Ketostix vs. Me

adnscmplx

Member
Hey everyone. I am about to start week 4 of a ckd. I picked up some ketostix earlier this week and they have been negative every time I test. WTF?

I had a mini vacation last weekend for the superbowl and I ate a modest amount of non-diet foods (beer, pie, etc) but I have been eating properly since Monday. It is now Saturday night and I still can't get those stupid sticks to turn purple (skipping carb up this week).

My diet consists of eggs, cheese, fatty meat, EVOO, some veggies, some pecans, guacamole 1-3x/week, and minimal carb protein powders. I lifted 4x last week with 3x 15-20 min HIIT. I have heard that citric acid from diet drinks can screw you up but I have abstained from these for two days.

I do drink a lot of water so my pee is very dilute. I guess that this could lead to a false negative but I don't have any metallic taste or any other real reason to believe that I am in keto.

Am I doing something wrong or should I just not worry about the sticks?
 
If the color changes at all you should be doing alright.

The better time to test would probably be when you first wake up in the morning. Yes, all the water you're drinking will dilute your ketones in your urine.

I was readign something EasyEJL said earlier this week and it sounds like if you're getting too much protein in your diet, it has the ability to knock you out of keto as well.

Just bouncing some ideas your way.
 
I wouldn't worry too much...is this your first week on CKD? If so, don't expect to get into Ketosis until early next week. You said you had Beer,Pie,Etc over SB weekend...those things definitely stick in your system man. I gorged bigtime before my first week of CKD, and it took me about 9 days to reach full-blown ketosis. I say keep it up, use a diet tracker to make sure how your macros look, and be meticulous about the details...
 
and keto sticks should generally just show light or at absolute most medium ketosis. so there shouldnt be much change. you shouldn't manage to be urinating that much ketones out while on a CKD. took me a long time to realize that. Basically being in high ketosis would mean that you are taking in a caloric surplus, and your body rather than burning the ketones is excreting them. First thing in the morning should be the darkest you will get
 
I have used those and find I have a hard time getting into ketosis if I'm over 20 grams of carbs a day. You said your eating pecans and some veggies.. not sure if you are doing that daily, or how much you are eating, but both have carbs, especially root veggies. But like the others have said, give it a little more time. If there is still no change, I'd go carbless for 3 days. Works for me every time.
 
Try cutting down on the nuts and veggies a bit, perhaps you are eating a few too many carbs.
 
Thanks everyone. I actually got a stick to turn light pink last night a few hours after my post.

I am cutting back on the veggies. I typically have spinach and peppers with breakfast and broccoli with either lunch or dinner with a bit of onions thrown in there somewhere for flavor. I have some shittake mushrooms, which are tasty, but they have 13 g sugar per serving so funk dat. After years of eating a non-ckd healthy diet, it is strange to eat just bacon, eggs, and cheese for a meal.

Anyone have any advise on how to get into keto quickly after carb up. I was thinking about doing some HIIT or jumping rope on Sundays. It seems like maximizing time in keto is key to getting good results.
 
Its been my experience that Ketostix are very sensitive to water intake, time of day, etc. Ill show in on one test, and out several hours later. Dont rely on them too heavily IMO.
 
adnscmplx said:
Word....

....I ate 13 eggs today and weighed in at 204, down from 210 a month ago.

This diet is awesome
Click to expand...

later today i'm making some french toast as a part of getting back in to ketosis :D there a local bakery that makes bread that is 2g net carbs (net of fiber) per slice. made with almond flour, flax, millet, etc, and they do a cinnamon raisin variant that makes awesome french toast. found some maple extract too, now I just have to figure out a nice something to put the extract in for faux syrup
 
[OTE=EasyEJL;1797342]later today i'm making some french toast as a part of getting back in to ketosis :D there a local bakery that makes bread that is 2g net carbs (net of fiber) per slice. made with almond flour, flax, millet, etc, and they do a cinnamon raisin variant that makes awesome french toast. found some maple extract too, now I just have to figure out a nice something to put the extract in for faux syrup[/QUOTE]

sounds good :food:
 
heres the nutrition data

Serving Size: 1 oz. (28g)
Servings per package: 15
Calories: 84
Fat Calories: 36
Total fat: 4g (6%DV)
Sat. Fat 1g (5%DV)
Cholesterol: 0mg (0%DV)
Sodium: 200mg (8%V)
Total Carbo: 11g (2.2%DV)
Dietary Fiber: 8g (12%DV)
Sugar: 1g
Protein: 1g
 
Stupid question, but since whatever you are doing seems to be working, I will ask. What is ketosis? Your diet looks a lot like what I thought Atkins was. I am curious about whatever seems to be giving you results.

I tried to google it and it seemed a bit more scientific than I was able to comprehend. Wanted to see if anyone could dumb it down for me and maybe explain it to me and see if it was something I could try.

Thanks,
 
Fat Ass 101 said:
Stupid question, but since whatever you are doing seems to be working, I will ask. What is ketosis? Your diet looks a lot like what I thought Atkins was. I am curious about whatever seems to be giving you results.

