OMAD and weird ketone levels

#1

Hello everybody,

I apologize if I am posting in the wrong section. I have a question related to my ketone levels during and after fasting. I was not able to find another topic with the same issue here and I was also searching on the internet but still…no answer. Can anybody who has experienced something similar or knows why it happens, explain it to me, please?

I started keto in May. Later on I started keto + OMAD. Everything was ok, my ketone levels were fine and so on. I do not use a blood meter, only urine strips, but this is also ok for me since I do not really need to know the exact numbers especially after a long time on keto (I am just checking from time to time if I am on the track).

During all this time the strips were almost always purple, or later on - pink.
At the end of November, I stopped with keto and I decided that till New Year I will eat whatever I want. Everything was ok, I gained some weight but I felt ok, no any issues.

After all the holidays I started keto and OMAD again. I started eating exactly the same food, the same way, and the same time as I used to do before this break. The only difference now is that I do not exercise (not yet).

I am noticing something very weird lately. 1st - no color at all on the keto strip in the mornings. Ok, I know this is normal in the mornings (although earlier my levels were more or less the same during the whole day). 2nd - which is more strange to me, at the end of a 23 hours fast (in the afternoons) I measure the ketones again - nothing! Once I break the fast, eat my keto meal (chicken thighs with the skin or omelette with a lot of butter, avocado, or some fat fish - all the standard keto things I used to eat before (btw, I do not even eat nuts now because I know I can get more carbs than I want) and measure the ketones again 1 or 2 hours later - purple strip!!!???

On the next morning - again nothing!?!?!

I have no idea what is going on. I am using the same strips, eating the same food, never above 20 gr net carbs, fasting 23 hours and have this weird thing. I decided to check these results 3 days in a row before I post my question here. I also asked Google, of course :slight_smile: but I was not able to find anything like this.

I am so curious to figure out what is going on. Does anybody have any idea?

Thank you!

(Kristen Ann) #2

Your ketones aren’t registering during fasting because you’re using them up for energy. That’s very normal as your body is becoming more efficient at using ketones. After you eat, your ketones increase because you’re producing excess ketones from dietary fat. Your body doesn’t need all of it for energy so your body is excreting the excess. This is all normal, nothing to worry about.

#3

:slight_smile: Thank you very much for the prompt reply, Kristen!

In fact, I was thinking about this, but I am kind of… confused because earlier when I was fasting, I still had some ketones at the end of the fasting period (or at least some change of the color on the strip). And I think that after almost 2 months of eating sugar and sweets, my body will how to say it… will need more time to start utilizing ketones effectively again.

(Kristen Ann) #4

It sounds like your body remembers how to use ketones even after your 2 month hiatus… That’s great!

Keep in mind the pee strips are fairly terrible measures of ketone levels bc they vary with hydration (and they’re measuring wasted ketones). Also there’s no way to know if your burning dietary fat or body fat from ketone readings.

#5

The urine strips are completely unreliable once you’re fat adapted, regardless of what accuracy level you’re happy with. They have a much better chance of giving you a false impression of things not going right when in reality you’re doing great. Most of your ketones are no longer the acetyl acetate that’s in your urine but now the bhb that’s in your blood. Pee strips don’t detect it, at all. Remember, those things are for diabetics to check for ketoacidosis, near useless in our case. Plus, given that ketone levels don’t correlate with weight loss for most people there’s no point in checking unless you’re trying to accomplish something for medical reasons but even then you’d need to be checking blood levels.

#6

Thank you for the reply Ifod14! :slight_smile:

But guys, I was sure that everybody will start telling me how unreliable the strips are and I feel I had to tell at the very beginning I know this very well. I have read everything about the different methods and the way the strips work. But this was not my point here :slight_smile:
I was puzzled because (even if the strips are not accurate), the last time I checked the color (and I am saying color, not ketone levels, since we all agree that the strips are not accurate, they measure only the acetone and so on, and so on), was exactly before I stopped keto and during my last fast before the holiday break, and there was some color. It weird to me that after almost 2 months without any keto, any fasting, anything, I started keto and OMAD again and suddenly I am using all the ketones.Just there is no sense to me that now after 2 months high- chocolate diet :slight_smile: my body would use the ketones better than before when I was so strict with the diet. I was thinking that there might be some other explanation.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #7

When you cut carb intake sufficiently, glucose and stored glycogen immediately start to diminish. If you did a 3-4 day water fast you would burn out most of it within a couple days. Without the fast, just cutting the carbs it can take a week or so. But when you no longer get sufficient energy from eating carbs, your metabolism automatically goes into ketosis, which is the body’s natural state for metabolizing fats.

In ketosis, part of the now-molbilized fat gets converted into ketones because some cells and organs can’t use fatty acids for fuel, but can use ketones (acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate) so your metabolism synthesizes it. This happens very quickly because if your brain or heart ran out of fuel you would die. Efficient utilization ketones and fatty acids for fuel takes longer. This what we refer to as ‘fat adaptation’, not simply producing ketones.

#8

:thinking: I think that is exactly what I was trying to say above.

Simple explanation of the whole process, though. I know how it works. :slight_smile:

Anyway, guys. Thank you all for the suggestions!

(Jane) #9

Ive seen people here who NEVER registered any color on the pee sticks even consuming low enough carbs to virtually guarantee ketosis.

They stop working for many/most once fat-adapted. But not everyone. I can still turn a pee stick purple after 2 years on keto and most definitely fat-adapted. And not the only one here.

As for what changed tor you before and after the holidays…

:woman_shrugging: