October 2016. My GP flagged my kidney function at eGFR 66 — Stage 2 chronic kidney disease, put on monitoring. I was doing everything right. Taking all six medications as prescribed. Following the guidance to the letter.
My kidneys were still getting worse.
I’ve been tracking my NHS blood results since 2012 — data going back to 2012. What happened between that eGFR 66 and March 2024 — when the reading came back at over 90, excellent function — is what this post is about. Not a protocol. Not a prescription. Just one person’s documented data, and four things it taught me that I think are worth knowing.
[Note to Neil: Add YouTube embed once video is published]
What Conventional Medicine Actually Says About Declining eGFR
I want to be fair here, because the guidance exists for good reason.
The NHS position on declining kidney function is well-established. Keep protein moderate. Avoid dehydration. Eat little and often to manage the filtration load. Monitor regularly. If you’re on medication that could stress the kidneys — statins, NSAIDs, certain blood pressure drugs — manage doses carefully.
The logic behind low protein is straightforward. Your kidneys filter the waste products of protein metabolism. Think of them like a water treatment plant — if the plant is struggling, you reduce what’s flowing through the pipes. Less load, less stress. Makes sense. I understood it. I accepted it.
And the frequent small meals follow the same reasoning. Steady, manageable input. Don’t overwhelm a system already under pressure.
I was on six medications when that eGFR 66 reading came back. Statins. Ezetimibe. Allopurinol for gout. Asthma inhalers. Antihistamines. The conventional approach was: manage the conditions, monitor the kidney numbers, adjust as needed. That’s what we did.
The thing is — I believed it. Completely. I wasn’t questioning it. I was doing exactly what I was told.
NHS data going back to 2012 — The Numbers Before
Let me walk you through this properly. Because it took years, not months.
April 2012. First recorded eGFR: 72. Normal range. Kidneys working well. Already on medications for cholesterol and gout, but kidney function was fine.
Over the next four years, that number drifted. Not dramatically. But consistently in the wrong direction.
August 2014: eGFR 72. Holding, just about. September 2015: eGFR 69. Moving the wrong way. October 2016: eGFR 66. Stage 2 CKD flag. Monitoring started. That’s WMTWL-EVID-146.
Now — and I’m not going to hide this — two months later in December 2016, the same GP ran another kidney test using a different formula. CKD-EPI rather than MDRD. Result: 73. Back in normal range on paper.
Two readings. Two months apart. Two different formulas. 66 versus 73.
I’m flagging this because leaving it out wouldn’t be honest. What I can say is: my GP flagged it, the monitoring started, and the trend from 2012 to 2016 was clearly downward — 72, 69, 66 — across four years on medication.
Then something happened in 2020. July: eGFR 85. August: eGFR 82. Better — noticeably better. I was still on all six medications at that point, so I can’t give you a clean explanation. 2020 was COVID. I was home. Cooking from scratch. Whole foods. No commuting, no stress eating, no processed convenience food. Maybe the medication finally did its job after years. Maybe the whole food cooking made the difference. Probably both. I genuinely can’t say with certainty.
By December 2023 the reading was 77. Still on medication for two more months. Then March 2024 — first test after stopping everything — over 90.
What I Changed — And Why I’m Being Honest About How It Happened
October 31st, 2023. I was deducted from my GP surgery on the Isle of Wight when I changed address. All prescriptions ended that day, administratively.
I had some remaining medication stock and used it through to roughly February 2024. At that point, the medications simply ran out. I was in a new area, new GP. I made the decision not to request new prescriptions. I felt well — better than I had in years. I wanted to see what the data showed without medication in the picture.
I want to be clear: I did not have a formal GP consultation about stopping. That’s the honest version. What I did do is register with my new GP — Boston Spa Surgery — and book blood tests promptly to see where things stood.
Starting Boxing Day 2023, I began fasting properly. Ten days water-only first — that was the reset. Then what settled into roughly 17:7 fasting on average. One main eating window. Real food. Nothing processed. Eggs, fish, meat, vegetables, lentils, oats, fermented foods. Not calorie-counted. Just whole food, eaten in a window.
Movement was daily but not intense. Walks. Nothing a gym would be impressed by. A few squats at home. That’s it.
No kidney specialist. No low-protein protocol. No frequent small meals. Quite the opposite.
