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Final Report: Two Months of Strict LCHF and Ketone Monitoring 79
The Ketone Master Has Arrived 34
A New Toy Measuring Blood Ketones 120
Is Pepsi Max Bad For Your Weight? 87
Experiment: Optimal Ketosis for Weight Loss and Improved Performance 60
Four Weeks of Strict LCHF and Ketone Monitoring 39
Update on the Pepsi Max Test 33
What Happens if You Drink Pepsi Max? 40
Lose Weight by Achieving Optimal Ketosis 42
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Final Report: Two Months of Strict LCHF and Ketone Monitoring

March 24 22:14 in Ketone Measuring, Weight Loss

Note: This experiment was done six months ago and initially only reported on my Swedish blog. This is a somewhat delayed translation!

optimal-ketos-2meng

What happens if you hugely digress from a low-carbohydrate diet and suddenly eat a whole load of carbs?

Here is my final report following two months of a very strict LCHF diet, and daily measurements of four parameters:

  • Blood ketones (the red curve)
  • Urine ketones (yellow)
  • Weight (purple)
  • Waistline (purple)

To get familiar with the experiment design, I recommend reading my first report. For results from the first month, have a look at my second report. Here’s the third and final one, discussing the second month.

As you can see from the above graph, I took the opportunity to conduct a side experiment. The pink vertical column marks one weekend where I conciously completely deviated from the low-carbohydrate diet. I was on the Swedish archipelago “Koster” for the year’s lobster premiere, and simply had the same food as everyone else.

So, what happens if you totally veer off the low carb lifestyle after a long period of strict LCHF? Is complete havoc wrought in your body? Do you have to start from scratch again? Here’s the answer: Continue Reading →

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Four Weeks of Strict LCHF and Ketone Monitoring

March 18 19:28 in About Diet Doctor, Exercise, Ketone Measuring, Low Carb High Fat, Weight Loss

Can ketone measurement help you lose weight and improve performance? That’s the main question I’ll be trying to answer with my four-week experiment.

See Report #1 for diet and experiment design.

Note: This experiment was done six months ago and initially only reported on my Swedish blog. This is a somewhat delayed translation!

Below are graphs of my weight and waistline over this first four-week period, as well as the results of blood and urine ketone measurements.

optimal-ketos-4veng

After two to three weeks of light nutritional ketosis, I’ve now spent 8 days in “optimal ketosis” – that is, between 1.5 – 3 mmol/L. Want to know what’s happened?

Continue Reading →

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Lose Weight by Achieving Optimal Ketosis

March 13 15:09 in Insulin, Ketone Measuring, Weight Loss

Do you want to lose weight? Here’s number 14 of my 17 best tips. All of the published tips can be found on the How to Lose Weight page.

Before we get started, here’s a short recap of the tips so far: The first and most crucial piece of advice was to choose a low-carb diet. The next were eating when hungry, eating real food, measuring progress wisely, thinking long-term, avoiding fruit, alcohol and artificial sweeteners, review your medications, stressing less and sleeping more, eating less dairy and nut products, stocking up on vitamins and minerals and finally, exercise.

This is number fourteen:

14. Get into optimal ketosis

Warning: Not recommended for type 1 diabetics, see below.

confused

We’ve now arrived at tip number 14. If you’re still having trouble losing weight, despite following the 13 pieces of advice listed above, it might be a good idea to bring out the heavy artillery: optimal ketosis. Many people stalling at weight plateaus while on a low carb diet have found optimal ketosis helpful. It’s what can melt the fat off once again.

So how does this work? A quick run-through: The first tip was to eat low carb. This is because a low-carb diet lowers your levels of the fat-storing hormone insulin, allowing your fat deposits to shrink and release their stored energy. This tends to cause you to want to consume less calories than you expend – without hunger – and lose weight. Several of the tips mentioned above are about fine-tuning your diet to better this effect.

How do you know you’re getting the maximum hormonal impact from your low-carb diet? You do that by achieving what’s known as “optimal ketosis”.  Continue Reading →

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Is Pepsi Max Bad For Your Weight?

September 30 2012 22:27 in Ketone Measuring, Non-caloric sweeteners

Can artificial sweeteners from diet sodas affect your weight? My six hour experiment the other day implies that the answer might be yes.

The results can be seen above. I drank the Pepsi Max (17 oz.) after about an hour. The black line is the blood sugar and the purple line is the ketones. Continue Reading →

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Update on the Pepsi Max Test

September 30 2012 8:51 in Ketone Measuring

What happens if you drink Pepsi Max? Do the artificial sweeteners affect blood sugar or ketone levels? I’ve just tested it.

