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Ketostix

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I'm very nervous because I've been on my first week of induction with an extremely clean start (minus 5 croutons!) and my ketostix only shows "small" ketones. I've been on this diet before with great success, but the last time was a miserable failure despite showing ketones. Too afraid to get on the scale yet, but determined that I will succeed in the first two weeks. Have foot injury so I have not been excercising ( i know, i know-great excuse/should be doing pilates or something non impact)but I know excercise can effect your ketones...

 

Hi mkarent,
You don't need to worry about the reading on the ketostix. They have been proven to be an outdated tool. There are too many factors that contribute to the colour change, including hydration, the food you have eaten, activity level etc. Some people still use them - but you can't use them to judge your progress.

There are other signs of ketosis - strange taste in your mouth, bad breath, thirst if you aren't drinking enough water, loss of appetite. These are better indicators.

If you are following a clean induction, I am sure you are in ketosis. Are you drinking lots of water? It is very important, especially in the beginning to drink lots of water so you can burn fat efficiently and so you don't get dehydrated.

Exercise definitely helps your progress, as with any weight loss plan....but you don't have to exercise to be in ketosis....it helps though!

If you are unsure about your menu, you could post what you are eating. But I wouldn't worry about the colour on the stick.

Jacq

 

<<my ketostix only shows "small" ketones>>

Any color change shows that you are in ketosis.

And you can be in ketosis without even changing the color of the sticks.

Ketostix only measure the concentration of excess acetoacetate spilled over into urine at one moment in time. If at that moment you have no excess acetoacetate to "get rid off" or if the concentration is below the threshold of the ketostix, they won't change color.

And acetoacetate is only one of the ketones our body makes... so they don't tell the whole story.

Ketostix also don't tell you if you are following the plan correctly.

And their color does not guarantee weight loss. For example, you will likely show excess acetoacetate on the sticks if you eat a pound of butter per day... but you'll probably lose no weight.

 

The colour will also be lighter if you are well hydrated (a good thing) and darker if you are dehydrated (a bad thing!)

 

<<The colour will also be lighter if you are well hydrated (a good thing) and darker if you are dehydrated (a bad thing!)>>

Not necessarily.

From Suellen's "Helpful Hints for those new to Atkins" topic:

"The color of the stick shows how concentrated the ketones are in your urine. So, if you drink lots of water, the stick will be light, and if you don't drink, it will be dark.

**

This is not the way ketosis works, but is a myth that continues to be perpetuated because it logically sounds like it should be true. Ketones are only present in the urine if there are excess ketones in the bloodstream, and then these excess ketones "spill over" into the urine. This can happen at various times during the day. Your level of blood ketosis fluctuates all day long depending on what you eat, and there may or may not be an excess amount to spill into the urine at any given time. The amount of ketones is not static in either the bloodstream or the urine, and their presence in the urine is simply excess that spill over once the blood ketosis level reaches a certain level. A dark reading indicates nothing more than the fact that the bloodstream happened to contain a lot of ketones at that moment, and spilled a lot of them into the urine at that moment. This is why even if you read negative at certain times during the day it doesn't mean you are out of ketosis, it just means that your bloodstream isn't making excess ketones at that moment. You don't go in and out of ketosis all day depending on your stick reading, even though you can test positive at one point, and ten minutes later be negative, or vice versa.

It's also important to know this -- even though the stick is dark and reads "large," this does not indicate a "large" amount of ketones for our healthy kidneys to handle. Don't be scare by that "large" label. Don't forget, these sticks were originally made for diabetics, not dieters, and a "large" reading to them indicates something completely different than it does for us dieters. In general, these stix are also meant for screening purposes and not to make any definitive diagnoses. If a stick turns up a positive reading of any kind, it's a signal for a doctor to do further testing.

Drink lots of water, yes, as this diet is a diuretic and you need to replace fluids...but don't do it simply to change your ketostix color from dark purple.

--Nancy Eaton (who formerly was a clinical consultant for Ames, which is now Bayer, who makes Ketostix and many other kinds of diagnostic test strips and equipment)"

http://community.atkins.com/discussions/viewTopic/p/topicId/1845652/Helpful_Hints_for_those_new_to_Atkins.htm?displayMsg=You+are+now+subscribed+to+the+topic.

 

Hmm... I'm not sure if the link I posted before works in general or only from my account. I've bookmarked it when I subscribed to that topic.

This works for sure: http://community.atkins.com/discussions/viewTopic/p/topicId/1845652/Helpful_Hints_for_those_new_to_Atkins.htm

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