I’ve been doing a Ketogenic diet for a few years, and love it. My husband has never tried it or been interested. He eats whatever he wants. Yesterday when I was checking my ketone levels he wanted me to stick his finger just out of curiosity. My levels were at 2.2 and I assumed his would be zero (Being that he eats whatever he wants). Um, his reading was at 0.6, why is that? Can a person be in Ketosis without even being on a low carb diet. Honestly, it kind of makes me a little skeptical of my blood monitor. I mean if I don’t have enough fat in my body my readings are down that low. I’ve worked so hard to eat right and stay in ketosis and this guy does nothing and gets a reading. It’s very frustrating, makes me want to give up, but I won’t!! Does anyone know what’s going on???
Ketones without Keto dieting?
I look forward to reading comments to your question! I had something similar happen to me and my hubby, but I was using a $40 ketone breath meter which I returned because I questioned its accuracy. I may now test my hubbys blood on my blood meter and see what those results are. He eats an abundance of carbs every day…chips, mac and cheese, pot pies, cookies, cakes, etc… Very fruatrating to think THAT could yield ketones in the blood for my hubby and not me!!!
LilJill: Is your husband fit and active? Someone who eats “whatever they want” but also have a strong metabolism and active lifestyle can burn up those carbs and still be in a deficit – and be in some level of ketosis.
In the same breath someone doing paleo or Whole30 can still be in ketosis even if they’re upwards 100-200 carbs a day if those being depleted.
It’ll be less ketosis, but still ketosis.
At least that’s my understanding!
Everyone tolerates carbohydrate to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how insulin-resistant they are. Dr. Phinney estimates that perhaps as many as 20% of the population may never need a ketogenic diet, because their bodies can handle the carbohydrate. Others of us, however . . . !
Your husbands may simply be among the fortunate few—for now, at least. But it could be subject to change, depending on their age and genetic predispositions.
What is known, is that above a certain level in the bloodstream, insulin inhibits ketogenesis. This is because a blood glucose level that is too high can be damaging or even fatal, so the pancreas secretes insulin in order to make metabolizing glucose a priority. So it makes sense that if insulin is trying to clear glucose from the bloodstream, it wouldn’t want the liver to keep making ketones as an alternative energy source—after all, one of the ways to get rid of extra glucose is to make the muscles either burn it or store it as glycogen.
It seems that, however much carbohydrate your husbands are consuming, they are not triggering enough insulin production to interfere with ketone production. This suggests that they are highly insulin-sensitive, so that when they eat carbohydrate, it doesn’t take much insulin, comparatively speaking, to clear the glucose from their blood, and their insulin level never rises high enough to inhibit ketogenesis for very long, if at all.
My quick thoughts about this - check before you start!
If you measure 0.6 after a few weeks but were 0.6 starting (and did not know this) you might be complaining about no change.
Moving the needle in the first few months is important to some - knowing you actually did make a change would be good.
Probably too late for most already here but could be a signal to some that - just maybe - if you constantly measure in 0.X - maybe you need to check your baseline and determine if 1.X+ is necessary if you are working toward weight loss.
This has happened to me, too. I was keto for 11 months and while I enjoyed it, my heart rate elevated no matter what I did re: salt, magnesium, etc. so I stopped. I now eat way too many carbs to be in ketosis, but I still have strips so I check from time to time and am definitely in 90% of it. I’m not sure how this is possible other than I’m fit and healthy with a very flexible metabolism? It’s bizarre to think how CAREFUL I was with even veggies and meats (and zero processed or non-keto foods at all) when I can clearly be well into nutritional ketosis on over 100g per day. Closer to 200 some days I would imagine. If I ever try keto again, I"ll know it’s not that freaking serious about veggies and meat for me, and even some sweet potato and carrots I’m totally fine
It is absolutely possible to be in ketosis without eating a low carb diet. Most metabolically healthy people are in ketosis a significant portion of each day. The most common way to create a state of ketosis is by not eating. For some folks, this only takes a few hours. Their bodies enter in ketosis in between meals. Many kids fall into this group. If you know someone who eats anything they want and never gains weight, they probably fall into this group. Folks who lose weight purely via time restricted eating fall into this group.
