So, I’ve been working on perfecting a keto diet for about 2 months now. I purchased a ketone blood monitor to help me in the process.
I cannot not get into and keep my ketone levels up. I’ve tried eliminating cheese and nuts and all dairy even heavy cream, limiting my protein and most carbs.
I have been doing IF for a long long time and am now staring the week with a 48 hour fast. After the 48 hour fast, my ketones are around 2. After my first meal, they dip to around 1.7. A normal meal would consist of chicken, konjac noodles cooked in olive oil with some type of fatty dressing.
After day 2, my ketones are at about .7. They decrease until the end of the week at about .3.
I used mct oil and exogenous supps in my tea.
Any ideas what’s wrong? I’m not loosing weight and am tired more often then not.
Any and all suggestions are welcomed!
Diminishing Ketone Levels
@Bobina1818 Greetings and welcome to the forum!
Could probably use some additional info, and more specifics to confirm you’re not letting extraneous carbs make their way into your diet, but…
Assuming that’s not the problem, then if you’re not eating carbs then you ARE in ketosis. Otherwise, after 2 months, you would not be sitting upright and typing into a computer. 
As for your ketone levels, yeah, they can wander all over the map. Mine have ranged from around 1 mg/dL to over 6 mg/dL and bounced around quite a bit in between. But as long as I wasn’t eating the carbs (which I wasn’t) it was pretty clear that I was (and remained) in a ketogenic state.
So my advice would be to relax about the BHB numbers. It sounds from your post that you’re doing everything right. Not knowing your current metabolic situation (T2D? Insulin resistance? age, gender/hormone issues, etc.) it’s hard to offer any further suggestions than to stay the course and give your body time to adapt and adjust.
Best wishes!
Are you measuring/weighing food? If not maybe you’re eating more carbs than you think. Sub-20 grams per day is a general recommendation but some folks with high insulin resistance have to go lower. If you keep the carbs consistently low enough and remain conscious and functioning then you must metabolize fat and ketones. Try to eliminate ALL carbs for a few days to see what happens.
Some carbs may be sneaking in, but I’ve made sure to eliminate all but a very small amount to make sure I remain under 20. For the past 2 weeks I’ve even eliminated vegetables. Not going to sustain that, but just trying to get into ketosis then see what I can add back and what is throwing me off.
Maybe I shouldn’t be IF??? If I have a fatty breakfast and no carbs maybe I’d get my ketones up for most of the day? Thoughts anyone?
First you probably can’t perfect the diet because your needs will change and your diet needs to evolve with that. Also 1.7-2 is dietary ketosis so you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just fine. Unless you have some medical condition that requires high ketones for therapy (cancer, epilepsy…) dietary ketosis is just fine.
What time of day are you testing? Mornings are higher glucose and lower ketones, afternoon levels will be reversed in most cases. Eating more fats generally means higher ketones. From what you wrote for your daily food I think you might be under eating. Depends on portions I guess. You might be just fine. 
I also ate Konjac and my guess is that they are responsible for the lowering of my ketones. I measured twice. I´m not totally sure, but I have the impression the Konjac noodles somehow interferes to lower the ketones.