Weird experience with Energy Drinks

(Jim Van Der Woude) #1

The strangest thing ever happend to me today on my keto Journey. Today I ate around 11pm and tested my ketones and blood levels around 14:15 pm. It was 4.0 mmol/l and 1.3 ketones mmo/l. Then I wanted to test how my body would react to Monster Ultra white energy after 1 week in doing keto. Finished the drink around 15pm and tested my levels around 17:15. Here comes the weird part:

3.7 Blood levels
1.8 Ketone level

I have never ever seen bloodworks that increased the ketones after using sweetners. Is this maybe because I “fasted” longer after my last meal? I mean that the Ultra monster was seen as absoluutly nothing. I am so confused at this point haha

(Bob M) #2

You’d have to test on another day without the drink, eating the same time as before (and with the same food if possible). Otherwise, you don’t have any comparison.

That is, the drink may or may not have caused that.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

First, I don’t understand exactly what you mean by ‘blood levels’. Glucose? I presume by ‘ketone levels’ you mean as measured by a ketone blood meter? You have 2 devices: one to measure glucose and another to measure ketones in blood?

Also, as pointed out by @ctviggen you’d have to repeat to determine whether or not it’s actually the beverage. I agree with that whole heartedly.

That said, back to Monster Ultra. Is this ‘Zero’ or not? Why do you suspect the sweetener, which is erythritol? There’s a lot of other stuff in this beverage that could possible effect glucose and ketones: taurine, caffeine, ginseng, b-vitamins…

To test, you could try something without erythritol, like Red Bull Sugarfree which uses aspartame. The other ingredients would be similar, although definitely not identical, but if didn’t get similar test results then that would point towards erythritol as the potential culprit.

(Bob M) #4

I think it’s blood sugar, although it’s relatively low (66.6 = 3.7).

What we are saying is that it can be a difficult analysis sometimes to figure out what a “food” does to you. Check out my blood sugar:

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I have months of data just like this. If I was to graph (blood) ketones on this, they would be the lowest in the morning and highest at night.

So, if you’re at all like me – and you might not be, but let’s assume you are – your blood sugar will drop after say 12:00 or so and your ketones will rise. The values you took fit that pattern.

You have to have enough data to know what happens “normally”, so that you see what effect a “food” has.

Now, sometimes the effect is so big, it overwhelms this. For instance, here’s the Thanksgiving holiday for me in 2017:

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That 9.7 is from bread, potatoes, stuffing (more bread), etc. The bump after that is dessert.

For these, it’s not critical to know a pattern.

But for what you posted, to me, this could be “normal”, and maybe the drink did nothing?

(Jim Van Der Woude) #5

I think that this is it aswell… I will try it out on monday with the same meal timing and see what happens.

#6

Your levels are fluctuating all day long, may have just hit it at a high point.