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
Ketones without Keto dieting?
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…,
No, too much caffeine can make my ketone levels go down to that of my husbands which was 0.6, I wish caffeine would make them go up. My numbers would be off the charts then, lol🤣.
Regina, I do think eating only twice a day certainly keeps the insulin down. Hubby and I are on the road driving over 900 kms to visit family for Xmas
and I have fallen OFF ! However admitting that I have and knowing that I have has made it somewhat easier to put the brakes on…and I am now back on to my Keto lifestyle…I do read yr posts and appreciate your input…thank you
This is confusing to me. When you become type 2 diabetic your body stops producing insulin, and your blood sugar reaches high levels. One of our friends discovered he was type 2 when suddenly he dropped 20 pounds in a short period of time without dieting. I think he was worried he had cancer, but it was untreated Type 2. Because he had no insulin, his body was able to access his fat stores despite his eating his regular diet that brought on the type 2.
So I ended up buying a blood meter after reading this the other day and my urine strips actually show ‘moderate’ as my blood meter says the same thing. Same thing for ‘small’ amounts. With the blood meter I get exact values while on the strips I just get varying shades of pink. But the strips are much less expensive so I think I’ll continue to use those daily and the blood meter periodically to ensure I am still on track.
Are you sure your friend isn’t a Type I diabetic? Type I is an autoimmune disease that kills the beta cells in the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. It destroys the patient’s ability to produce insulin, and could easily result in the kind of weight loss you describe. It used to be called juvenile diabetes, but adults can develop it as well. Troy Stapleton, an Australian anesthesiologist, has a couple of videos on YouTube, in which he tells his story of developing Type I at age 40.
Type II is when the body becomes insulin-resistant and requires more and more insulin to keep blood sugar under control. It usually doesn’t develop until middle age, but apparently doctors are now seeing patients in their 20’s devleop it. The high level of insulin in the blood causes obesity, rather than weight-loss. True, end-stage Type II diabetics, if they go untreated long enough, can reach the point where their pancreas can no longer produce insulin, but I doubt your friend could have gone undiagnosed for that many years, because he’d have been having body parts amputated, losing his eyesight, etc.—not things his doctors would have been likely to overlook. Type II is what the Dudes both had, now reversed.
Type III diabetes is the term some researchers have started using in place of Alzheimer’s disease. It, too, is a disease of insulin resistance. Type II is insulin resistance of the muscles and internal organs, but Type III is insulin resistance of the brain.
I am absolutely positive, my husband has known him for 45 years and I have for about 25. Type 2 diabetes can also result in the pancreas ceasing to work anymore because it’s been overtaxed so long, that’s what happened to him. Here’s a story of the same thing happening to someone else https://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20187930,00.html