Suddenly out of ketosis!

#1

I’ve been on the keto diet for 4 weeks and I’ve lost 13Ib. I’ve been using the urine strips to see if I’m in ketosis and it’s always between trace and moderate until yesterday when it said negative? I’m so discouraged as I’ve been sticking to the diet and checking everything I’m eating. Im now also stressing as I was told I had to go on this diet by my doctor as I have a very enlarged fatty liver and if I didn’t do something immediately to try and reverse this I would end up with serious problems. Please tell me what I’m doing wrong?

#2

Probably nothing. Those strips are very unrealiable. They aren’t for telling one if they are in ketosis. It gives a negative result if your body effectively uses ketones.
Don’t stress over such things, stress causes lots of problems.

I guess a few things apart from carbs can affect ketosis badly but I am not knowledgeable about it and it’s probably rare. Maybe the others can help with that but usually if you eat right (and I primarily think about your carb intake), you are in ketosis, period.

By the way, getting out of ketosis occasionally still wouldn’t mean all the other times aren’t very useful for your body. But of course, do your best to stick to keto if it’s very important for your health. I just say don’t get super upset and guilty or whatever if a misstep happens. Just come back to keto right away.

#3

You’re doing nothing wrong. The urine strips are useless so don’t worry about it. if your carbs are no more than 20-30 or so and you’re eating right don’t worry about it, everything will do it’s job. Are you tracking what you eat to make sure you’re keeping within the lines you set yourself? Have you had anybody give your diet a once over to make sure you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t?

(Ohio ) #4

False negatives are common in test strips. False positives are unheard of.

#5

I spoke to someone when I started and they said I’m doing everything I should. I’ve started taking MCT oil this week but wondered if there is anything else to take to put me back in ketosis?

(Ohio ) #6

Fasting. Yoga. Deep breathing. Etc

If I slip up eat a cake dipped in sugar syrup and sprinkles; I actually eat black beans. Apparently there is something about black beans that lowers blood sugar. Maybe it doesn’t promote ketosis but it does lower blood sugar.

#7

Consuming MCT oil doesn’t put you into ketosis anymore than taking exogenous ketones does, having ketones in your blood, and being in the metabolic state of ketosis are two different things. I can eat 400g of carbs, take exogenous ketones and still show that I have ketones in my blood, it’s not the same thing.

Throw the urine strips out and keep on doing what you’re doing.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #8

If you are eating less than 20 g/day of carbohydrate and are still breathing in and out, you are in ketosis. You may not be showing results on your urine strips, but you are definitely in ketosis. At some point in our re-adaptation to a ketogenic diet, the kidneys get better at recovering wasted ketone bodies from the urine, and once the muscles are fully fat-adapted, the liver cuts back on ketone production, matching it more closely to consumption.

In any case, the level of ketones circulating in your blood is best left to the body to manage. Once the distorting effect of excessive glucose (i.e., carbohydrate) intake has been mitigated, allowing chronic insulin levels to drop, the metabolic effects of the standard American diet begin to reverse themselves. The lowered insulin is far more important to achieve than any arbitrary level of circulating ketone bodies.

(Joey) #9

As noted above: ditch the urine strips. They’re worthless in helping you chart your path forward.

Having lost 13 lbs you’ve likely done a solid job of restricting your carbs. If so, that’s pretty much all that’s needed to get your body into a state of metabolic ketosis.

Important steps:

  • Keep your dietary carb intake to 20-30g daily.
  • Get enough protein (lots of info on that around here)
  • Fill the rest of your caloric tank with healthy fat sources (animal fats, please).
  • Stay properly hydrated and keep your electrolytes up at the same time (also lots of good info on this forum as to how to do this smartly).

Beyond this, there are other fine-tuning tips you might come across in time, but these are the key steps to reverse your health issues, lose weight, and probably start to feel better than you have in years.

Keep us posted and best wishes! :vulcan_salute:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #10

As noted, reducing carbs to sub-20 grams per day consistently will get you into ketosis and keep you there. Your liver will synthesize ketones as long as you’re in ketosis. And actually there’s a ‘baseline’ level of ketones even when not in ketosis - it’s just not measurable.

The amount of ketones generated by your liver depends to large extent on how much fat is readily available to metabolize. The more readily available fat you have, the more ketones simply because the chemical required to metabolize fat is limited by reducing carbs sufficiently to get into ketosis. So when that chemical runs out the liver partially metabolizes fat into ketones rather than simply wasting or ignoring the ‘excess’ fat energy.

Thus, while eating fat won’t get you into ketosis - folks eating SAD also consume fats, but are not in ketosis - if you’re already in ketosis (by cutting carbs) eating more fat will help generate more ketones. MCT oil more readily converts to ketones than shorter and longer chain fats, which is why it’s suggested as a way to increase ketones. Just don’t mistake this as ‘putting you back in ketosis’.

(Robin) #11

I have never bothered with the strips. As long as I know I am doing everything I can, I see no point. It’s like the scale jumping, signifying nothing…if I have remained true to keto. So again, what’s the point? Truly. Do your thing. You got this.