Ketonix Breath analyzer Help - Keto Level Comparisons

[J_A-M]

Try not to compare your hourly readings to each other. Instead, compare your readings by day. So, compare your waking readings to other waking readings. Compare your readings post BPC to other post BPC readings.

I’ll share this study with you. It’s not a difficult read but, it contains a lot of information.

From the study where BrAce stands for Breath Acetone Concentration in PPM.

BrAce can be affected on hourly and daily time scales by a variety of physiologic factors including diet, obesity, and exercise; chemical factors; and environmental factors. The physiology of acetone exchange in the lung affects BrAce in the breath sample. Understanding these factors and their impact on an individual’s BrAce will improve the utility of BrAce for use in monitoring fat loss.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21242/full

[Peter_Hafner]

Thank you for replying to my question.

I read the article.

It had a lot of good information.

Hope you have a great day!

Pete

Mail](https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986) for Windows 10

[Kke]

I’ve had my Ketonix unit for about two weeks. I’m not sure I’ve got the breathing down right but I’m trying my best. I have a few questions. 1. When I’ve expelled every last bit of breath that I possibly can the app often says I need to exhale fully or something like that. What am I doing wrong? 2. What are Ketonix units? The app has a graph for this but doesn’t show any recorded data for me. I will try to include a photo here. 3. When I first wake up my Breath ketones are very low. Often below 4. But later in the day they go up. After I do my morning breath test I do IF and have tea with butter as the only thing I consume until noon. My evening measurement is consistently the higher of my two readings each day and that is after I have eaten a full meal. Today I slept in and did my first test about two hours later than normal and today I had the highest reading I’ve ever had. I’m confused. Is my insulin spiking when I wake up at 5am but not when I wake up at 7:30am? 5. Last question for now😉. Should I be testing more than twice a day? It takes so long for the unit to warm up that I don’t take it to work with me. I eat a huge cruciferous veggie salad with egg and avocado for lunch each day so I am not worried about how it affects my ketones. Thanks for any feedback. I know this original post is quite old but I am hoping someone who uses the Ketonix will read it.

Update: I drank about 8oz water. Took ACV capsules, adrenal supplements (Dr Berg) and vitamin C. Went for a 2.5 mile walk. Tested again. Back under 4 again. . I think I am going to return this meter. Any advice before I box it up?

[IceNine]

Anyways I am wondering what sort of results other people are having with their ketonix unit and if they found any correlation with other measurements of Ketones?

My experience with the Ketonix is that it’s just not a great tool for measuring anything.

When I was using my ketonix (which currently sits in a drawer unused), I was in a period of strict keto. I am an IT guy for a living, and work with a lot of “big data” projects - so the idea of getting data on my own ketonic state intrigued me at the time. But I draw the line at drawing blood repeatedly for the purposes of just getting data.

Prior to buying it, I was under the impression that it would help me eventually figure out what made my ketones higher or - more importantly - what would send my levels into the crapper. It simply turned out to not be the case with me.

I don’t know, maybe some people get consistent readings that correlate with how they’re eating, but I saw zero rhyme or reason when I measured my acetone levels. When I thought I would have a high reading, I’d read almost nothing - like I wasn’t in ketosis at all. Other times, when I experimented with increasing carb intake, I would read crazy high levels.

It wasn’t any kind of crazy inverse relationship either, since I got every conceivable reading in between those two extremes at any given time.

The software was also kind of crappy at the time. It was a Java app - i’m not sure if it still is. I haven’t used mine in over a year. Who knows, maybe the whole landscape has improved since then.

Either way, I found the ketonix to be a 100% useless tool for testing nutritional ketosis. After looking at the data I collected over a month or two, I realized that this method of testing was simply not going to work for me. So I gave up on testing altogether - because why bother? I was already keeping carbs at <20g/day (aside from the little tests I did to try to force those numbers in another direction).

I tried multiple computers. I had the unit replaced to rule out a dud. Nothing really correlated into any kind of useful data. Thankfully, through it all, my weight kept coming off and everything else was moving in the right direction. So I didn’t really NEED to test.

This is just my personal experience with the ketonix. I might just be one of those unicorns that don’t test well Your experience may be completely different. But I don’t test anymore because I find it completely unnecessary.

[Acetix]

I rather like my Ketonix unit. It is the Bluetooth version which I purchased in July 2017. It is a high build quality device. Perhaps there are some issues with a somewhat slow or resource heavy Windows application. I also tried it using a low spec Android phone which I found too slow to continue using. I am still a Windows Phone user myself but there is no app for that

I am following a lazy Keto protocol. I aim to be in ketosis from Monday morning to Friday afternoon. I only measure my Ketones during the working day at the moment.

I use Intermittent Fasting Monday-Friday but because it is Lent at the moment I fast Wednesday to Thursday lunchtime which is equates to an Alternate Day fast.

Since the end of January I have modified my diet to exclude Beetroot and Prunes (I know, I know, but as I said it’s Lazy Keto for me) and am now seriously considering excluding Bell Peppers because I have identified them as causing me to itch.

I think one can notice from the plot when I started Alternate Day fasting once per week on Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day. On this day, I also stopped taking milk in my tea; I tend to have 7 or 8 large mugs of tea per day.

It can be difficult to empty one’s lungs fully for sampling but I have a reasonably consistent breathing technique at this stage. I now realise that for smoother graphing I’d need to take more readings during the day.

