Is it really necessary to test Ketones if eating low carb?

[ringi]

Remember that someone without insulin resistance can be in a low level of ketosis every night, provided there is a large gap between the last meal of one day and the first meal of the next day. These are the people who don't get fat whatever they eat......

 

[wiflib]

Just curious why do you fast for so long and what is the advantage for you to do it I take it you do have fluids though

I'm going to do a big fast twice a year (this is the second one this year) but I only eat once a day anyway so I IF every day. It depletes the liver of glycogen stores, lowers and regulates BS, drops weight (I'm VERY insulin resistant, maintaining my eight stone weight loss needs strict control) and helps me keep on top of my VLC diet.
I drink a mug of home made bone broth a day so my electrolytes remain stable and coffee and water. Jason Fung is the bloke in the know regarding fasting.

This time around, I'm just seeing what happens as I carry on doing it as I'm not actually hungry and I wont eat until my body says I must. There's lots of threads about it.

 

[ringi]

Some low carbs experts (Stephen D. Phinney and Jeff Volek) talk about the loss of muscles mass if people fast for more than about 5 days. It possible the bone broth has enough protein in it to stop this being a real risk.

I think it is fair to say the two sets of low carb experts, Jason Fung and Stephen D. Phinney does not see eye to eye on this……. (I have not mind up my mind on this.)

 

[LittleGreyCat]

Hi All, Am now eating about 60g of carb a day - finally out of the carb flu - ugh! Is it really necessary to test for ketones? Being T2, I'm just curious, if it is that important to do so.......or can I assume that I am in ketosis with that level of carbs? Thanks/L Eating two meals a day, not experiencing any hunger, fasting 14 - 16 hours....

If you have experienced carb flu and come out the other side then I expect that you are in ketosis. Your main energy source should now be fats not carbohydrates.

I started out assuming that I was in ketosis.
Some time in, I started thinking "I must be in ketosis, mustn't I?" so I bought some Ketostix and yes, they changed colour!
Some time later I started thinking "Well, I am weeing ketones but that doesn't actually prove that there are many/any ketones in my blood." so I ordered a Caresens Dual. It came with some free test strips but I bought a few extra just in case. I tested, and the results showed there were ketones in my blood. I think the level was around 2 and the Ketostix showed 1.5 to 4. Or something like that.

So you don't absolutely have to test. If you are seeing the results of low carbohydrate eating then you are probably in ketosis on 60 grams of carbohydrate per day. 20 grams or less is hard core. Fasting and you must soon be in ketosis or what is your body using for fuel?

However it is nice to have confirmation.

 

[ringi]

Remember that Ketostix shows the ketones our body is not using, hence it possible to be in ketosis and for it not to show up on a Ketostix. This is more likely to happen when someone has been in ketosis for a long time.

 

[LittleGreyCat]

<snip>
Keto: an extreme diet, starting at something like 20g carbs/day. Theory is that the brain cannot normally function without carbs. When you enter ketosis, a strange mechanism takes over that can provide adequate energy to the brain, without originally ingesting carbs. Whether or not you are in "ketosis" can be checked (IIRC with home urine tests). <snip>

My understanding is that there are parts of the brain which can never function without glucose because ketones will not pass the blood/brain barrier in certain areas. I think that blood cells also don't have the metabolic pathways to use ketones. So to survive you do need some glucose in your blood at all times. If it isn't available from carbohydrate then the body manufactures it from whatever is at hand using gluconeogenesis. Which is why @NoCrbs4Me still has blood glucose.

The rest of the body can metabolise ketones quite happily; some people claim that the brain works better when running on ketones which ties in with claims that going into ketosis makes you think more clearly and have more energy.

However having ketones in the blood does not necessarily mean that you are in nutritional ketosis. Everyone metabolises some ketones as a matter of course - ones your small glucose reserves run low then some fat is released to be used as additional fuel. This is what fat stores are for and anyone who loses weight (ignoring the first 4 pounds which are normally the glucose stores in the tissues) must be burning the fat for energy.

The big difference is how much fat you burn. You can burn fat when your main energy supply is glucose, as a "top up". However if you are in nutritional ketosis then nearly all your energy comes from fat although I think glucose is still used as a "top up".

It appears (if I understand this correctly) that there are two major metabolic pathways; glucose burning and fat burning. They don't seem to be both fully functioning at the same time. If you cut out all carbohydrates then it takes the body some time to adjust and ramp up the metabolic pathways for utilising fat. If you load in the carbohydrates again then the fat burning metabolic pathways ramp down into the background. So once you have switched to burning fat (fat adapted) it is good to stay that way by only eating a minimum of carbohydrates.

[Note that you would need to eat enough carbohydrate to provide your daily energy needs if you weren't to burn any fat (or protein). Roughly, each gram of carbs has 4 calories (some debate about this) so 60 grams of carbs should have 240 calories (really kcalories). If your daily need is 1600 calories then 60 grams of carbohydrate isn't going to provide it. Hmmm...another post, perhaps.]

I can see a kind of logic behind this metabolic strategy (which may, of course, be wrong).
Fat stores are precious. They aid survival in the hard times.
So a good strategy is whenever possible to use immediately available energy - carbohydrate - and store any spare as fat.
It is probably a bad strategy to start burning your fat stores when the going starts to get tough. Hold off for a while, there may be carbohydrates tomorrow, after all. Perhaps use a small amount just to tide you over but hang tough. Only after some serious hunger do you go mainstream on burning your fat reserves. Well, that is my theory.

 

[ringi]

I recall one person saying that the problem is that we make it the "end of summer" all year round and that our bodies were designed to get fat quickly on the carbs towards the end of summer, and then use the stored fat up over winter. Hence eating carbs makes us want to eat more etc.

 

[paulus1]

i would be worried about long term fasting. it would put me into starvation mode. my cals needs then drop to around 500 and obviously weight loss slows or stops. the advantage of the lchf is this does not happen. im at the moment using it to get my bg under control. which it has nearly flat through out the day, weight loss is needed and is happening slowly. my ketones are stable at 0.2 which is low but im happy if youve ever experienced the real keto acidosis you know the difference.

 

[ringi]

What is odd is that there seems to be less risk of our body dropping its cals needs when fasting than when we are on a low cal diet. I think it has something to do with our body wanting us to have enough energy to go a catch some food.

However, my choice is lchf along with some 23hr fasts.

 

[Guzzler]

I recall one person saying that the problem is that we make it the "end of summer" all year round and that our bodies were designed to get fat quickly on the carbs towards the end of summer, and then use the stored fat up over winter. Hence eating carbs makes us want to eat more etc.

This is a theory I have read, too. Watching the great apes gorge on summer fruits then revert to nutrient poor grazing seems to ring a bell.

 

[lindijanice]

Thanks to all of you for your discussion - very interesting and helpful! It's interesting that I am finding it rather freeing to just eat two meal a day and am finding that I have less inclination to get to 60g of carb a day - I am at about 40-50 most days and honestly, not missing them that much - if I could only kick the habit of the 3" of not very ripe banana in the morning with my eggs and cheese

 

[ringi]

If your BG is improving, it could be that the banana is not a problem for you due to having cut out lots of other carbs.