As you can see I did quite a few blood tests with my blood sugar and ketone meters: 24 tests during almost six hours. So something interesting happened, otherwise there would have been no reason to keep going for so long. But what happened?

My blood sugar started at about 4,5 mmol/L (80 mg/ml) and my ketones started at about 4 mmol/L. What do you think happened after drinking Pepsi Max?

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What Happens if You Drink Pepsi Max?

September 28 2012 15:35 in Ketone Measuring, Non-caloric sweeteners

What happens if you drink Pepsi Max? Nothing if you believe the soda industry. Diet soda contain no calories, only artficial sweeteners (Aspartame and Acesulfam K in this case).

But when my friend Ronnie Mathiesen tested his blood sugar after drinking Pepsi Max it had a weird effect on his blood sugar (pictured above).

I’ve been planning to redo that test to see if I get a weird result too. Now is the time. And I will not only measure my blood sugar. As I’m in ketosis now I’ll also track my ketone levels closely. If artificial sweeteners result in release of insulin (studies show divergent results) the ketone levels should drop. Ketone production is very sensitive to insulin.

Ultimately this is not just about diet soda. It’s about whether common sweeteners (regardless of use) can somehow disrupt the regulation of blood sugar, insulin and thus mess with satiety, cravings and weight.

What do you think will happen to my blood sugar and ketone levels when I drink 500 ml (17 oz.) of Pepsi Max while fasting?

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Experiment: Optimal Ketosis for Weight Loss and Improved Performance

September 10 2012 15:35 in About Diet Doctor, Ketone Measuring

Can measuring ketones help you lose weight and improve performance? Let’s try to find out.

Today my ketone experiment reached goal #1: achieving stable optimal ketosis*.

After getting my blood ketone meter I’ve eaten a stricter LCHF diet than I usually do. More fat, less carbs. No bread, no potatoes, pasta, rice or fruit. Instead I’ve eaten meat, fish, vegetables, egg and extra large amounts of high-fat sauces and butter. In the mornings coffee with plenty of butter/coconut fat in it. I’ve occasionally cheated with some nuts, root vegetables, berries, cream and a little wine.

After just a few days I entered light nutritional ketosis (over 0.5 mmol/L on the meter). But it took a full three weeks to achieve stable optimal ketosis (1.5 – 3 mmol/L) in the mornings. It was also interesting that it was much quicker to get high ketone readings during daytime and in the evenings (data not shown in the chart above).

I’ve also tested keto sticks for measuring urine ketones (cheaper and simpler). In my case the results so far track the blood ketones reasonably well, even if urine ketones is a more inexact and unreliable test.

So what do you think I’ve noticed? Does it feel different? What do you think happened to my weight & waist measurement (I started at a normal satisfactory weight) and training/mental performance? Answers are coming up, but feel free to guess in the comments!

Ketosis

*/ Ketosis is a natural state where the body is almost only burning fat. Continue Reading →

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The Ketone Master Has Arrived

August 31 2012 19:23 in Ketone Measuring, Low Carb High Fat

Getting into optimal ketosis (1.5 – 3 mmol/L) was trickier than I thought. After ten days of stricter LCHF than usual I’m still stuck at a mediocre fasting level of 0.7 – 0.8 in the morning. Later in the day the levels are higher, with a record of 2.8.

Tonight my brother arrived for a visit. Just for fun I let him test his ketones (see picture). Wow. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, this guy can eat half an inch of butter on top of a block of cheese for breakfast.

The ketone master has arrived.

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A New Toy Measuring Blood Ketones

August 21 2012 10:40 in Ketone Measuring, Low Carb High Fat, Weight Loss

I just got a new toy: a device for measuring blood ketones. This is a far more exact and reliable measurement than testing for urine ketones using cheap dipsticks. Ketosis is of course the state the body is in when eating very low carb. Ketones, made from fat, will then fuel the brain instead of glucose.

So who needs one of these gadgets? Perhaps nobody. Obviously it’s easy to eat LCHF without it. This is for curious nerds (like me) and for those who want definite proof that they are eating so little carbs that insulin levels are low and fat burning is maximized.

A ketone level somewhere between 1.5 – 3 is said to be an optimal level for maximizing weight loss. It means that insulin levels are very low. As you can see my first measurement was 0.2, after a caesar sallad dinner. I’m not surprised as I’ve probably eaten at least 50 grams of carbs a day lately.

I will try it out fasting in the mornings during the coming days. Perhaps I’ll try being really strict with the carbs for a while to see what happens.

Have you tried one of these or are you interested in doing it?

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