Ketone and Glucose Number Review

(Michael) #1

Hi,

First of all, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude towards everyone that makes this forum possible. There is such a treasure trove of information here.

I started doing Keto exactly 4 weeks ago. I didn’t realize it had been a month until I pulled up the Keto app I use to track my macros. My starting weight was 274. Today’s weight was 267 but I have been as low as 261 over the 4 week span. All of the weight came off in the first two weeks. Since then I’ve been losing and regaining the same 6 pounds. But I understand that is to be expected. I’ve not entered the fat adaptation phase yet?

The first two weeks on keto were beyond awesome. I had energy, my mood was great, my cravings were gone, I was eating what I wanted and feeling fantastic.

The past two weeks have been slightly worse. I find myself feeling less energetic and my cravings have returned. But I’m still maintaining the keto diet. So even though I am constantly feeling the urge to snack I’m able to limit that and when I do snack it is on keto foods.

I have found, without fail, that my glucose is always quite a bit higher first thing in the morning but I’ve read that for some people that is normal and not an indication of something bad. During the day my blood sugar levels are usually in the 90’s.

My highest Ketone reading ever was 2.4 though I should add that I just began monitoring my Ketone levels by blood on 12/15 so I don’t have the data for the first two weeks. My Ketone levels during the day are typically 1.0 to 1.6. Besides that one time I’ve never made it past 1.6. Is that something that should be of concern? Do I need to be reaching higher levels of Ketones?

I guess I’m just asking what everyone asks when they are starting out. Am I doing this right? Am I on the right track? Anything I should change at this early stage?

Thank you,
Michael

#2

Hi Michael,

Welcome. Don’t we wish we knew about all this earlier, in my case 2 decades ago …

I like to measure things, so I was measuring ketones but they fluctuate throughout the day, one day I had 0.4 mM at 10AM and thought I had lost it - but then at 10PM on the same day it was 1.3mM. Found some papers with charts, yep up and down, that’s how it works.

As for the 1.6 mM reading that is not high and nothing to be worried about. A reading of 5 or 10 would be an issue.

The same applies to weight, your body only regulates water to +/- 2L (4.4lbs) so it’ll bounce about all day. Take an average or something like that over time.

My favourite metric is belt notch position, I’ve gone down 2 or 3 in the past month so I feel it’s progress.

But it can feel like it’s all stalled if I watch everything moment by moment … it’s monthly progress which
matters …

Mood, yeah, it’s all over the place. When people are sagging in energy and I’m still powering on they have misunderstood me to be too forceful or perceived me as moody but internally I was rather chirpy, strange misunderstandings. I just thing its the big difference in energy levels, I’m up, they’re down … mix up.

Cheers.

(John) #4

My recollection of my first weeks was:
Weeks 1 and 2 - lost a good bit, maybe 10 pounds.
Week 3 - Stall - no real change on the scale
Week 4 - Slight regain in first part of week. Hunger suppression finally kicked near the end of week 4.
Week 5 - Lost the week 4 regain and some more

Week 6 - 8 is where everything seemed to normalize overall - normal energy levels, body seemed to have adjusted to what I was doing.

My recommendation is to commit to 6 weeks of strict keto eating, and evaluate your overall progress then. Not just scale weight, but belt notches.

I don’t have a blood meter so I never check glucose or blood ketones, so I can’t answer your questions about those numbers.