed with the scale and continue our ongoing negotiations.

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