Am I fat adapted with trace to small ketone levels?

#1

Hi. I started my diet on Feb. 1 and have mostly been in the small ketone range (based on urine sticks). Lately, I’ve dropped into trace. I probably haven’t kept my carbs below 20 most of the time but I aim to not go much higher than 20. Wondering if I’m fat adapted even though I’m in trace to small range. I do get hungry more often than I’d hoped so perhaps not… The diet is hard for me so if it’s possible to achieve benefits (slowly?) even with trace ketones, I’d love to know that! Thanks all!

#2

They are designed for type 1 diabetics to test for waste of one kind of ketone body. Not for testing of nutritional ketosis.

#3

Thanks! Yes, I’ve heard before that the urine sticks aren’t great for monitoring. But I think in my particular case I might truly be low, because I’ve become a bit lax in limiting to 20 grams carbs. IF I am truly at trace levels, can I continue with that (more LCHF than keto I guess) and still reap the benefits of the diet? Will I eventually get to being fully fat adapted even in minimal ketosis?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #4

@Wendy198 The most important thing initially is to eat sub-20 grams of carbs per day, the fewer the better - consistently. As noted, don’t worry about ketones. They will take care of themselves as long as you maintain ketosis. The longer and more consistently you remain in ketosis, generally the easier it gets to keep doing it. Don’t worry about fat adaptation, if you keep carbs sub-20 grams per day and remain conscious, you are burning fat and ketones. Your metabolism will get more efficient doing so faster the more consistently you stay in ketosis. Best wishes.

PS: to respond to your question re LCHF rather than ketosis. Sure, low carb is better than high carb and lower carb is better than low carb. But ketosis brings with it a host of health benefits that don’t come otherwise. It’s well-worth the initial effort and you will eventually recognize that it was the best thing you ever did for yourself.

(Doug) #5

More carbs in your diet does mean less ketosis. However, testing your blood is the only real deal. If you’re being efficient with the ketones in your blood, then not many of them are being wasted in your urine. There is also substantial individual variation, i.e. even between two people who are undeniably fat-adapted and eating extremely low-carb, one may show a much higher amount of ketones in urine.

If you’re even close to being down around 20 grams a day on carbs, you’re doing something really good for yourself, here.

#6

Ok I’m convinced! I simply need to try harder to stay below 20 grams. Like I said, it’s hard for me (never loved fatty foods — except cheese…), but I think I’ve felt much better during the weeks I’ve stayed below 20 grams carbs. I was stricter in the beginning and I felt much less hunger then, too.

(Jane) #7

If you are struggling with what to eat, check out this thread - lots of good ideas so you don’t get bored eating the same food over and over. With the addition of butter, sour cream, cream and cheese to your diet there are many delicious meals you can make that are keto-friendly.

#8

Yeah- when I had over 20 g of carbs per day I usually shot myself out of ketosis. I think the higher amount of carbs are only for those who are in maintenance.
But whenever we eat more carbs we also have the detriment of increased hunger. Its the insulin.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #9

If you eat too many carbs the insulin response makes you hungrier. :cowboy_hat_face:

#10

@Janie

Can’t argue with that!! :grinning:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

As I understand things, it is important to consistently keep carbohydrate intake under a certain threshold, in order to get into and remain in nutritional ketosis. The urine strips were designed to alert Type I diabetics to the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis, so they are not always a reliable indicator of whether you are in ketosis or not. Not to mention that the body often gets more efficient about retaining ketones instead of excreting them (and not to mention problems with quality control and the calibration of a given batch of strips).

The point of avoiding carbohydrate is to keep your insulin response low, since most carbohydrates are nothing more than long strings of glucose molecules, and glucose is what stimulates an insulin response the most. Whether your goal is primarily metabolic health or primarily to lose excess stored fat, keeping your serum insulin as low as possible for as much of the day as possible is the way to go.

As David points out, if your carbohydrate intake is negligible, then you have to be in ketosis, or you’d be dead. The body needs no carbohydrate in the diet at all, being capable of manufacturing the small amount of glucose it needs from amino acids (usually) and fatty acids (at need). Too much carbohydrate in the diet (which results in too much glucose in the bloodstream) shuts off this process and halts ketogenesis, as well, which is why it is advisable to keep your carbohydrate intake as low as you can get it.

Any diet low enough in carbohydrate to qualify as low-carb, high-fat is low enough to get many, if not all, people into ketosis. Dr. Phinney’s company recommends an upper limit of 50 grams a day of carbohydrate, and Dr. Westman’s weight-loss clinic advises 30 g/day—both of them total carbohydrate intake, including fibre (if you live in North America, the carbohydrate grams on the nutrition label is the total carb amount; if you live elsewhere, you have to add the carb amount and the fibre amount to get your total carbohydrate intake). On the Ketogenic Forums, we recommend an upper limit of 20 g/day (total or net, your choice), on the basis that such a low amount guarantees success for all but the most metabolically-damaged people (who will have to eat even less carbohydrate, or even go zero-carb).

Although we can get into nutritional ketosis within a very short time of dropping our carb intake, true fat-adaptation takes a number of weeks, because the hormonal and biochemical alterations at the cellular level take time to activate. During the adaptation period, people often feel a bit lethargic, or their athletic performance is off. Once fat-adapted, however, they find themselves with more energy again, and back at or exceeding their previous performance levels.

The ketogenic diet is a very healthy and satisfying way to eat, but there are certain challenges. The first is to give up processed foods as much as possible (the sort of stuff that occupies all the shelves in the middle of the supermarket) in favor of whole foods (meats, dairy, and certain vegetables). This is actually tastier than it may sound. The second challenge is to eat enough food to satisfy your hunger (yes, this goes against all diet advice for the past forty or fifty years, but there are reasons). And the third is perhaps dealing with an addiction to sugar and other carbohydrates. But these are manageable, if you take things one day at a time.

(BuckRimfire) #12

10 to 15 weeks into doing low carb, I almost never got a convincing color on a pee stick. One morning I had a hearty low-carb breakfast, then went out sea kayaking at a hearty pace (probably burning at least 600, maybe 700 Calories per hour) for 25 miles in 6 hours. During that time I ate nothing except to drink a thermos of tea containing coconut oil and heavy whipping cream, probably about 500 to 600 calories total, all from fat. An hour later, I got the best pee stick color I ever saw while using them.

Obviously, I was very well fat-adapted by that time, but you’d have been unconvinced when looking at my pee stick results except for that one afternoon.

(BuckRimfire) #13

As far as getting hungry, I’ve found that I still tend to eat out of habit or boredom, but if I get REALLY busy at work, I can find that it’s 6 PM and I haven’t eaten since breakfast, nor thought about eating. Not something that would have happened when I was carb-fueled!

#14

Very useful information here. I’m pretty sure I’m not yet fat adapted, because I would not say my energy level is so high, and I’ve been feeling very cold — as if my body has lowered my bmr to counteract lack of calories or energy. It is so hard to get into the mindset of eating a lot of high calorie food when my whole life I’ve struggled to limit myself!

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #15

@Wendy198 Have you been limiting calories? It’s difficult to overcome the psychological conditioning of years of ‘eat less move more’ drummed into us. Keto limits carbs not calories, but it can be very difficult to accept and implement. Plus, if you have been limiting calories over a long period of time with yo-yo dieting plans that ultimately failed, you may very possibly have caused additional metabolic damage that will need to be fixed. I’m not qualified or experienced to advise, but lots of other folks on this forum are so qualified and experienced. So please permit me to get the word out to one of them @Momof5 . I’m sure she will help get input from others.

#16

I’m not exactly limiting calories but I’m also trying not to overdo it. I’ve lost about 6 pounds, mostly in the first 4 weeks. Then I stalled. I don’t have a lot more to lose — maybe 10 pounds, but I’d like to see some more progress at this point. I’m so sedentary right now that I can’t imagine I could lose weight if I was eating — for example, 2000 calories. So, I do attempt to not go above 1500. I’m 59, 5’2” and weigh 138.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #17

OK, we’re not beyond my pay grade just yet. So a couple of general observations. First, initial weight loss is mostly water. When you cut carbs and stop replenishing glucose via diet, glycogen gets used up and not replenished - and glycogen can hold 3-4 times it’s weight in water - so the water associated with glycogen vents. Second, usually the less fat you have to lose, the slower it comes off. That’s simply because when excess fat is not a big issue, other stuff takes precedence. It’s the underlying metabolic disorder that needs fixing which in turn will fix the weight. Finally, due to hormonal differences, women seem to have more problems losing weight on keto than men.

Calories in/out are at best a very imprecise measure of energy. That’s why so many on this forum advise not to concern yourself counting them. Just because 100 grams of some foodstuff yields 400 kcal of energy when burned in a calorimeter does not mean you will get 400 kcal of useful energy when you eat it. The lab sample may have had 400 kcal of energy, but the 1/4 pounder that you ate may have come from an animal that did not. If your metabolism is 75% efficient you only get 300 kcal of useful energy even if your specific 1/4 pounder had 400 total. In addition, much of the energy consumed simply becomes heat to maintain body temperature. We all know folks who can eat as much as they want and never gain weight - I was one of those people until about the age of 60 - other folks gain weight just by looking at food, let alone eating it. Calories can be a useful tool, but only if you keep their limitations in mind. The hormonal responses of your metabolism to various food inputs are far more important.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #18

First, make sure to eat enough protein. We recommend somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.0-1.5 grams a day per kilogram of lean body mass. Remember in this connexion that most meats are more or less 25% protein, so if you want 100 g of protein, you need to eat 400 g / 14 oz. of meat (that works out to about 7 g of protein per ounce, btw).

Second, make sure to eat enough calories. If you wish to use one of those online apps, be sure to set it to maintenance so that you are not skimping too much on calories. But to make sure you really get enough, eat to satisfy your hunger. You should be able to go hours between meals without needing a snack, but if you really need a snack, make sure it’s a keto one, and eat more fat at your next meal.

#19

Thanks for these suggestions! I aim to eat at least 80 grams of protein, which I mostly get at one meal from chicken or beef. I also eat an egg or two on some days. I get small amounts of protein from the dairy that I eat throughout the day, so I would say I am getting between 1 and 1.5 g per kg bodyweight. I can try to add a pat of butter to what I eat, because it is delicious and that is one form of fat that I love! Yesterday – according to the LoseIT app – I was able to get down to 23 g of carbs. But they just seem to add up so easily with 1 g here and 2 g there. Also, there is a keto bread I buy that I love, which has 4 g per slice. (I never have more than 1 slice.) I will also eliminate that for a while and see how it all goes. Thanks so much, again, for these suggestions!