[Dan_Dan]

Youtube has lots of videos on how to use the ketonix

I bought a cheap breathalyzer for under $10 on walmart.com and have had great results

Test Breath Ketones without a Ketonix (using a cheap breathalyzer)

I’ve wanted a ketonix for a while but am not going to fork over hundreds of dollars. So I followed some advice and got myself a cheap breathalyzer on ebay. Apparently they don’t distinguish between alcohol and acetone. IT WORKS! Now I can measure easily whether or not I am in ketosis anytime I suspect I may have dropped out. The ketostix stopped working for me a long time ago as my body is very well adapted and I don’t excrete a lot of measurable ketones.The breathalyzer is not much good for f…

[Sheri_Knauer]

I got a ketonix last year because the ketone blood strips were so expensive and hard to get then and I wanted to have something I could use to test over and over again at no additional cost beyond the cost of the device. I can tell you it was the worst investment I made. According to the ketonix, I am never in ketosis. It barely registers any time I blow into the thing. I do test my blood ketones on a daily basis (thanks to the more affordable Keto Mojo). I actually just brought out the ketonix a moment ago, recalibrate and let it warm up, blew into it, and it registered a big fat zero. Just a big waste of money.

[Acetix]

Perhaps you could test the Ketonix with a spirit alcohol by just holding the unit over an open bottle. If that fails try swishing a small amount of alcohol in your mouth and then sample. If the Ketonix reading goes off the charts then you know it is working. If that fails send the unit back for a refund/replacement if within warranty.

[DannyF]

I got my Ketonix last week and have been using it for a few days now. According to the user manual, I’m supposed to caibrate it before I use it for the first time, the problem is, the IOS Ketonix app on my iPhone doesn’t even have a setting option, and the apps on my 2 different Macs have the setting option buttons greyed out, so it’s impossible for me to calibrate it.

The first few times I used it I could hardy get any reading over 4 ppm, then suddenly I started getting crazy high readings! Then I realised from reading this thread that somehow after I rinsed my mouth in Listerine, the meter will just go off the chart. And since this afternoon, the meter just keep going off the chart, and I’ve been double checking with Ketostix and I’m no way in such stage of ketosis; so I’m just wondering if anyone here has any advice on what I can do about it?

If alcohol or mouthwash can cause wrong readings in the Ketonix, shouldn’t we be warned about it in the manual?

Hope someone can help me, seems like it’s not really a very reliable product. :-S Many thanks in advance.

[Acetix]

I’d suggest using a non-alcoholic Listerine. That should solve your off the chart readings.
People have been known to have been arrested shortly after gargling original Listerine

[flipflop]

Ketones can accumulate while you are sleeping, then you get up and do stuff and they start getting burned off.

[coconutsmigrate]

I just bought a Bluetooth Ketonix to test levels since I am a weenie and don’t want to do any finger pricking or peeing on things.

It’s probably best to just leave it charged all of the time because getting it to warm up takes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes!

Measurement-wise, I’m finally getting in the groove with it and feel like I’m seeing some trends–I had a bit of a cheat weekend over a week ago and have noticed acetone levels coming back up over the last few days. A question that has probably already been answered but that I can’t find anywhere:

What does MAV stand for? I mean it’s a pretty color and all, but what does it stand for?

TIA

[J_A-M]

Can you post a picture? I can’t find MAV on any documentation or on my ketonix app.

[coconutsmigrate]

Here is a picture with the blue Breath Ketones PPM line on top of it. MAV is the line in magenta. I couldn’t find “MAV” anywhere in the manual but also may need to look again.

[coconutsmigrate]

And since I can only post one pic at a time, here’s the graph without the blue line.

[J_A-M]

I’ll try to look into this too. I remember reading what it was but can’t for the life of me find it right now.

[J_A-M]

I emailed Ketonix and they got back to me. MAV stands for moving average. I’m not sure what it means exactly in this context but, elsewhere, it’s a line that smooths out random data noise. So, for example, in your first picture where you see the high mark on blue, the magenta only moved slightly up. It’s kind of like the trend line with actual movement. If you tested frequently, it’d prove to be more useful. Say you tested 4 times in an hour for some reason and 1 of the 4 readings was randomly super high, the MAV wouldn’t count it.

[coconutsmigrate]

Thank you! I’m surprised you heard back from them so quickly. I’m testing at least 3 times a day at the moment just to get some use out of this thing, but I’m also remembering that the whole point of ordering a breath tester is that you can test as many times as you want, and it costs the same.

Speaking of trends, just when I’m into the Ketonix, something goofy happens. The other day a non-keto friend tested and got a much better readout than anything I’d done after a 17 hour fast. Others have seemed to report this. Also I used the USB charger this morning, and the circular metal housing came off. I’ve only had this thing for six days!

[Jennifer_Kleiman]

I’m having a lot of fun with my ketonix personally, been doing a PSMF for the past two weeks (protein-sparing modified fast, 500 cals of lean meat/day), correlating the data with exercise, HR data (i’ve got a fitbit HR) and blood ketones, glucose (I wear a cgm) and weight loss (I got a bio-impedence scale). Will write things up in detail soon.

[J_A-M]

It says in the manual that testing should be done in context. Non ketoers shouldn’t try it because methane (produced by carbs) can cause a false high reading. I see people a lot trying to do things that it’s not meant for. Like correlate with blood ketone values, using it to test when cheating, after drinking alcohol or using alcohol based mouth wash, not rinsing their mouths before each use. Do you mean the colored housing? Can it be easily put back on and possibly glued into place?