Keto stix?
Jbarnes1210
Posts: 308 Member
Is it true that the more water you drink the more diluted your keto stick result will be? When I first wake up the result is darker than what it is later in the day. Are they really accurate? Does a darker hue mean more ketones/better weight loss?
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I think they measure milligrams per deciliter, or something like that, so yeah, the more dilute your urine, the lower your readings will be.
I use the ketostix only if I'm curious if I'm in ketosis. They're cheap and easy, but pretty useless.
Blood readings are more sensitive, but probably equally useless.
I'll let somebody take the weight loss question since I've never seen any evidence to support a correlation. Ketones do seem to reduce hunger, which SHOULD help with weight loss.0 -
@wabmester, thanks for the input, I was just curious .....0
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The conditions that give me good ketone levels appear to be those that also deliver a weight loss.0
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Ketostix should measure ketones like pregnancy tests measure pregnancy: either you are or you aren't. If you are in ketosis, it doesn't matter if you are light pink or deep purple - you are producing ketones.0
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I've been at 25 net carbs or less for 5 days and I still show neg on the ketostix. Only once did it show a trace. I wonder how accurate they are. I have lost 3 lbs, but that is probably water weight.0
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annacsophia wrote: »I've heard they are pretty useless as well. I rely on my other telltale symptoms of ketosis: metallic taste in mouth, weird smelling urine, insomnia. I know each person can have different symptoms, if any.
As a moderate carb person that has never done the ketosis thing, it doesn't sound really desirable!
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professionalHobbyist wrote: »annacsophia wrote: »I've heard they are pretty useless as well. I rely on my other telltale symptoms of ketosis: metallic taste in mouth, weird smelling urine, insomnia. I know each person can have different symptoms, if any.
As a moderate carb person that has never done the ketosis thing, it doesn't sound really desirable!
All of those weird side effects primarily seem to surface only during adjustment and adaption. I haven't had any of those symptoms in several months.0 -
professionalHobbyist wrote: »annacsophia wrote: »I've heard they are pretty useless as well. I rely on my other telltale symptoms of ketosis: metallic taste in mouth, weird smelling urine, insomnia. I know each person can have different symptoms, if any.
As a moderate carb person that has never done the ketosis thing, it doesn't sound really desirable!
Pssst, buddy. Get some ketostix. If you've been consistently below 120g/d carbs and you've been exercising a bunch, you're in ketosis.
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I never had any keto symptoms and test strips and blood measuring have always been pretty accurate for me. The urine stix are only able to reflect ketones from about 2 hours ago while the blood measurement is up to date.
I have a type 1 daughter so I am very familiar with measuring ketones and other than the delay, I've always found the stix to be accurate and her Endocrinologist has said there's no reason to doubt their accuracy.
But, like people have said, there may be ketones present, just not in large enough quantities to show up.
Also, I've always understood that the concentration of ketones is suggestive to the degree of fat burning going on. So you would be burning more fat, faster with a higher concentration.
At least that's how it happened with my daughter when she was out of control. In her case, she would drop weight one week and have few ketones and have a bad week the next, have higher ketones and lost a ton more.
I'm always trying to help her control and keep ketones down while I'm trying to keep mine up! Lol0 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »I've always understood that the concentration of ketones is suggestive to the degree of fat burning going on. So you would be burning more fat, faster with a higher concentration.
That's true, but a lot of people here are on a high-fat diet, so a high reading just reflects their diet and not burning body fat. Also, the higher the level of ketones, the less fat you need to burn, so a high ketone level actually signals your body to slow down lipolysis. In theory, you'll actually burn more body fat by eating LESS fat.
