BHB 5.1 mmol Too high?

(Michael O'connell) #1

High all,

I am Mick from Brisbane Australia.

I have been on the keto diet for 35 days now, I have been in ketosis for atleast 30 days, I am generally in the range of 2- 2.5mmol, sometimes dropping as low as 0.7 and as high as 3.1. I have dropped around 10kg (from 107kg to 97kg)

My macros are good, average around 70% fats, 5% fat, 25% protein. I am restricting calories to around 1800 per day.

I have just checked my ketones using bloodtest metre and I have a reading of 5.1! with a blood sugar of 4 mmol. (blood sugar usually 3.9-5.4)

Is this ketone level too high? I have started including more and more exercise over the past 2 weeks. I had a HIT bootcamp session this morning for the first time since ive been on the diet, was tough but felt great today.

I would appreciate the thoughts of those who have been in keto for a while? Is this a normal reading for someone who has conducted vigorous excercise and is restricting calories? I am going to retest in an hour or two to check my readings.

Thanks

Mick

(Todd Allen) #2

I wouldn’t worry about it unless you are experiencing adverse effects such as light headedness or nausea. If you feel off it should be fairly easy to bring your ketones lower by backing off on your restrictions of carbs or total calories for a day or two.

Restricting calories more than you are used to doing can drive ketones higher. The first couple times I did extended fasts beyond 3 days my ketones went high enough to max out all my testing devices, blood meters just read HI (> 8.0 mmol/l) and my breath meters went to 0.199% BAC the highest reading they can give. Suffered no ill effects other than my wife’s complaints about my breath. But with each successive fast my ketones have spiked less and now it is rare for me to go over 5 mmol/l. From what I’ve read it is fairly typical for ketones to spike less easily as one becomes more thoroughly fat adapted. A possibility I’ve speculated about but haven’t seen any data for is that maybe when one has significant fat stores in their liver it might pump out ketones faster but as liver fat depletes (a good thing) ketone production eases and skeletal muscle and other tissues which can switch to running directly on fatty acids.

(Michael O'connell) #3

Thanks for the response Todd. No adverse effects. I re-tested ~ 1.5hrs later and was down to 4.5mmol, this morning I has at 3.9mmol, so they appear to be coming down.

I am interested in the affect of exercise, the main differential factor to my day yesterday was the incorporation of high intensity exercise. I will continue to monitor and see how my body reacts.

I have been reading through posts on this forum and many people in ketosis appear to have low range readings, with my BHB levels typically being in the 2-3 mmol range and now up to 5.1mmol, I was wondering why I am getting such high readings. I suppose everyone is different and I am restricting cals as well as excercise so that may be a factor.

Interesting speculation regarding liver fat, may be something worth investigating.