The Numbers After — What My GP Said
March 7th, 2024. First blood test at Boston Spa Surgery. Fasting sample.
eGFR: over 90. Excellent function.
October 2016: 66. March 2024: over 90. That’s WMTWL-EVID-146.
And it held.
January 2025: over 90. Sustained. April 2025: eGFR 88 — a small dip, but well within excellent range. November 2025: back over 90. Sustained again.
That’s twenty-plus months of excellent kidney function after years of monitoring.
Creatinine improved too. Creatinine is the waste product your kidneys filter — the higher the reading, the harder they’re working. In 2016 my creatinine was 115, outside normal range. March 2024: 78, back to optimal. WMTWL-EVID-107. A 13% improvement in the first month after stopping medication.
My GP at Boston Spa Surgery reviewed those results. The reaction was — paraphrasing — that what I’d been doing was clearly working, keep going. Understated. But for me it meant a lot. The numbers weren’t a fluke. They held up test after test.
I should also tell you what didn’t improve. Ferritin — iron levels — has been a real challenge. December 2023: 141, normal. January 2025: 18.4, iron deficient. April 2025: 8.9, severely deficient. That’s a separate story and I’ll cover it. I mention it here because I’m not cherry-picking. The kidney data is genuinely positive. The iron data is not. Both are real.
Four Things This Data Actually Taught Me
First: what my data suggests — and what it doesn’t. In my case — one person, N=1, not a clinical trial — kidney function improved significantly after stopping six medications and switching to whole food eating within a fasting window. Whether that came from removing medication burden on the kidneys, reducing systemic inflammation through whole food and fasting, or simply the body having time to recover — I can’t say definitively. Probably some of all three.
Prof. Janet Lord at the University of Birmingham has documented that fasting reduces chronic low-level inflammation — what she calls inflammaging. That inflammation is one of the things that stresses organs over time. Less inflammation, less burden on the filters. That’s a plausible mechanism for what I experienced. But it’s a hypothesis about my case, not a prescription for yours.
Second: when conventional advice still applies. The low-protein kidney protocol exists because for people with serious, established CKD — particularly in later stages — reducing protein load genuinely helps slow progression. If your eGFR is below 45, if your GP has referred you to a nephrologist, if you have diabetic kidney disease — please follow their guidance. This is not an argument to ignore deteriorating kidney function. It’s a before-and-after story from one person who changed multiple variables at once.
Third: the prevention angle. Most people reading this won’t have had a Stage 2 CKD flag. But quite a few will have had a GP mention their eGFR is “something to keep an eye on” — numbers in the high 60s or 70s, drifting slowly. That’s the prevention-stage version of this story. The question worth raising with your GP before a monitoring protocol kicks in: what lifestyle factors might be affecting this? What can we track? That conversation is easier to have at eGFR 72 than at 66.
Fourth: the safety sign-off. If you’re on medication and curious about your kidney numbers, look at your recent blood tests — most will have an eGFR figure on them. Have a conversation with your GP about the trend over years, not the single number. And if you’re thinking about changing your diet, fasting pattern, or medication — do it with your GP alongside you. Not instead of them.
🎯 Key Takeaways
- The trend matters more than a single reading — One eGFR number in isolation means little; it’s the direction over years that tells the real story
- Multiple variables changed at once — Stopping six medications, switching to whole food, and fasting all happened together; there’s no clean single cause for the improvement
- Conventional low-protein advice applies in later-stage CKD — This isn’t an argument against it; eGFR below 45 or a nephrologist referral is a different situation entirely
- The prevention window matters — If your GP mentions your eGFR is “one to watch,” that’s the moment to ask what lifestyle factors could be at play
- N=1 is not a clinical trial — This is one person’s documented NHS data across 13 years; it’s evidence worth knowing about, not a protocol to copy
Want to Understand Your Own Blood Test Results?
If this post has made you want to look more closely at your own biomarkers — what eGFR means, what creatinine tells you, which numbers to track and why — the 7-Day Fasting Blueprint walks through the key metabolic markers I monitor and what I’ve learned from NHS data going back to 2012. It’s free.
👉 Get the 7-Day Fasting Blueprint (free):
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🔽 Read the Video Transcript
October 2016. Kidney function: 66. That’s Stage 2 chronic kidney disease. My GP flagged it for monitoring. I was doing exactly what I was told. My kidneys were still getting worse.”