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Exactly. I eat basically a set amount of carbs and protein and control my calories with the fat intake. I want to burn body fat so I eat at a caloric deficit and do so by reducing the fat calories. That way I know at least some of those ketones are coming from body fat being used. Not just the fat I consume.0
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Something else that is often misspoken in keto circles is that ketones cause fat to be burned. But ketones are the result of fat being burned. They are a byproduct of the breakdown of fat used for energy. So, the more fat you're burning, the more ketones you will have. They don't cause the fat to break down. Not being able to use glucose for energy causes fat burning. In T1D's it happens when there is no insulin available. In others it can only happen if you don't provide enough carbohydrate to supply the glucose.0
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Something else that is often misspoken in keto circles is that ketones cause fat to be burned. But ketones are the result of fat being burned. They are a byproduct of the breakdown of fat used for energy. So, the more fat you're burning, the more ketones you will have. They don't cause the fat to break down. Not being able to use glucose for energy causes fat burning. In T1D's it happens when there is no insulin available. In others it can only happen if you don't provide enough carbohydrate to supply the glucose.
Thank you! That explanation really makes sense to me. I am less than four weeks with this and now it makes a lot more sense. Ketones are the result of the fat being burned., not ketones cause fat to be burned. . simple and helped me a lot . Thank you!0 -
You're welcome.
I think the confusion happens between the words ketosis and ketones.
Ketosis is a metabolic state where the body uses fat for energy in the absence of glucose and ketones are an acidic waste byproduct that results from using fat for energy.
You don't need ketones to burn fat. You need to burn fat to get ketones. Then you pee them out. That's why at higher ketone levels you have to pee more frequently. Your body is protecting itself from becoming acidic by eliminating the ketones.
You also lose electrolytes with your fluids in a state of ketosis. So it's important to get enough magnesium, potassium and sodium along with fluids on a keto diet.
A lot of the symptoms you hear about people getting are actually a result of dehydration, loss of electrolytes and carbohydrate withdrawals. It takes a higher concentration of ketones, like what a T1D experiences with ketoacidosis for the ketones themselves to give you trouble.
It's kind of funny, I actually learned all about this process before I heard of keto dieting and once I did, I felt like "how do more people not know about this"!0 -
Ketones are high-energy sources, not waste. We waste some in the urine until we're fully adapted. The brain can't metabolize fat.0
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That's true. Not all of them are expelled as waste. I did too much generalizing there.0
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In your daughter's T1D, there is a LOT of ketone waste because she's making too much due to the lack of insulin. Insulin turns on glycolysis (sugar breakdown), and the metabolites of glycolysis down-regulate ketone generation in the liver. Too many ketones = risk of acidosis.0
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So just a thought triggered by this discussion. While the body is dehydrating during adaption and all, would the addition of external ketones affect the adaption process at all? Would it speed it up, slow it down, make dehydration worse? Since figuring out that electrolytes are a large portion of the "flu" triggers, I am just wondering if adding in extra ketones to convince your body it's already working better would speed up that process... Any thoughts?0
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professionalHobbyist wrote: »annacsophia wrote: »I've heard they are pretty useless as well. I rely on my other telltale symptoms of ketosis: metallic taste in mouth, weird smelling urine, insomnia. I know each person can have different symptoms, if any.
As a moderate carb person that has never done the ketosis thing, it doesn't sound really desirable!
Pssst, buddy. Get some ketostix. If you've been consistently below 120g/d carbs and you've been exercising a bunch, you're in ketosis.
Really? I have been consistently below 100, and below 60 for a while. I also do IF 18:6. I can't get more than a trace on the stix. Plus, I can't shake off any pounds for the last 2 months. I do work out pretty hard, I think, 4-5 times per week, burning about 500-600 calories each of those days. The only think I do notice is that I have energy even though I have not eaten and I have energy later on in the day.0 -
There have been studies on that. I'd have to re-read, but I seem to recall that both the brain and heart muscle seemed to prefer ketones even in the presence of glucose, so I assume exogenous ketones would speed-up adaptation.
In studies of fasting, they've found that you always lose ketones in the urine, but you lose more in the early stages. The difference as time goes on isn't so much adaptation, but there's a switch in the cations excreted with the ketones -- instead of sodium, you switch to ammonium. I'm not sure what causes this, but it may be due to protein catabolism in the fasting state.
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I get a brand of ketone test strips at Walmart. They're pretty much the same but about half the price. They were working great but I haven't used them in a bit because it'd be a waste because I know I'm eating too many carbs. Tomorrow is a new day.0
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