Skip to main content

How to Measure Ketones on a Water Fast

After about day three, your body will switch to burning ketones instead of sugar for energy. This is the sweet spot people! Please keep in mind that ketone measurements are not always a good indication of what's actually going on in your body. Are you losing weight? Has the hunger dissipated? Then rest assured that you in ketosis and don't stress too much about testing ketone levels.

Having said that, the following are the 3 ways to test your ketone levels:

Urine 

You can buy ketone urine strips at any pharmacy and test your urine levels any time you like. Please don't obsess if the sticks don't turn deep purple. Remember this only measure the excreted ketones and not what your body is actually using.

Blood

Blood ketone monitors and strips are quite expensive but this will give you the most accurate results.

Breath

Funny enough, you can buy a regular breathalyzer (yes, the one the cops made you blow into) and other than alcohol, this also measures acetone and gives you a pretty accurate reading of your ketone levels. You can get a basic monitor for about 12 bucks and you don't have to keep buying strips. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Break a Water Fast

As always there's quite a bit of conflicting information out there about how to break a fast. One thing everyone agrees on is that the fast needs to broken slowly and gently. You also need several days to go back to eating normally. For example, if you do a 7 day fast, you need about 3 days of refeeding. On a 10 day fast, you'll need 4-5 days and so on. How you break the fast will make or break the whole experience. If you go right back to your old way of eating, you can easily negate all the benefits of your fast. One school of thought insists on breaking the fast with fruit, more specifically watermelon and then lots of veggies and more fruit. Since my goal is to remain in ketosis, I will be taking a different approach. I will be eating protein, fat and some low-carb veggies, bone broth and lots of water. I would also recommend abstaining from alcohol for at least a few days so you're not overburdening your liver. Listen to your body. Don't force the food if yo...

8-day Water and Dry Fast Combo

As I'm coming to the end of my 8-day journey I wanted to recap some of my experiences with you. I found the water and dry fast combo much more manageable and comfortable to do. I did not really have an off day, which is quite common during a longer fast. My sleep was not very good, which can happen during fasting but I was never tired during the next day. I woke up refreshed even at 5 am. I did feel weak or light headed a few times but sucking on pink salt crystals fixed that problem very quickly, like always. I never forced the water, I just drank when I was thirsty so I probably drank less water than during previous fasts. The weight loss started off very strong. Almost 4 kilos during the first 4 days but then it stopped and even crept up a little. I found that a bit frustrating but I don't really have that much weight to lose so I'm trusting that my body knows what it's doing. I did have my period during the fast so that might also contribute to this. The ble...

How to Keep the Weight Off After a Water Fast

Keeping the weight off after an intense water fast is definitely the goal for many of us. Thankfully, our bodies will be functioning better, our metabolism would have received a boost and our digestion will be working better, but what more can we do to ensure maintenance or continued weight loss? The first thing we should NOT do is just go back to the way we were eating before. Obviously, that wasn't working. We've also learned the hard way that eating less calories and exercising more just slows down our basic metabolic rate, leading to even more gains down the line. So my goal will be to remain in ketosis (fat burning mode) after my fast through a strict ketogenic , high fat diet. I will continue to monitor my ketone levels to keep me on track and I'm also planning on adding a 24 hour water fast each week. I've been practicing intermittent fasting for quite a few years so I will continue on with just two meals a day, eating within a 6-8 hour window daily and fa...