Ketosis isn’t created by eating fat or eliminating carbs, ketosis is created by having a low level of insulin. Regardless of how (ie.exercise, diet, fasting, sleeping, drugs) it was achieved.
If my sister eats a candy bar, her BG may spike to 120 within a few minutes, and return to her normal basal level in two hours. Her pancreas released a tiny bit of insulin, enabling the cells in her body take up the glucose quickly. A few hours later, the cells will be hungry again, if she doesn’t eat, the pancreas will release glucagon triggering a cascade that will result in the production of fatty acids, ketones, and glucose. If I eat the candy bar, my BG may spike to 120 and stay elevated all day. My pancreas releases insulin but it’s not enough, my cells are resistant to it. My pancreas sees the still high BG, tries harder and releases more insulin. Eventually my cells do uptake the glucose. But all the while, my cells had all the fuel they wanted, no need for them to tap into fat stores.
Physiology varies tremendously across individuals. We can eat the exact same thing. We can do the exact same activity. But it can have a different effect on our bodies. This can be frustrating to live with in regard to your husband. Simple solution- just shoot him.
I was very curious after reading and contemplating your post. I asked my hubby if I could prick his finger and test his blood ketone level. He is NOT doing keto with me. He is pretty healthy, 47 yrs old, but eats a very high carb diet. The thing is though, he usually only eats once a day. It used to really weird me out. If I wasn’t weight conscious, I would graze all day long. I love eating! So, back to my experiment…I tested on my blood ketone meter and it showed .7 for him! I was a mix of surprise and envy!!!
If he’s eating carbohydrate and showing ketones, diabetes is hardly likely, since insulin inhibits ketosis. The exception might be if he were undiagnosed and untreated Type I, but in that case, he’d either be noticeably starving to death or with other symptoms that would very soon prompt a visit to the doctor.
A Type I under treatment would be prescribed so much insulin that ketosis would be extremely unlikely (to say nothing about metabolic health!). If undiagnosed Type II, he’d be pumping out insulin like crazy and therefore not producing ketones either.
One thing I can say about my neighbor is that while she eats carbs, she eats very little and is extremely thin - she only eats twice a day, which would probably explain the ketone reading.
Makes me sad because I can drink too much caffeine in a day and get the same readings. Guess we all are made differently😢.
Yes he is very fit and active. We work out six days a week and run as much as we have time too. I’m assuming he just burns it right off. Wish is was that easy for me, I look at carbs and gain weight. 
Do you mean that caffeine raises your ketone levels? I have read that. And there is some debate also as to whether caffeine raises blood sugar. I have yet to run that experiment on myself… But I would think if it really raised blood sugar it would not also raise ketone levels. Anyone else here experimented with BG/ketones pre and post caffeine?
You really make me think, I have been thinking about this also and the carbohydrate tolerance thing, it could be attributed to more browned fat in some people because they will burn the carbohydrates directly (UPC-1) rather than insulin storing it as fat, which tells me insulin does not always store certain types of carbohydrates or other calories we eat as fat, then that brings up another question and that is what triggers the browning of fat or storage of a type of fat? I wish there were more research on this subject; for example fasting and drinking cold water and/or a cold bath after ingesting something like a bitter melon extract then maybe a 3 hour eating window 5 times a day thing twice a week? There are so many theories about this out their but wouldn’t it be nice to torch carbs immediately rather than saved for storage?
The more mitochondria inside the fat cells seem to indicate that there is more plasmatic finger like electrical activity or more communication going on through out the mitochondria iron rich fat cell, where more white adipose tissue has little activity more like a type of entropy and what’s up with the macrophages around the white adipose tissue? Almost as if the stored fat is causing an immunological reaction in the body to the type of fat the body is storing which I imagine is due too high concentrations of glucose in the blood stream or sugar conversionary type fat being stored and why we need to go on a ketogenic diet to torch it out?
Is it possible to store different types of fat? Brown, beige, white subcutaneous and white visceral fat? Can that be reconfigured through diet and fasting?
I think some sugar burners also go into a deeper ketosis during the night when they sleep (HGH==>IGF-1); that’s when most of the body fat is actually torched and maybe it (light ketosis) continues through-out the day if they don’t eat anything for breakfast…,