In regards to the ketones - In the morning it's going to be more concentrated because your urine is concentrated. As you drink throughout the day your urine becomes less concentrated thus all components read "less". what matters is that you are getting any result. Even trace means you are spilling ketones so you are getting the effect you want. I would not worry about whether you say trace or moderate. I've never read past the 3rd little color (whatever that is) even with a first a.m. test. I would not base my carbs on those sticks - they will never be 100% reliable. If you want to do base carbs on ketones you'd need a blood test in my opinion. There are many here much more knowledgeable than I in that regard for sure and I know they will weigh in with more info. Your weight fluctuating is not uncommon - stay with the process. You'll see results but some weeks you will see gains or no changes. No matter what your WOE this will happen from time to time. Good luck!

I disagree with the strips being more concentrated in the morning. I think the more full your bladder is, the more dilute the ketones will be compared to the water on the bladder.
The strips really only tell you the concentration of acetacetate in your urine. Assuming you haven't emptied your bladder for several hours, its basically a delayed reading as well.
My daughter is T1D and though her testing is a bit different, we were explained that the urine strips tell us what ketones were 2 hours ago. I don't know if this is accurate, but that's what we were told. However we were also basically told she would die if she ate low carb, so there's that.
Anyway, the strips are more influenced by how much water you drink than how many ketones you're making. And you really can only guess what it translates to. So the best bet is just to accept that as long as it shows anything, you've got confirmation.

But here's an example of tests I kept track of one of the few times I did this.

My readings are nearly always very dark. Even after a year of the diet when most things I read seem to indicate that a lot of people show zero ketones at this point because their body uses them all. I personally think it's more to do with hydration because I don't drink as much as most people do.

I wanted to clarify that there's no reason to change your water consumption. There's no reason to aim for making the strips darker.
I realize it might seem like I'm saying you don't need to drink a lot of water. If that's what a person wants to do, there's no harm as long as sodium is compensated for.
I just don't like drinking when I'm not thirsty so I don't.

RunRachelleRun wrote: »

I appreciate you sharing what has worked from you.

I feel as if I am drinking too much, certainly more than usual, so will cut back and see what happens.

That is awesome about your daughter's results. You set a great example for her. My son went vegan at 14 and his diet has been really awful since. He is 19 and vegetarian now, but the kind that doesn't eat vegetables. He lives on waffles and energy drinks primarily. I wish he would make better choices.

My arrhythmia has been acting up since going low-carb. It was particularly bad last night and all day today. I am getting plenty of sodium, but also experiencing some edema in my feet today, which is uncomfortable. I cannot find much information about this in relation to going low-carb. Most of the info suggests people have it before they cut carbs. Anyway, I increased my carbs tonight. Not sure what a good goal is for me. But I was still under 100. It will be interesting to see how that affects the stick in the morning. I will have to start taking photos and keeping better data now that I have seen how good yours are

Thanks again!

@RunRachelleRun For me, edema/swelling comes from one of two places - less than 5000 mg of sodium daily - more if my water is up --- or my thyroid medication needing to be adjust. Swelling is an indicator that your thyroid function is dysfunctional... It only becomes an indicator of heart issues with some super rare heart conditions - or if you let thyroid issues go undiagnosed for decades or something (I understand with current healthcare systems and information limitations, it's difficult to get properly diagnosed, but getting diagnosed has been the key to me finally feeling better)...

@RunRachelleRun - Honestly, my carb levels can be 5 or 105 (even higher when I slide off plan for a minute). If I don't get sodium, I swell. Even pre-low carbing...

I tend to run middle of the road these days, between 50-80 TOTAL carbs, though I'm not tightly tracking. I'm trying to nail down a new low carb angle for me that works better (something caused my thyroid to FLIP OUT about a year and a half ago, and I'm just now leveling out). I tend to feel best at keto at breakfast (fatty cocoa), mostly at lunch, too (eggs with stuffs in it or lunchmeat/cheese/pickles-with added fats somewhere or dinner leftovers ), and then higher carb at dinner. Still experimenting, but also looking into alternate plans like THM - that work on metabolic flexibility. One size does not fit all in low carbing. Gotta take that...BEAST...and make it your own!

