If you are on the keto diet, you may be wondering if there is a way that you can test to see if you are in ketosis. Measuring ketone levels for ketosis is actually a common practice among keto dieters.
Getting Into Ketosis
Ketosis is a process that your body uses to produce ketones instead of glucose for fuel.
Measuring ketone levels lets you know how many ketones your body is producing and that you are in fact in ketosis.
To get your body into ketosis on the keto diet you need to use up your body’s glucose stores so it has to turn to burning fat in order to have energy for fuel.
How Measuring Ketone Levels Can Help You on the Keto Diet
Many people who are on the keto diet like to make sure that they are in ketosis.
Making sure your body is in ketosis can be especially important to when you want to know how different foods might affect your ketone levels while you are on the keto diet.
Another reason people like to keep an eye on ketone levels is they just want to be sure that their body is burning fat. After all that is the main goal when you are on a weight loss journey.
Ketone levels, just like blood sugar levels, can fluctuate.
When to Measure Your Ketone Levels
When you should be measuring your ketone levels is entirely up to you.
Some people like to wake up in the morning and make sure they are in ketosis.
Other times people like to make a bit of an experiment out of ketone testing and see how their ketone levels fluctuate throughout the day depending on what they ate, their schedule for eating, and activity levels.
If being more of an experiment is what you want then you want to make sure that you use a very accurate form of ketone testing.
How to Measure Ketone Levels
There are three ways to test for ketone levels: blood, breath and urine.
The two most popular ways are through urine or blood.
You can get test kits for either way of testing ketones.
Urine Ketone Strips
Using urine ketone strips to test for your ketone levels is the cheapest option available for measuring ketones.
However it is not the most accurate of ketone test, as ketone bodies are mainly carried in the blood and not the urine. So with this type of test you are mainly testing compounds being expelled by the body.
If being precise is not your main goal, and you just want to make sure you have some ketones then this is a great option for a ketone test kit.
Blood Ketone Testing
Using blood to test ketone levels is the most accurate way to measure your body’s ketone levels.
Blood ketone readings are the standard for measuring your real levels of ketones since blood ketone tests are the most accurate test available.
Getting a ketone blood test kit isn’t expensive either. You can get one from KissMyKeto for a great price and get a 2 year warranty on the tester.
If you are serious about your ketone levels and want to be sure your body is in ketosis in the most optimal way, then a blood ketone test kit is the way to go.
Breath Ketone Testing
This is another type of testing that is used, but the reviews on the products out there are very mixed and the test isn’t as accurate as the blood ketone test.
As you can see from this keto breath test kit, it has mixed reviews, and for the price it would be much better to go with a blood test kit and get very accurate results.
Conclusion
When it comes to testing ketone levels while on the keto diet I much prefer the blood ketone test kit, since accuracy is of upmost importance to me.
But if getting a bit of blood from yourself isn’t your cup of tea, and exact measurements aren’t that important, then the urine ketone test strips are a good second place. They are very inexpensive and super easy to use.