“I’m Neil. I’ve been tracking my NHS blood results since 2012 — data going back to 2012. I was on six medications at the same time that reading came back.” “In the next ten minutes: what eGFR 66 actually means and why 66 is the number that changes your GP’s behaviour | the conventional CKD advice I was given and why I stopped following it | what I did instead | and March 2024: over 90. Excellent function. and sustained.” [First beat: “The standard CKD advice is low protein, small frequent meals, and medication management. I did the opposite of all three.”]
So what does conventional medicine actually say about kidney function?
And I want to be fair here. Because the guidance exists for good reason.
The NHS position on declining eGFR is well-established. Keep protein moderate. Avoid dehydration. Eat little and often to manage the filtration load. Monitor regularly. If you’re on medication that could stress the kidneys — statins, NSAIDs, certain blood pressure drugs — manage doses carefully. That’s the protocol. Evidence-backed. Sensible medicine.
The logic behind low protein is straightforward. Your kidneys filter the waste products of protein metabolism. If the filters are struggling, you reduce the load. Makes sense. I understood that. I accepted it.
And the frequent small meals — same idea. Steady, manageable input. Don’t overwhelm a system that’s already under pressure.
I was on six medications in October 2016 when that eGFR 66 came back. Statins. Ezetimibe. Allopurinol for gout. Asthma inhalers. Antihistamines. The conventional approach was: manage the conditions, monitor the kidney numbers, adjust as needed. That’s what we did.
The thing is — I believed it. Completely. I wasn’t questioning it. I was doing exactly what I was told.
And my kidneys were still flagging Stage 2.
Let me walk you through the numbers. Because this took years, not months.
April 2012. First recorded eGFR: 72. That’s normal range — kidneys working well. I was 40-something, already on medications for cholesterol and gout, but kidney function was fine.
Over the next four years, that number drifted. Not dramatically. But consistently downward.
August 2014: eGFR 72. Holding, just about. September 2015: eGFR 69. Moving in the wrong direction. October 2016: eGFR 66. Stage 2 chronic kidney disease. Flagged for monitoring.
That’s WMTWL-EVID-146. October 24th, 2016. My GP at the time — Middlestown Medical Centre — flagged it. The CKD monitoring protocol kicked in.
Now I need to be honest with you here. Because there’s a complicating data point I’m not going to hide.
December 2016 — two months later — the same GP ran another kidney test. Different formula. CKD-EPI rather than MDRD. Result: 73. Back in normal range on paper.
Two readings. Two months apart. Two different formulas. 66 versus 73.
I’m not going to tell you the 66 was a definitive Stage 2 diagnosis and leave out the 73. That wouldn’t be honest. What I can tell you is: my GP flagged it. The monitoring started. And the trend from 2012 to 2016 was clearly downward — 72, 69, 66 — over four years on medication.
Then something happened in 2020. July: eGFR 85. August: eGFR 82.
Better. Noticeably better. And I’m going to be straight with you — I don’t know exactly why. I was still on all six medications. But 2020 was COVID. I was home. I was cooking from scratch. Whole foods. Proper meals. No commuting, no stress eating, no processed convenience food. Maybe the meds finally worked after years. Maybe the whole food cooking made the difference. Probably a bit of both. I genuinely can’t tell you with certainty.
What I can tell you is: by December 2023, eGFR was 77. Still on the medications for two more months. Then in March 2024 — first test after stopping everything — over 90.
October 31st, 2023. I was deducted from my GP surgery on the Isle of Wight when I changed address. All prescriptions ended that day — administratively.
I had some remaining medication stock. Used it through to roughly February 2024. At that point, the medications simply ran out. I was in a new area. New GP. I made the decision not to request new prescriptions. I felt well. Better than I had in years. I wanted to see what the data showed without the medication in the picture.
I want to be clear: I did not have a formal GP consultation about stopping. That’s the honest version. What I did do is register with my new GP — Boston Spa Surgery — and book blood tests fairly promptly to see where things actually stood.
Starting Boxing Day 2023, I began fasting properly. Ten days water-only first — that was the reset. Then what evolved into roughly 17:7 fasting on average. One main eating window. Real food. Nothing processed. Eggs, fish, meat, vegetables, lentils, oats, fermented foods. Not calorie-counted. Not protein-tracked in those early months. Just whole food, eaten in a window.
