Advice for a keto newbie!

newbies
(Christian) #1

Hi All,

Hoping for some advice here or direction. I’ve been keto for just on 4 weeks. Started at 102kg, now down to 97kg - importantly, feeling better - more energy to chase my 3 year old daughter!

My question is about measuring ketones. I have intermittent access to a glucose meter and have returned the following results:
Week 2: glucose 6, ketones 2.4.
Week 3: glucose 5, ketones 1.8.
Week 4: glucose 4.6, ketones 2.4.
All three I had only had a black coffee and was otherwise fasted.

Is there any merit to tracking this? Are the figures low/high? Glucose I’m happy with but ketones I’m lost and GKI I don’t fully understand.

Any advice on these would be much appreciated.

(Running from stupidity) #2

No.

(Empress of the Unexpected) #3

I track my blood glucose to see how my body reacts to certain foods. I get quite a spike from coffee, for instance, so am cutting back. Higher ketones seem to go hand in hand with lower blood glucose. Not necessary, but measuring anything to me is fun.

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #4

Not in the way you are tracking.
People track multiple times a day, upon waking, 30 min before food, 60 min after food etc.

Testing your ketones once a day makes no sense, if only just to check you’re in ketosis.
No useful data can be used with once a day testing.

#5

I agree. I tracked daily when I first started just to establish I was in Ketosis, then weekly for a while mostly as a check. These days I hardly bother with ketone measurements. Sometimes I’ll measure blood glucose similar to how @Regina does to determine how I react to different foods, measuring at 30 min, 1 hr & 2 hrs after.

#6

Absolutely 100% YES.

By tracking daily and periodically after certain food consumption, you can use the information to help decide which foods/drinks to keep away from. It also helps to decide which eating PATTERN best suits you.

By doing this myself, I found out that I cannot eat jelly (cannot remember the make. It was the one recommended here somewhere. Maybe Hartleys) and double cream or more than 1 cup of coffee with stevia or Canderel. If I didn’t monitor daily, I would probably never have found that out.

Information is king. In my opinion, if you shun information, you are not in as much control as you could be.