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Originally Posted by blondegypsy I guess I'm old school, I grab the keto sticks, if they turn purple each day (no matter what the stupid scales aren't saying!) I know its working. If they don't turn I eat some meat, try a few hrs later, usually has a reaction. If not, I messed up somewhere and I just eat meat and eggs for the next day or so and Im back! |
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Originally Posted by blondegypsy I wanted everyone to know that if they worry "its not working" they have a way to check. If you see the purple, its working and the inches are coming off even if the scale isn't showing it. If you stop turning purple (it shows deeper at certain times of the day) completely...you goofed somewhere, just go back to the start of the diet for about 3 days till you hit it again and turn purple on the test strips. Then take off back where you were. |
Secretion of glucagon (i.e. liberation of fat from fat cells) has little to do with the reading on the ketostix. To understand what ketostix tell you, you first need to understand how ketone bodies are formed and used.
When fatty acids undergo beta-oxidation they are broken down into two-carbon molecules called acetyl-CoA. If there isn't enough oxygen available to burn all the acetyl-CoA molecules, the acetyl-CoA molecules will be converted into three types of ketones: acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetone. Acetoacetic acid and beta-hydroxybutyric acid will be released into the bloodstream for energy supply and those cells that have mitochondria will take these ketones and convert them back into acetyl-CoA, which then is pumped back into the TCA cycle.
If there are any excess ketones left after all this happens, they will be expelled by your body and you can measure them in urine. However, the stix only detect acetoacetate and what you are measuring is not the number of molecules, but their concentration. For example, if you spill 10000 ketones into 1000 ml of pee, the concentration will be smaller than if you spill the same 10000 ketones into 500 ml of pee. This means that the color on the ketostix will be lighter or, if the molarity is below the one that can be detected by the stix, the color will not change at all. Similarly, the concentration of unused ketones will change depending on your activity level, on what you had for your last meal, on the time of the day when you are testing and on the type of fatty acids in your diet.
Being in lipolysis/ketosis (i.e. using fat as the primary source of energy) is not equivalent to spilling excess ketones into the urine. Folks who exercise heavily may never change the color of the ketostix simply because they are using the ketones for fuel, so there is no surplus left to pee. But this does not mean they "goofed somewhere", nor does it mean that they have to go back to Induction, as you suggested (I guess "Induction" is what you mean by "the start of the diet", although this is an Induction forum).
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Originally Posted by blondegypsy If your FMH is activated and you are burning hundreds calories as you sleep, breath, you could be a bump on a log and still loose the fat. |
Yes, normal functions like sleeping and breathing do burn calories. But just because you are burning calories it does not mean you are having a net loss of body fat, which is what we care about when we want to lose weight. Imagine you have a bathtub and 10 L of water in it. If you remove the plug, the amount of water should decrease, right? Well, not necessarily. If you turn on the water and the rate at which it goes into the tub is higher than the rate at which water goes through the drain, the amount of water in the tub will in fact increase. If we would only burn energy, none of us would be fat in the first place. However, we take Calories in from the foods we eat, which means we are constantly pouring water into the tub. Atkins is not magic and the same old principle applies to it---if there is no caloric deficit, there will be no weight loss, regardless of whether you are in ketosis or not. For example, you will be in ketosis if you snack on butter and lard all day and you might even turn the ketostix dark pink. But being in ketosis only determines the primary metabolic pathway your body chooses to generate energy, not the net amount of body fat you lose.