Keto diet not achieving ketosis

I've been eating pretty strict keto (less than 20 carbs per day) for over 2 weeks and have not yet achieved ketosis. What am I doing wrong? HELP!!!

Replies

  • Nanaluvs2sweat
    Nanaluvs2sweat Posts: 97 Member
    I read that for some people it can take a week or longer. Especially if you were eating a high carb diet before you started because your body will use up its glycogen stores before entering ketosis. Other factors like your typical daily carb intake, your daily fat and protein intake, exercise, your age, and your metabolism also play a role.
  • jamloche
    jamloche Posts: 109 Member
    When I tried the Keto diet, I was eating a ton of zero-carb meats. We call that hog heaven where I come from. Anyway, I was well under 20 carbs per day, but never got into ketosis. What the Heck, right? In my confusion I did some reading and discovered that our amazing bodies turn excess protein into glucose. I'd never heard that before.

    So the trick with Keto is limiting your protein (to a degree) and ramping up your fat intake. Unfortunately, that means you're still limited on the amount of food you can eat in a day, and that realization killed the only reason I ever considered a Keto diet
  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Your liver can only hold so many carbs, and it'll be used up in about 2 days of average daily brain activity even - so that's not source of extra.
    Muscle glucose stores can't be put back into the bloodstream - so that's not source.

    High levels of protein that go unused by the body as amino acids will be converted to glucose - so that could be it.
    At a certain point with enough protein, or way too low calories, body can decide conversion and having glucose is more important than other things the amino acids could be used on.
    That includes the daily breakdown of muscle that occurs somewhere, body could decide the diet is too extreme and it just won't build that muscle back up with available resources - if there are even any. That's a really bad state to be in.

    Or your test of being in ketosis isn't accurate and you are really.

    Do you recall going through a slight tired brain fuzzy day, perhaps with a headache?

    And how are you confirming the carbs - you logging everything by weight in MFP?

    How many overall calories have you been hitting, and how much of a deficit does that appear to be, how much weight loss rate is it?

    Are you doing a lot of fiber that you aren't counting? because some actually is absorbed depending on type, usually not meaningful amount though.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    jansj2 wrote: »
    I've been eating pretty strict keto (less than 20 carbs per day) for over 2 weeks and have not yet achieved ketosis. What am I doing wrong? HELP!!!

    Are you eating 75% fat? Keto isn't just ultra-low carb, it is also very high fat, Both must be present in order to get into ketosis.