Movement was daily but not intense. Walks. Leisurely ones. Light squats at home. A few sit-ups. Nothing a gym would be impressed by.
That’s it. No kidney specialist. No low-protein protocol. No frequent small meals. Quite the opposite.
March 7th, 2024. First blood test at Boston Spa Surgery. Fasting sample.
eGFR: over 90. Excellent function.
I want to let that sit for a moment. October 2016: 66. Stage 2 CKD flag. March 2024: over 90. Off the watch list.
That’s WMTWL-EVID-146.
And it didn’t stop there.
January 2025: over 90. Sustained. April 2025: eGFR 88. A small dip — but still well within excellent range. November 2025: back over 90. Sustained again.
That’s twenty-plus months of excellent kidney function. After years of monitoring. After a decade of numbers drifting the wrong way.
Now — and this matters — creatinine improved too. Creatinine is the waste product your kidneys filter. Higher creatinine, harder they’re working. In 2016 my creatinine was 115 — outside the normal range. March 2024: 78. Back to optimal. WMTWL-EVID-107. A 13% improvement in the first month after stopping medication.
My GP at Boston Spa Surgery reviewed those results. The reaction was — and I’m paraphrasing — something along the lines of what I’d been doing was clearly working, keep going. Not a dramatic moment. Understated. But for me it meant a lot. Because it validated that the numbers weren’t a fluke. They held up test after test.
I should tell you what didn’t improve. Ferritin — iron levels — have been a real challenge. December 2023: 141, normal. January 2025: 18.4, iron deficient. April 2025: 8.9, severely deficient. That’s a separate story, and I’ll cover it. But I mention it here because I’m not cherry-picking the good bits. The kidney data is genuinely positive. The iron data is not. Both are real.
So what does this mean? Four things.
First: what my data suggests. In my case — one person, N=1, not a clinical trial — kidney function improved significantly after stopping six medications and switching to whole food eating within a fasting window. Whether the improvement came from removing medication burden on the kidneys, reducing systemic inflammation through whole food and fasting, or simply the body having time to recover — I can’t say definitively. Probably some of all three. Prof. Janet Lord at the University of Birmingham has documented that fasting reduces chronic low-level inflammation. That inflammation — what she calls inflammaging — is one of the things that stresses organs over time. Less inflammation, less burden on the filters. That’s a plausible mechanism. But it’s a hypothesis about my case, not a prescription for yours.
Second: when conventional advice still applies. The low-protein kidney protocol exists because for people with serious, established CKD — particularly in later stages — reducing protein load genuinely helps slow progression. If your eGFR is below 45, if your GP has referred you to a nephrologist, if you have diabetic kidney disease — please follow their guidance. This is not an argument to ignore deteriorating kidney function. It’s a before-and-after story from one person who changed multiple variables at once. Your GP is your first conversation. Always.
Third: the prevention angle. Most people watching this won’t have had a Stage 2 CKD flag. But quite a few will have had a GP mention their eGFR is “something to keep an eye on” — numbers in the high 60s or 70s, drifting slowly. That’s the prevention-stage version of this story. The question worth raising with your GP before a monitoring protocol kicks in: what lifestyle factors might be affecting this? What can we track? That conversation is easier to have at eGFR 72 than at 66.
Fourth: the safety sign-off. If you’re on medication and you’re curious about your kidney numbers, the right move is to look at your recent blood tests — most of them will have an eGFR figure on them — and have a conversation with your GP about the trend. Not the single number. The trend over years. That’s what matters. And if you’re thinking about changing your diet, your fasting pattern, or your medication — do it with your GP alongside you. Not instead of them. With them.
If you want to understand your own blood test results — what eGFR actually means, what the numbers to watch are, and how to have a useful conversation with your GP about metabolic markers — my 7-Day Fasting Blueprint walks through the key biomarkers I track and why. It’s free. Link in the description.
One more time: everything in this video is educational content based on my personal NHS data. It is not medical advice. Never stop or change medication without your GP’s supervision. All my medication changes were my own decision — and if I were doing this again, I’d do it with proper GP oversight from day one. Speak to your GP before changing your fasting pattern, diet, or medication. Your kidney function should be monitored. Mine is. Yours should be too.
⚠️ Important: This is educational content based on evidence and personal experience. It is not medical advice. Speak to your GP before making changes to your fasting pattern, diet, or medication.
Questions? Email hello@waymorethanweightloss.com
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