ketosis question

[BamaGirl]

I've been doing Protien Power for about 3 weeks. At first I was able to check my ketones with the strips, then we went on a short vacation and now I'm back on track. However, since then I have not been able to make the strips change color. They are brand new, so they are not old. I've been drinking water and watching my carbs very carefully. The only thing I can contribute this to, is using Splenda, Equal or Sweet-n-low. I just cant drink coffee with out some type of sweetener. I am still losing body weight. Can I be in ketosis without the strips not changing color?

Any help would be appreciated. I looked for this question in other threads, but was unable to find anything on this topic. Thank you for your help.

[cmcole]

I think most people here don't rely on them.
They are unreliable, anyway.
I could never make them change colour, and I've heard other people have the same problem - they are just not sensitive enough or something - not quite sure.

As long as you are getting adequate protein and fats, you shouldn't have a problem with maintaining this menu. Your success is not determined by the colour of the strip.

[LisaS]

you couldn't find much here on ketosis because the Eades don't put much stock in measuring it - just manage your carb intake. Even if it mattered - the strips and urine readings in general are rather unreliable and don't really reflect what is going on in the bloodstream anyway.

Which book did you read - PPLP or PP?

[BamaGirl]

I realize they are not definitive, but it would be helpful just to check anyway. I've been very careful on counting carbs -- my husband thinks I'm nuts. And I'm following the plan very close.

I read the protein power book. I guess I needed some reassurance that the color of a little strip doesn't necessilary reflect whether or not I'm in the fat burning mode. I want to stay in the fat burning mode for a little longer.

I appreciate your responses. You've both been helpful.

[Mitra]

Welcome, Bamagirl :).

Drinking water, while it is good for your body, is not good for your ketone strips, because it makes your urine more dilute. I wouldn't suggest dehyrating yourself just to get a nicer reading, though ;). Don't worry about the strips, you can burn fat without them.

[banshee]

I am still losing body weight.
Here is the most important sentence in your post, that basically answers your question. There are many things that will affect whether there are enough ketones in your urine to show on the strips, including drinking a lot of water, which dilutes everything. Or your body may have become more efficient - your body uses the ketones for energy and you may be using enough that there isn't enough left to "discard". Whatever the reason, if you are still keeping your carbs down and you are still losing weight, you are burning fat. So dont' obsess over a single way of measuring your progress. We caution people not to obsess over the scale if their clothes are getting looser - the same caution applies here.

If your weight is going down, your clothes are fitting looser, your waist and hip measurements are getting smaller, you have plenty of energy, etc., then the plan is working for you. Congratulate yourself on your success so far and keep working the plan! :)

[Niobe]

As everyone else said, they're not too reliable. But I'll still use them sometimes too. :) For me the best thing to do is use them first thing in the morning--any other time of day and there's virtually no change, I assume because of how much water I drink. :)

[Billie]

I guess my question is why do you use them? The Drs. Eades certainly don't suggest using them in fact they say just the opposite. Even Atkins folks have changed their minds about them.

Lets' talk about ketosis a little:

When you go on a low carb diet you restrict the amount of sugar coming into your system. That's a good thing. But what happens when there;s a severely reduced amount of sugar coming down the pike? What does the body use for fuel?

The body get sugar from a process called gluconeogenesis a word that literally means "the creation of new sugar". The good news IF carbohydrates are restricted the fuel the body needs will come fromj fat. FAT! YEAH!

Ketosis is not necessary for weight loss. You could be in ketoisis and not lose weight just as you could lose weight without being in ketosis. If you're eating 10,000 calories of fat and NO carbs you'll definitely be producing a ton of keotones but will not be losing weight. Ketosis is simply a by product of fat burning.

Jonny Bowden Living the Low Carb Life

The point is if you keep your carbs low enough you will be lowering your insulin levels and breakding down fat.

From Dr. Mike:

"You know, whenever you mention this kind of diet to a dietitian, they always first mention ketosis. The risk of ketosis. What is ketosis and how does that happen?

Michael: Ketosis is actually a perfectly natural state. When you wake up in the morning, regardless of what you eat, you're probably in ketosis. We go in and out of ketosis every day. Ketoses are just breakdown products of fat. When fat first comes out of the fat cells, and it makes a pass through the liver, the liver breaks it down into these substances called ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are then used as energy by the tissues. In fact, the heart would prefer ketone bodies to anything. The brain can use ketone bodies, the organs can use ketone bodies. So, ketosis, in and of itself is not a harmful deal. If you've got plenty of carbohydrate, it kind of binds with these ketones and takes them in and burns them on up. If you don't have enough carbohydrates, the ketones burn up on their own, but they can also spill over into the urine, and into the breath. There's not a problem with that except it can give you some bad breath. ... The only people it's harmful to are type I diabetics, because the thing that shuts off the production of ketones is insulin. So, if you can make insulin, [and] your ketones get too high, you get a little squirt of insulin and that shuts the whole thing off. If you're a type I diabetic and you can't make insulin, and they get high, you can't produce the insulin, and they go into ketosis -- it doesn't matter what they eat. They can eat whatever and they go into ketosis ... but on a dietary program, it doesn't harm anything. We don't focus on it.

http://www.proteinpower.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-34.html

Keostiks and I used them back on the Atkins diet WAYYYYYY back when--are a gimic. For some people perhaps they give you an incentive, like the scale does to stay on the program. That is fine. But it gets pretty tricky when we start talking about ketosis and that is why we are not losing if our keostiks have not changed colors. Banshee hit it right on the nail, they are only one small indicator of something--not weight loss certainly as Bowden emphasis in his book.

What is so important on this program is to embrace it for the right reasons, good health simply. Weighing once a month, okay some of you way once a week :D , measuring once a month, seeing how your clothes fit, for goodness sake how you feel, that is so much more measurable and accountable than a stick of paper that changes color for many different reasons. It is just a wrong indicator of why you are or aren't losing weight or inches, it is just not accurate.

Sorry for the rant. I had planned to do alot of research on this over the weekend and ran short on time. It is just important to know the true facts and understanding the why.