Ketostix show Trace Only

(Jim) #1

My wife has been doing the diet for about 6 weeks now. She measures everything and rarely exceeds
20g net carbs daily. She remains only in trace on the ketostix. She does have some fruit (rasberries,blackberrys and strawberry but measures exactly the amount so she does not exceed 20G. Any thoughts or suggestions would help

(Carl Keller) #2

Hi Jim.

The pee sticks only measure wasted ketones are terribly unrealiable to begin with. Does your wife notice any change in energy, cravings or hunger?

(Jim) #3

Yes, But there is zero weight loss!

(Sheri Knauer) #4

The pee sticks are useless after the first few weeks. The sticks measure ketones that are being produced (yay) but are being wasted since the body does not yet have the metabolic machinery built to utilize them. As you continue to keep carbs low and fat high, the mitochondria go through a series of transformations that enable them to use fat for fuel as energy in the absence of glucose. As that is happening, less and less of the ketones are wasted in the urine, so the sticks measure less and less of those wasted ketones since less are being wasted. Most people who want to continue to track ketones switch to using a blood glucose/ketone meter, like the keto mojo.
Being in ketosis does not automatically mean you will lose weight. Most people who lose weight right away are losing water weight. Sometimes people don’t. Women tend to be slower to start losing weight than men, but then again, everyone is different. There may be some underlying metabolic issues your wife has that her body is working on resolving and feels the need to “fix” that before releasing fat stores. She just needs to keep doing what she’s doing and the weight will eventually start coming off. Just have her focus on any non-scale victories for now, like increased energy, decreased brain fog, not hungry all the time (if that was an issue pre-keto), clothes feeling looser, Less aches and pains, etc.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #5

If your wife is keeping her carb intake below 20 g/day and is still alive, she has to be producing ketones. The urine sticks are not always useful past a certain point, and the fact that they aren’t showing a reaction is not necessarily a concern, for reasons already explained.

There is always the possibility of what we call “hidden carbs” spiking her insulin, of course, so it might be worth taking a close look at the lists of ingredients on any products she is eating. Take a look at supplements, etc., not just food products, because they often contain maltodextrin or some other sugar, which is not helpful for a ketogenic diet.

The other question to ask is whether your wife is not losing weight or not losing fat. There is an important distinction here, which gets confused by our euphemistic use of the word “weight.” Since a ketogenic diet promotes the normalization of weight, not weight loss per se, it frequently happens that a woman who has restricted her calories for a long time might put on muscle and increase bone density when she goes keto, while at the same time losing fat. The gain in one type of weight can offset the loss of the other type. The unchanging number on the scale is then misinterpreted as lack of progress.

It is not clear from what you’ve posted so far which of these two questions are operating in your wife’s case. We’d love to help, so if your wife wouldn’t mind sharing some information, perhaps you could tell us her height, weight, age, goal weight, sample food intake, that sort of thing. Has she noticed any changes in how her clothes fit? That would also be useful to know.