Need a little advice to get my ketones up

(Carolus Daniel) #1

My wife and I are fully on board the Keto lifestyle. We have been sticking to 20 grams or less net carbs a day and mesuring our protein as well. It has been about three weeks and we feel good, a little slimmer and less hungry. However, we are measuring our ketones using Precision Ultra Meter and getting disappointing reading.

Week 2 (14 days) Me .8 and her .2
Week Three (21 days) Me .7 and her .2

We are hoping to raise our levels to increase energy,clarity and shed a few pounds. Does anyone have any advice.

(VLC.MD) #2

Try fasting - worked for me.
Or IF 16:8

#3

Are you using any artificial sweeteners? Especially stevia? Turns out that some still produce an insulin response. Since you have the meter, you can measure which one affects you the least and stick with that one. For me, sucralose barley affects me where as aspartame and stevia had huge effects

(Kate) #4

My ketones only come up when my insulin is low. Even then I have always been in the range of 0.3 - 0.5. Only since being pregnant and having lower blood sugars have I had a 0.8 and a 1.0. When I was struggling last year I tried egg fasting as well as fasting to bring down my insulin and sugars down and it worked very well but I bad to do it consistently (once a month or so) otherwise they shot up again. Talking to my Dr it is possible that if you are fat adapted that you may be using the ketones and that what is showing in your blood or urine etc is just the spill over hence less showing on the meter.

#5

My initial advice is don’t worry a ton about ketones. That being said your numbers are a little low. I’ll throw out a few things which really helped my gf and I get into deeper ketosis in the beginning:

  • No snacking
  • No artificial sweeteners
  • Eat more fat
  • Cut carbs more (20 grams total instead of net)
  • Limit dairy

The ultimate way is to do intermittent fasting but in my opinion it may be too soon for that. That’s the next logical step once you are fat adapted which should come within a few months.

(Carolus Daniel) #6

Thanks for the advice, we are going to try 3 days of very low cabs (under 10) to see if we can kick start our ketosis.

(Carolus Daniel) #7

I can do a 20:4 fast almost daily, however; my wife struggles and needs small snacks throughout the day. I am going to try to pack a lot of fat into her coffee in the morning to try an get her through the day without snacking.

(Allan L) #8

Small snacks throughout the day will 100% keep your insulin levels up and therefore ketones down but when I first started this way of life I had to eat 6 times a day until I fat adapted. Now I eat once, maybe twice a day and no snacking. Even a small amount of protein or fat will cause insulin production and drop ketones.

I finally managed to cut out snacks once I came to terms with my cravings and realised that it was not hunger but rather carb / sugar cravings.

Go cold turkey on everything sweet, including sweeteners. First week is difficult but soon becomes the norm, this helped me stop snacking, drop insulin and raise ketones.

Good luck.

#9

In the beginning I’d say eat fat, as much as you want as often as you want. If you must snack just make sure it’s fatty stuff. This will train your body to use fat for fuel and from my experience the desire to eat often drops drastically when you become fat adapted. You wife’s ketone readings are likely low because of snacking I’d bet, but if the snacks are the right foods and fat adaptation is happening that’s not a problem in my opinion.

(Mike W.) #10

I would concern yourself with getting fat adapted first. Why do you want to get “deeper” into Ketosis?

(VLC.MD) #11

wants
“currently is doing”
“will work to overcome”
“unlikely to be that way forever”

Good luck.

(Carolus Daniel) #12

We are trying to lose some extra weight and also increase our energy.

(Carolus Daniel) #13

Thanks for the advice, we have pretty much been eating keto for a year except for a few cheat meals. This is the first time we have used the meter and it is just a little disappointing we you see the low numbers. My numbers seem to be doing well, BG is almost always around 80 HBA1C is at 5.3, down from 6.1 6 months ago. Just figured the ketones would be higher. We will stick with it and hope to see them rise soon.