Why can't I stay in Ketosis?

#1

I don’t understand why i’m not staying in ketosis. Here is an example of my food intake and ketone levels: I fast from 8pm to noon the next day (16 hours). At noon I ate 2 large hard boiled eggs. At 5pm I measured my ketone level and it was .7 mmol/liter. Between 5:30pm and 8pm I ate 246g of skinless chicken breast (grilled) and seasoned with lawry’s. I had 68 grams of cheddar cheese and 367 grams of cucumber. At 9pm my ketones measured .2 mmol/liter and I checked again at 6am the following day, was .3 mmol/liter My calculations put me under 20 carbs total that I ate and not enough protein to start converting it to glucose. Could someone help me and tell me what i’m doing wrong?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

You are measuring with a ‘blood meter’, I presume?

There are lots of potential reasons. Ketones are very dynamic. To prove it, try this. Start your fast at 8pm as usual, but don’t stop at noon the following day. Continue to fast the rest of the day. Measure your ketones at 8am, noon, 5pm and 9pm. The next day eat as usual and measure ketones again at the same times. Let us know what you discover. Do this for a week and you’ll have a pattern that may tell you something, or not. Important note: don’t worry about it. If you are producing measurable ketones you are in ketosis. Fluctuations don’t matter much unless you have a medical condition that requires a certain level.

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

PS: read this:

#4

HI Michael, Thank you for your input. yes, I measure the ketones with a blood meter. Your suggestion had me cringe. I’ve never fasted all day but i’m up for the challenge. I’ll take my measurements through out the day, but I wont’ be able to do so while at work. I’ll let you know the results in a couple of days. Onto the article you suggested. Thanks again!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #5

I wouldn’t worry about it. As long as your carbohydrate intake is under 20 g/day, and you are still breathing in and out, your liver is producing ketones. There are a number of possible things that could lead to low readings, some of them having to do with the accuracy of the meter, etc. Your degree of insulin resistance or sensitivity is another factor.

Ketone levels are going to vary, in any case. Moreover, the definition of 0.5 mmol/mL of β-hydroxybutyrate in the blood is somewhat arbitrary. Some people just have low readings but are in ketosis anyway. Remember that the reading tells you what amount of β-hydroxybutyrate is circulating in your bloodstream, not the amount your liver is making and the rest of your cells are consuming.

Although, if you are really serious about eating 367 grams of cucumber, that might well have depressed your ketone reading. (I’m assuming that figure is an error.)

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #6

Paul, at first glance I thought the cucumber might be an issue so I looked it up in the USDA database. Even 367 grams, a fairly good sized cuke! doesn’t contain enough carbs to do doodly squat unless cucumbers have some occult way of influencing insulin. Maybe ‘Fatty’ is very insulin resistant and those 4 grams of sugar are the culprit. Possible I suppose.

31%20PM

#7

Hey Paul, thanks for the advice. The 367g isn’t an error, cucumbers are big! But when I do the math, it’s still only 13.5 grams of carbs. The cheese would add another 6 grams, and I guess the eggs would put me over 20, but being that I took the first measurement after the eggs i’m thinking I should have higher ketones.

The example I gave was from yesterday. Today I was going to see if it was the cucumber, so I was going to eat the exact same thing w/no cucumber, but then I had this bright idea i’d eat a sh!t load of pickles instead because the jar says 0 carbs and 0 calories. Needless to say the ketone levels today are very low at .1.

#9

I do have some resistance to insulin. I am prediabetic.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

Thanks for looking that information up, Michael; I was too lazy, lol! But the total carbohydrate for 367 g of cucumber works out to 7.9 grams of total carbohydrate, less 2.6 g of fibre, if one is counting net. Just saying.

(This is a possible duplicate post. Deleted the original by accident.)

