Sometimes seeing wierd drop in Ketones


(Salil Surendran) #1

I have been on a Keto diet for a month or so now. I had been on a Keto diet before also and had gotten good results. But I have seen this pattern a couple of times now. I usually just eat chicken thighs, cauliflower rice, eggs etc. Making progress but it has been a bit slow. I used to test my Ketone levels using a urine strip and it mostly showed light ketosis however the strip was progressively getting darker. A couple of days ago it turned very dark. The next day I had a normal lunch of chicken, cauliflower rice and avocado and did a lot of exercise. However, after lunch I did eat a couple of sweets that my co-worker bought to work. I came back and checked my urine strip and it had gone back to being very light. I took out my KetoMojo and I tested my blood and it said 0.6 mmol/l which is light ketosis. I was wondering as how I could go from heavy to light in just span of a day. I understand that keto strips are not very accurate. How much time does it usually take to go into ketosis and reach about 1.5 mmol/l if you are doing everything right? Will just a couple of sweets break your ketosis?


(Bob M) #2

I don’t think anyone knows the answer to that question. For one thing, the ketone meters aren’t great. They have high variability. For another, you have to hit some threshold in carbs before you “turn off” ketosis. How much is that? It’s unclear and likely highly variable. Further, you eat a ton of carbs now, and when will you no longer be in ketosis? Certainly, if you took your blood at the same time, you would be in ketosis. At some point, you won’t, but how long that is, I don’t know. The fasting studies can indicate a day or more, but how relevant are they to us? I’m not sure.

The answer also depends on how long you’ve been doing this. For someone like me, 6 years, my body is probably loathe to get out of ketosis, and I can likely eat more (short term) carbs now than I could 6 years ago.