No, they are not inflated. They are typical.
They may go down later if you stay ketogenic long term.
The decrease, if nothing else changes, is due to more of your body tissues adopting ketones as fuel, and a higher percentage of each tissue will be using ketones as well.
At that point you will either know you body and how to avoid carbs well enough it will not matter or you can adopt a ketone meter to know what is actually in your blood.
Thanks so much for the education. So, do you think it’s okay for me to experiment with a net carb diet at this point as long as I closely monitor my ketone level?
You are welcome.
I think it is ok for you to cautiously modify what you are doing while monitoring your ketone status to comply with YOUR GOALS.
I don’t worry much about ‘net carbs’ because FIBER is largely indigestible but some of it may be.
Also sugar alcohols are NOT totally benign.
Some smart people I follow says to count the sugar alcohols and fiber as 50% of the value.
Also sugar alcohols are NOT totally benign.
Some smart people I follow says to count the sugar alcohols and fiber as 50% of the value.
Would you please elaborate on this. I haven’t heard anything about sugar alcohols.
I don’t know much about sugar alcohols. We’ll have to research them.
Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_alcohol
Expect anything that ends in “ol” is one of them but these are common sweeteners in sugar free candy and such:
Again, you must learn the 100 names for sugar and perhaps the 200 names for sugar substitutes.
I have always (40 years) followed this rule:
Sugar alcohols may not stop your ketosis but they will DELAY it (as with ordinary alcohol).
Erythritol is probably the most benign though some people think that anything that even TASTES SWEET will cause your brain to send signals which interfere with ketosis and your weight loss (I am not convinced but I am aware of it and try to be a bit careful.)
Being a sugar addict I LIKE SWEET so I am willing to chance the sugar-free sweeteners UP TO A POINT so that I can enjoy the flavor and avoid carbs.
I am also pretty much living proof there is no “lethal dose” of artificial sweeteners.
But that is just me…
I used mine for about 2 weeks. Then I gave them to a friend starting keto. If your serious about sticking with keto invest in a blood ketone meter.
The meter is better, but the sticks are still useful and every beginner should have them and use them.
Even now, my wife and I use our sticks because we can do them several time per day and they cost a fraction of the price of the meter strips.
0.08 compared with 0.50 to a $1.
They are also slightly more portable; put a few in your pocket.
In any case, beginners need SOME FORM OF DEFINITE FEEDBACK and both of these will work to prove the choice of foods they are making is effective.
Strips are useful for beginners, they give u confirmation of ketosis and feedback which u can link to the feelings u are having and then build a mental profiles of when u are in ketosis, when u arent or when uve been kicked off. I still use strips myself after 2-3 years of doing ketosis on and off and i still find them useful for confirming ketosis (only for that tho) and they also only cost around 5 bucks for 50 test strips.
People who praise that strips are completely useless often dont realize the value they have for beginners cause they arent noobs anymore themselves. The positive psychological effect alone of having something confirm you ur doing things right plays a big role when someone is giving a chance for something new they know very little about.
I’m glad I bought a blood ketone monitor, but I’ll probably still use the pee strips more often. For me, I never felt any different so I was worried that maybe I was missing something. The pee strips were reassuring. So if you’re a beginner like me I definitely recommend them, to answer my own question.
Glad to see all the support for the strips.
I’ve been using them for 40 years – when we didn’t have ketone meters or electric lights or indoor plumbing.
Also, I am running a limited experiment (my wife and I) so if you use both strips and urine sticks please let me know how much they correlate for you – and what stage you are in ketosis.)
So far, my DEEP KETOSIS 14 day fast and my wife’s new return to ketogenic diet correlate perfectly with the meters (as much as the accuracy of the sticks allows.)
Glad to see all the support for the strips.
I’ve been using them for 40 years – when we didn’t have ketone meters or electric lights or indoor plumbing.
Herb had to walk uphill (both ways) in the snow to pee on his sticks! 
I use a blood tester and track my Glucose Keytone Index, l’ve had no luck with the strips.
If you are in ketosis and have a very tight handle on carb counts - then the pee sticks aren’t really needed. As you say they’re only good in the early days.
Once you’re burning your own body fat, losing weight, lower appetite … you know you’re in ketosis then pee sticks don’t add value.
I did catch hidden carbs with a blood analyser so I can’t say that was useless. I would’ve sworn there could not be any hidden carbs with me, I’m super careful, blah blah blah, but … Lo and behold …
Some people know they have fallen out of ketosis, they speak of “dizziness”, “feeling sick” - I don’t know but I felt no different. Just put on 2lbs that week and keto meter said 0.2 mM
“If you are in ketosis” and “no luck with strips”.
IF you are a beginner you do NOT KNOW you are in ketosis then you don’t need ‘luck’ you need positive (or negative) feed back.
If you are in ketosis and a beginner you NEED a method to detect that.
A meter will work but they are relatively expensive and quite unnecessary even though they are quite nice to have.
They are a lot more expensive and each test is far more expensive. (about 10 times.)
**Sticks will do it too. **
If you can turn the stick purple you are almost certainly losing weight, but you are definitely in ketosis.
If you get a negative strip test the you are almost certainly not losing weight and not in ketosis.
As the strip darkens from light pink through rosy you are more probably doing it effectively.
**If you can’t make the strip very rosy, TIGHTEN YOUR diet to exclude more carbs. **
Stop counting, just don’t eat them until you can get the stick at least very rosy.
Get in ketosis on the meter then check the urine strip. You will pee pink to purple in relation to what the meter shows unless PERHAPS you have been in ketosis so many weeks.
The beginners need them and everybody can use them.
Stop trying to convince beginners they don’t work you are HARMING THEM.
Stop trying to convince people that wasting money is a smart thing to do.
I think that statement is a little hyperbolic. (OKAY, A LOT!)
If you are limiting your carbs to 20g/day or even zero, losing weight, feeling more energetic, and less hungry, you are most certainly in ketosis.
Pee strips can be an effective tool to determine nutritional ketosis, but NOT using them is far from “harming” anyone.
I’ll defer arguing if I am wrong or you are wrong but break it down simply:
If I am wrong they are out $8.
If folks trying to stop them from using a generally effective too are wrong then people may walk away from keto, a very effective way to stop diabetes & metabolic syndrome.
So PLEASE don’t do that. There is no upside in discouraging their use.
Look at the title of this thread, ‘Are pee strips worthless?’
That was cause by someone telling people the are worthless or by failure to explain how to make them effective.
If they use them and don’t need them they’ll be fine but the other way around they fail.
The only people who might be harmed by not using urine ketone testing are people who do not produce insulin & have no other method of testing for ketones.
I need to know what you mean by two words here: “harm” and “need”.
Both imply something that, in my opinion, ketone test strips do not apply to. If I didn’t know the subject of this thread, I’d think you were talking about condoms.
Better safe than sorry. Is that what your argument boils down to?
To a large extent yes.
They will be needed for more than half.
They will work for almost all.
If they don’t work they will do $8 worth of damage.
Better safe than sorry.