Quote:
Originally Posted by lowcarbs_wow  However, whats it with the ketostix turning purple. Am i losing some fat? |
Not necessarily. The ketostix turn purple when your body is running on fat, as opposed to glucose. Now, this doesn't mean that fat is fat from your tummy or thighs -- it could be dietary fat just as well. For example, if you eat 2 lbs of butter and sip on a cup of olive oil, the ketostix will turn purple, but you won't be losing weight because your caloric intake is higher than the calories your body needs.
To understand the color on the ketostix, you have to understand why the color changes in the first place.
Ketones are produced when the Krebs cycle cannot take in the amount of acetyl-CoA resulting from the beta-oxidation of fatty acids. These ketones are then transported to other tissues (for e.g., heart, brain) where two of them -- acetoacetate (this is the one the stix register) and BHB -- are "recycled" into acetyl-CoA and thrown back into the Krebs cycle to produce energy. The other ketone, acetone, can't be recycled so you just pee it, but the ketostix are not sensitive to it. Anyway, so if all the acetoacetate is converted back into acetyl-CoA and used to get fuel, you won't have any left to spill in your urine, so the stix won't change color.
Since the ketostix measure the
concentration of ketones in the urine (if there are any), it means that the more dehydrated you are, the higher the ketone concentration will be, hence the darker the color on the ketostix.
Also keep in mind that the color will stop changing once you start consuming more than about 50 net carbs, even though you will still be making ketones if your CCLL is high enough.
Bottom line is, you can be in lipolysis/ketosis without changing the color on the stix. Just the same, simply because the color changes, it doesn't mean you are losing body fat.
There are a few threads about ketostix in the FAQ section of the Board. You might want to read those too.