NF52 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:44 am
sophielou wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2024 6:09 am
Hello everyone,
I have been on a ketogenic diet (with occasional cheating) for over 6 months now, and am pretty sure I am fat adapted. Looking at lists of "signs you are fat adapted", I pretty much check all the boxes. However, I am confused about wether or not I am also keto adapted, because I have read conflicting information about this on other websites that say that you can be fat adapted without being keto adapted (in nutritional ketosis). Also, although I seem to be in ketosis during most of the day, when I measure my ketone levels a couple hours after dinner, I am often no longer in ketosis. I rarely go above 30g of carbs a day and am fairly active. I wonder if my evening meal is too "carb heavy", compared to the rest of the day? I have read the wiki section on Ketosis and Ketogenic Diet, which says that keto adapted and fat adapted are interchangeable terms, but am confused about how this can be true.
Now for keto diets and social situations. I can deal with my family and friends, but work is another story.
Hi Sophie,
I've been keto adapted for 15 years (originally adapted with a 20g/day carb diet), though I now eat a lot more carbs than most on a keto diet (upwards of 200 g/day on some days). See my post
here on comments by ketone researcher Mark Mattson (used to run a lab at the NIA, now semi retired and still has a position at John Hopkins) Mark recently wrote an intermittent fasting book, first in this
list.
In the Asprey podcast
transcript, Mattson says,
"Mark Mattson: The ketone strips that you can buy commercially to measure ketone levels,
they're only sensitive down to around 300 micromolar, below that, you can't tell what
Dave Asprey: You can't tell, right.
Mark Mattson: It turns out there's two phases of ketone production that occur. As soon as the
glycogen source in the liver are depleted, you get an increase from way down,
below micromolar levels up to about two to 300 micromolar {0.3 mmol/L). They stay up in
that level for between 10 up to 24 hours, and then there's a second bigger
increase in ketones, where they go up into the millimolar levels.
Dave Asprey: That's over what timeframe was the second spike?
Mark Mattson: Beginning about 24 hours of complete fasting. My ketone levels, in the late
morning, I get up to around the two to 300 micromolar level. Then actually, I
haven't measured them after exercise, I should. I'm expecting to go up getting
closer to the one millimolar level or above during the exercise. I think a lot of
people will find that if they use the ketone strips, even after 12, even 16 hours
of fasting. They may look and say, "My ketones aren't up at all," but probably
they are up. It's just below the lower limited detection of those ketone strips.
Dave Asprey: If you use a finger stick, you can get the .1 level, right?
Mark Mattson: Not if you're using the ketone, the paper strips to measure.
Dave Asprey: No. I mean, there's the P strips and there's the finger stick strips, which strip are
you talking about?
Mark Mattson: Either strip. "
In my case, I almost always test 0.3-0.7 mmol/L beta hydroxybutyrate (BHB) on a fasted morning test. I look at BHB as an insulin proxy. The higher the BHB, the lower the insulin. Recently a PhD researcher, Isabella D. Cooper, in the UK posted on her FB
page In this
post, she says
Testing capillary BHB for more than 3 consecutive days, between 4-6 p.m., three hours after any meal, 15 to 30 min before a meal, will indicate whether your insulin levels are hyperinsulinaemic for yourself, although an individual suffering from chronic hyperinsulinaemia, who fasts for a few days beforehand will end up with nutrional levels of ketones (> 0.5 mmol/L) in that situation, which would result in a false negative for chronic hyperinsulinaemia but a true negative for acute hyperinsulinaemia according to this test method, as well as fasting insulin and HOMA-IR. She is the first author on this
paper
I did this test a couple of weeks ago and had serum BHB of 1.6 mmol/L at 4 PM.
In my case, if I water fast for some days, my glucose just drops till it gets to the low 50's (mg/dL) and BHB increases without any "keto flu." This is really my metric for keto adaptation.
As to testing, I generally use BHB fingersticks and a meter. There are breath meters and I got one in 2015. They measure acetone, which is more of a real time indicator of current ketone production. The inventor of the Ketonix meter is an engineer who got adult onset epilepsy. He found that acetone was a better predictor of ketones suppressing seizures, hence his development of the meter. My problem is the Ketonix sensor would also register on methane. As I eat a high fiber pescatarian diet, there is a lot of methane, so the sensor only gave me "good" readings if I was water fasting. Urine strips measure acetoacetate. As you only urinate what you don't use, these are fairly worthless after a few weeks of adaptation as they commonly won't show a reading, unless fasting.
You may wonder how I maintain adaptation on a fairly high carb (carbs coming from starches, like purple sweet potatoes) diet. It is likely due to my exercise routine as well has generally eating in an 8 hour or shorter window daily.
I don't have much to say about socializing. My own rule is that if I've not prepared my food from whole foods, I don't eat it. If people want to go to a restaurant, I fast and tip the server well. If we go to eat at someone's house, we bring our own food. At a family Thanksgiving a week ago, this is exactly what we did. My niece was hosting and her partner is a professional chef. He makes great food, but not on our list. I did bring a millet stuffing recipe I prepared to share (the chef requested it as well). When we host people, we normally cater food for them, that they will like, and fix our own food for us. When we travel, we always book accomodations with kitchen facilities.
, just writing this down makes me feel better. I am so grateful for this community!
