Egg Fast and ketone levels

eggfast
#1

A friend wanted to try the egg fast so I thought I would do it with her for support and because my weight loss has plateaued. Day one went fine and at 4 pm when I checked my blood ketones they were at 0.9, pretty typical for me. I finished up the day with less than 14 g of carbs, mostly from cream cheese. I got up this morning 1.8 pounds lighter.

Today is day 2. I have continued the egg fast and I have to admit I am pretty tired of eggs already. What surprised me is that when I checked my ketones at 4 pm today they were only 0.3. Any thought on why the low ketones when I am eating so low carb?

Has anyone done the egg fast and checked blood ketones while doing it? I did not expect this ketone drop.

(Andrew) #2

The liver makes glucose from protein rather easily. How much protein are you getting?

After 1g per kg of lbm you will get in trouble.

(Mike W.) #3

How many eggs per day are you eating?

(T) #4

Yes, I’ve done a couple of these eating up to 7 eggs a day. With the added fats - tablespoon fat per egg. Repeated it cos BG levels dropped to low 60s and blood ketones up to high 3s. Was really pleased with those results and moved through a stall too. You need to drink tons of water too.

#5

Friday was 80 g of protein, 193 g fat, and 14 g carbs
Saturday was 100 g of protein 155 g fat and 14 g carbs
By the 1 g per kg formula I should be eating about 104 g a day of protein.

#6

I was eating about 8 to 10 eggs a day

#7

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I think I will do day 3 and see what happens. I was down on the scale this morning again, down a total of 3 pounds in 2 days on the fast. I was planning on breaking the fast for Christmas dinner about 5 pm tomorrow. Maybe it was just a freak occurrence or a bad reading. I also need to check the brand of cream cheese I bought for additives.

(Andrew) #8

I weight 250, but my LBM is only 150 (so says my pseudo fancy scale). I have to stay under 60g or so to have really good BG. 100g seems really high.

(Bryan Ausinheiler) #9

I think the guconeogenesis from the protein might be your culprit. I have 161lb of lean mass (from dexa) and I have to limit my protein to 80g\day to get ketones over 1mmol without MCT oil. For my fasts I do MCT and BCAA instead of protein foods.

#10

Duh… smh! I didn’t calculate it on LBM. My LBM is 125 from my recent dexafit scan which is about 56 kg so you are correct. I should be eating about 56 g of protein a day. That may very well be where I went off the rails and stopped my weight loss. The egg fast has to be higher in protein at 6-8 eggs and 1 tbsp fat for each egg as well as up to 1 oz of cheese for each egg Its a short term thing, 4 days for me, but I will more mindful of my protein as I go back on my regular diet. Thanks!

#11

Thanks Bryan, you may be right. When I first started keto in July I was more mindful of the protein levels than I am now. Losing that focus may have been what led me to the 4 week stall in weight loss

#12

And I am back to 1.6 this afternoon while still on the egg fast. Weird…

(Bryan Ausinheiler) #13

Very interesting. Perhaps your body is adapting? Are you measuring at the same time of day and same time post-meal?

#14

Yes, measuring at the same time each day, 4 pm. Maybe a bad reading?

(Damon Chance) #15

Most likely a bad reading. Home testing can be easy to throw off. I dont think eating an extra 40g of protein a day is throwing you off. Maybe, but I doubt it.

(Bryan Ausinheiler) #16

How long after your last meal was this reading? Was this an outlier? People vary a lot. I found a lot of fluctuation in my ketone levels and my body seems to be reluctant to use ketones in a fasted state but readily burns a fatty meal as ketones. After measuring only my morning ketones just after waking for over a month and getting levels from 0.4 to 0.8, I took a few measurements later in the day after fatty meals and had levels over 2.0. I didn’t start getting morning levels over 1mmol until I restricted protein. I wrote about my keto-adaptation process in preparation for my ketogenic Appalachian Trail hike on my blog https:///ketogenicbackpacking.com and posted charts of all my data if you are interested. It took me about six weeks to really produce significant ketones, while my breastfeeding wife was producing ketones without any deliberate carb or protein restriction.