I tried to google it and it seemed a bit more scientific than I was able to comprehend. Wanted to see if anyone could dumb it down for me and maybe explain it to me and see if it was something I could try.

Thanks,
Click to expand...


Hey there,

The diet is called CKD (Cyclical Ketogenic Diet). It is the same as the Atkins Diet during the week, but in the weekends (for a period of 24-48 hours) you consume between 400-1000 grams of carbs while significantly lowering fat intake. A usual CKD would look like this:

Weekdays:

Around 150-200g of protein
Less than 30g of carbs
However many grams of fat you want depending on how fast you want to lose weight. (Remember though, that the total amount of calories per day must be below your maintenance weight to lose fat.)

Weekends:

Around 150g of protein
From 400-1000g of carbs
Less than 75g of fat

Workouts:

3X per week
Split the first two workouts (Monday and Tuesday)
Do a full body (Depletion Fridays)

On depletion day, consume about 50g of carbs 1-2 hours before the workout, and start the carb-up immediately after the workout.


If you want an example, check out my thread (Modified CKD for Normal People).

Good Luck.
 
the point behind a CKD or really any of the ketogenic diets is to force your body to burn thru its stores of glucose + glycogen, and begin using ketones for fuel. since your body creates ketones from fat, it is somewhat easier to loose fat doing this.
 
SuppKnight said:
Hey there,

The diet is called CKD (Cyclical Ketogenic Diet). It is the same as the Atkins Diet during the week, but in the weekends (for a period of 24-48 hours) you consume between 400-1000 grams of carbs while significantly lowering fat intake. A usual CKD would look like this:

Weekdays:

Around 150-200g of protein
Less than 30g of carbs
However many grams of fat you want depending on how fast you want to lose weight. (Remember though, that the total amount of calories per day must be below your maintenance weight to lose fat.)

Weekends:

Around 150g of protein
From 400-1000g of carbs
Less than 75g of fat

Workouts:

3X per week
Split the first two workouts (Monday and Tuesday)
Do a full body (Depletion Fridays)

On depletion day, consume about 50g of carbs 1-2 hours before the workout, and start the carb-up immediately after the workout.


If you want an example, check out my thread (Modified CKD for Normal People).

Good Luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I had read through the thread, but I was in the weeds on a lot of the terminology. I had a co-worker of mine explain it to me as well. It might be a bit more than I can do at this point, but could be something for me to consider in the future.
 
Fat Ass 101 said:
Thanks. I had read through the thread, but I was in the weeds on a lot of the terminology. I had a co-worker of mine explain it to me as well. It might be a bit more than I can do at this point, but could be something for me to consider in the future.
Click to expand...

yeah, for the most part it gets used more by guys trying to get thru the difficult fat loss moments. Like if you've normally been higher, breaking below 15% is a bit hard, then there tends to be another block at around 11%, and then anything below 9 is usually a struggle to reach in the first place
 
EasyEJL said:
yeah, for the most part it gets used more by guys trying to get thru the difficult fat loss moments. Like if you've normally been higher, breaking below 15% is a bit hard, then there tends to be another block at around 11%, and then anything below 9 is usually a struggle to reach in the first place
Click to expand...

True, but it is still very effective for beginners.

I started the CKD at over 20% BF and with only one month of weight training experience. In 5 weeks I have lost 10 lbs, and 3% BF while gaining quite a bit of muscle. I recommend this diet even for people over 30% BF who have never lifted a weight in their lives. Just do a smaller carb-up and start with light lifts.
 
SuppKnight said:
True, but it is still very effective for beginners.

I started the CKD at over 20% BF and with only one month of weight training experience. In 5 weeks I have lost 10 lbs, and 3% BF while gaining quite a bit of muscle. I recommend this diet even for people over 30% BF who have never lifted a weight in their lives. Just do a smaller carb-up and start with light lifts.
Click to expand...

I never recommend to anyone that high. Its such a greater change of lifestyle that to me it seems more prone to failure. Particularly at the beginning you have to be soooooo totally anal to details to truly get into ketosis that just a tiny bit of cheating and their results are worse than simply restricting cals a little.

I tend to preach the picture perfect diet, and slow changes over time. Tends to be more liveable, also because people over 20% bf (over 30 moreso) got there as a part of long ingrained habits and they need to replace those with habits they can live with the rest of their lives. And most people can't/wont live with a ckd the rest of their lives.
 
adnscmplx said:
Thanks everyone. I actually got a stick to turn light pink last night a few hours after my post.

I am cutting back on the veggies. I typically have spinach and peppers with breakfast and broccoli with either lunch or dinner with a bit of onions thrown in there somewhere for flavor. I have some shittake mushrooms, which are tasty, but they have 13 g sugar per serving so funk dat. After years of eating a non-ckd healthy diet, it is strange to eat just bacon, eggs, and cheese for a meal.

Anyone have any advise on how to get into keto quickly after carb up. I was thinking about doing some HIIT or jumping rope on Sundays. It seems like maximizing time in keto is key to getting good results.
Click to expand...

You probably don't need to cut back on your onions, as I don't think that they have any significant carb content. I eat plenty of onions during the week and have no trouble staying in keto, but that could also be due to my already keeping my carbs so low.
 
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