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #11

OK… that puts a different perspective on matters. While the general recommendation around here is ‘sub-20’ grams of carbs per day, some folks who are insulin resistant discover that they need to eat even less, some right down to zero. You may be one of them. Trial and error are the only ways to find out. Forget my first suggested experiment. All you need to do is eliminate everything with carbs for a couple of days and see what that does to your ketones. It’s easier than you probably think if you don’t mind a couple days of monotonous eating. For a very good cause! :crazy_face:

#12

For starters, your wasting your time and money (and sanity) measuring your ketones. You had ketones present at every measurement unless I missed something, so you were in ketosis. Doesn’t seem like enough food to keep somebody going, don’t under eat.

Protein doesn’t turn into Twinkies, don’t fear it.

#13

First I want to thank you. That article you sent is great and the fact you jumped in and started coming up with ideas is awesome, so thank you!

My take away from the article is that no one needs to worry about keeping high level ketones unless medically necessary but I also got that while a range is OK, it seems it should be >.5 . With that said, and to both the articles point and ifod14’s point below, I shouldn’t worry about the ketone levels. My goal is to lose weight/fat and so far that is happening.

I did think that maybe I was doing something wrong when I was calculating the number of carbs or something like that, but it sounds like I was correct and in theory should have been in a ‘nutritional ketone’ range after eating what I had the other day. So i’m thinking you are right, I just need less carbs.

My fridge is stocked with eggs, cheese, chicken, and well cucumbers, so, what i’m going to do is cut out the cucumber for now and see what my ketone level is after I eat eggs, chicken and cheese. I have been fasting since 8pm yesterday and it is a little after 4:30pm currently. My ketone level at 4:30 was .8

I’ll measure again tonight after dinner and post in case anyone was wondering the results after no cucumber.

Thanks again for your help and everyone’s as well too.

(Bob M) #14

With me, my ketones are lowest in the morning and highest in the evening. Blood sugar is the opposite of that: highest in the morning, lowest in the evening.

As long as there’s something non-zero there, you should be good. Some people when they start out can get super high values. You might not be one of those.

By the way, one of the things you are doing wrong is eating skinless chicken breast. Ick! :wink:

Now, the skin could be problematic (might be high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, PUFAs), but you can cure that by slathering it in butter. A lot of butter. And maybe eat some cold butter to boot.

#15

Have you tried chicken thighs?

#16

So not enough fat in my diet? I was thinking someone would call me out on that but my thinking is that if i’m not hungry w/out the extra fat, why include it? I’d rather burn my fat than burn supplement fat i’m adding into my system.

#17

No, not yet. But I tried chicken legs.

#18

It’s fine to keep the protein higher than the fat intake when you’re overweight but in the long run you’ll need to adjust the fat intake. Think of it like an S curve.

#19

I believe you nailed it. I did eat carbs today, but my count is less than 10.

224 g Chicken = 0 carbs, 3 Large eggs = ~2g carbs, 78g cheddar cheese = ~3g cabs. Total carbs about 6.

Pre-eating ketone level was .8 mmol/liter and post eating the above it measures .3 mmol/liter

I’m kinda bummed out about that… Under 20 carbs isn’t too bad but zero carbs leaves me with just meat and fat…

#20

I hope you are right. I just want to maximize the weight loss.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #21

If you are eating to satiety, your appetite will regulate how much you eat, so that your body can shed some of that excess fat. If you are eating to a target, you run the risk of telling your body that there’s a famine going on, which will only encourage it to hold on to all its reserves. (Fasting, on the other hand, provokes a completely different response.) As Dr. Fung puts it, “When we eat sugar, we burn sugar; when we eat fat, we burn fat.” Dr. Phinney has research to show that the increased fat intake on a well-formulated ketogenic diet causes the rate of fatty-acid metabolism to increase so much that fatty-acid levels in the blood actually improve.

Firstly, you should probably decide whether it is fat or muscle that you wish to lose. If you don’t mind losing muscle mass, any starvation diet should work to lower your weight. If you only wish to lose fat, however, a protein-sparing type diet, such as a well-formulated ketogenic diet, is the way to go. But fat loss comes only at the price of restoring metabolic health, which is the primary effect of a ketogenic diet.