KnitOrMiss wrote: »

then higher carb at dinner

@KnitOrMiss This is interesting - have you identified the why of this? My first hit (which is my experience) was that the carbs stimulate the adrenals and raise cortisol during a natural low point in the circadian rhythm.

I've been gutting it out and trying to increase my sleep to combat that low, because every time I raise my carbs I feel better in the short term and worse a few hours later. I'd love to hear your perspective.

@Majcolorado - I'm not wanting to hijack this thread, but the truth is, I don't know. I have hypothyroidism, and some folks with that just react badly to keto for whatever reason. I've had my cortisol tested, but it wasn't out of bounds in a 24 hour, and the suppression test came back well, too, so I don't know.

But, there is some extenuating circumstances. I went low carb 1/15/15, and keto 2/18/15. The last week of March/first week of April, I worked at an outdoor Renaissance Festival for 4 days. The first day was hugely physical, and I did okay that day. Kept up my water, electrolytes, and such. I pre-planned and did okay. During the festival, he provided sandwich fixin's which was okay for me - salami and cheddar, yes please! - but we didn't have enough water and really only got about 1-2 breaks in 12 hours, a good bit of that in the hot sun. I burn easily, and the whole situation was a hot mess. That Saturday (day 3), we were without any water in the whole tent (and I'd stopped bringing my own in my cooler because he was providing it - well, I had a couple, but I was already out) for several hours. Many of us started feeling really horrible. Each night I ate low carb, on plan, but in massive quantities. Estimated calorie burns (even conservatively) were in the thousands each day (before this I had been nearly 100% sedentary in a desk job, M-F, etc.). At the end of the event, my weight loss stalled, completely. I am not 20 pounds heavier than I was almost a year and a half ago, though granted I'm only once size up from where I was, so I'm still fat burning -- sometimes, at least.

So, because of that, I don't know if the stress of keto on my thyroid was nutrient depletion, cortisol related, flared up my stomach acid problem, aggravated my underlying adrenal issues (diag. with "fatigue" in the late 2000's - 2006-2010, treated, unsuccessfully) and PCOS in 2011 and confirmed hypothyroidism (suspected in 2011, confirmed 2013/2014). I'm a mixed bagged mess, so it's hard to go back and say "this was the starting point," "this was the trigger," "this was the lynch pin," etc.

Additionally, it just could have been a heat/sun/exhaustion/sunburn/dehydration situation that flared everything up, to be honest. I really don't have any way of knowing. And as I have ZERO intention of repeating any of the circumstances now that I'm finally feeling decently again, I will really never know. I still feel really good on keto most of the time, but I'm supplementing tons of stuff that I'm apparently not getting from food these days (though now that I'm solving the stomach acid thing, I may be able to back off of some of this eventually), so that's different/better, too. But I have been in a tailspin downhill healthwise since my early 20's (late 1990's/early 2000's), and it is only in the last 5 years (I'm 40 now) that I started fighting back like a crazy person who actually wants to live and be healthy, so there's way way too many factors.

Oh, and I also started doing more with my D3/K2 & associated support players - plus using the daylight lamp at 7 am and 3 pm to help spike cortisol for it to taper naturally and allow melatonin production to kick in normally later. Pairing that with some amino acid stuffs I've been researching, and my sleep quality/wake quality is improving, too. So I'm playing with many experiments, too many to point at any one place, thing, or factor.

As I said, I feel fantastic on Keto during the day... I don't want to introduce more carbs at all, as my history shows that I literally will "narc out" after eating carb stuff, though poor processing (I know, circling back to stomach acid again) might play a part in that, since I don't fit any mold clearly here either...

So, now that I basically told you that I have no clue, hopefully giving some context - and info about what I'm doing now, might help with your question??