Will fasting get me to keto?

(George) #1

I used a keto meter the other day to see how I was doing and I was disappointed that I was not more in to it.
Which begged the question of how could kick start it. I would think that a fast would assure that I was not ingesting unfriendly keto foods.
Would that work?

(Allie) #2

It would yes, but so will exercise and eating a ketogenic diet.
What exactly are you eating and how long have you been doing it?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

Also, what is the unsatisfactory ketone measurement, and how was it measured?

As long as your serum β-hydroxybutyrate is 0.5 mmol/L or higher, you are in nutritional ketosis. The actual reading is not that important. There is no particular advantage to having a higher level. Fasting levels of β-hydroxybutyrate tend to run a bit higher, so yes, after a few days of fasting,your serum β-hydroxybutyrate should rise.

Once you become fat-adapted you may very well experience a drop in the measured level of ketones. It is at this point that many people become concerned, because their urine sticks stop working (apparently) and their serum β-hydroxybutyrate goes down. (Not true for everyone, but for enough people for this to be a known pattern). We explain it by saying that the liver has become better at matching production to consumption, so that there is less waste (in urine or breath) and less need for circulating β-hydroxybutyrate. Some of the elite fat-adapted athletes with whom Dr. Phinney and Prof. Volek have worked have had barely detectable levels of serum β-hydroxybutyrate, but we know their livers were producing ketone bodies, because they were not eating carbohydrate and were still alive and breathing.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #4

Yes. So will eating sub-20 grams of carbs per day. Don’t obsess over the numbers on your meter.

(George) #5

The reading was .4 using the recommended ketone/glucose meter and I had thought i was doing pretty good with my diet. I have a hard time keeping it less than 20mg, and 30 is a more realistic target.
I miss bread and fresh fruits and am working my way through a selection of a supposedly low carb breads. I think that I have found one…
So, what I would like to be able to do is take a baseline reading, stick to a 30 carb diet and measure again a week later.
Is that realistic?
Also, I have been concentrating on carbs and ignoring calories. Is that wise ?
I have been doing keto for about 1 month and have lost 8lbs. I guess that I am impatient.

(Robin) #6

I have never measured mine. I just eat accordingly and know it is working.

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

While measuring, comparing and charting can be an interesting avocation, don’t chase ketone numbers. It’s a fool’s errand. There’s absolutely nothing to be concerned about a .4 mmol/Li ketone level on your blood meter.

Getting your carbs sub-20 grams will probably make a difference, but by how much? Will it be noticeable, who knows? Do your test and find out. That’s a good idea. But I advise learning to eliminate carbs moreso rather than just talking about a ‘more realistic target’. That’s just a pretext to eat carbs. Carbs serve no useful purpose and if you apply yourself to it, you will learn to get them lower and do so far easier than you think. In My LIfe Before Keto™ I had numerous fave carb foods including every bread you can think of. I don’t miss it a bit.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #8

Yes, it is wise.

Because so many people adopt a ketogenic diet to reverse obesity, it often gets forgotten that keto is not a quick weight-loss diet, it is a weight-normalisation diet. If we need more muscle and denser bones, a well-formulated ketogenic diet will help us by putting on lean mass, sometimes even at the same time as it helps us shed excess stored fat. The primary effect of a ketogenic diet is metabolic health, and shedding excess fat is essentially a pleasant side effect. Keep calm, and keto on.

(Scott) #9

Keep carbs to <20g daily and let time do the work. No need to pull all the levers at once. You can add fasting later after you have adapted if you like but I never did. I did eventually move to carnivore but that was an easy change from keto. Never measured ketones or calories.

(Allie) #10

Best to learn to live without it tbh, break the addiction and help yourself.

(George) #11

A daily staple for me that I thought was friendly but turned out to be a killer was carbmaster low fat cottage cheese, " peach flavor.". It has 7gm. Too much as much as I eat.
The bread is home made based upon the Keto King recipe. Supposedly only 3 gms per 3/4 inch slice. I take their word for it on the ingredients…
Now if I could only find an alternative to the summer fruits.
When I get down to where I want to be, I am going to go back to eating a lot of fruits.
In fact, I had done keto before, about 50 years ago. It was mainly steak, eggs, other meats, and fresh fruits. I refused to give them up.
I still lnost a ton of weight.

#12

I can understand this :smiley:
There is no alternative. I eat all my fruits and well, my fruit garden is pretty good at this point :slight_smile: It’s apple, quince and grape season now but I will have another before the end of the year. I taste them all - but in tiny amounts and not all the time. It works for me.

Maybe you will eat a lot of fruit again. I left that in the past. In the beginning on keto, I needed my daily fruit (I mostly ate raspberries, sour cherries and banana because they had the biggest joy/carb ratio, among other reasons) and it was negligible carb wise. Now I don’t even desire fruits but I taste them sometimes for some reason, our relationship weakened drastically (carnivore broke me, I say often :smiley: just some days and I can’t go back to my old ways completely), I will change more.
I was a massive veggie lover for more than 40 years (keto had no chance to undo this, I simply used a generous carb intake because I could) and that disappeared too, surprisingly quickly. So people may change and surprise themselves, doing things they never thought possible.
But we have our fixed things. Like me and fat. I always will want fatty protein galore, it’s too basic. Sweets, fruits? Nice things but not nearly as vital.
But maybe fruits will stay with you all your life. It’s great if it works for you. My body strongly prefers a very low sugar intake. No matter how awesome fruits are.