Weight: 179
AM Ketones: 0.8
PM Ketones: 0.5
AM Blood Glucose: 84
PM Blood Glucose: 90
Hours of Sleep: 7:59
Energy Level: Poor
Physical Activity: None
Reviewed the book I’ve been reading, “The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance” and came across something that I didn’t quite sink in the first time. The fact that consuming medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), the kind that I put in my “fat hot chocolate” (grass fed butter and coconut oil), are actually absorbed by the gut pretty quickly, and are processed right away, either being used by muscle cells as fuel or to be converted by the liver into ketones.
This can actually cause a rise in blood ketones.
Since I always like to have a cup of my “fat hot chocolate” after dinner, I wondered if all the MCTs I was ingesting actually caused the higher ketone levels I was seeing at night. Even though I typically measure my levels before bed, usually 3-4 hours after dinner, that might not be enough time for my body to go finish converting everything.
The ultimate goal is to keep my body in a keto-adapted state, where it’s utilizing ketones as the primary source of fuel, generated from the metabolism of my excess fat. If the numbers I’m seeing are related to the immediate metabolism of what I’m ingesting, rather than an accurate reflection of my true ketotic state, then the evening numbers would be inaccurate.
So tonite I tried an experiment where I skipped my “fat hot chocolate,” and low and behold, my ketones were definitely on the lower end of the scale.
There were a few confounding factors to this experiment that I should address. For dinner tonite, we ate out at a chinese restaurant. I ate kung pao chicken and broccoli beef, and noted that the sauces used were pretty viscous, likely indicating the generous use of corn starch, which is all carb!
Now that I know the morning numbers, after hours of being asleep and thus in a fasting state, are the most accurate, we’ll see how things look in the morning.
I will have to add my “fat hot chocolate” onto the list of foods I want to test, to see how long it takes for my post-prandial ketones to rise, and how long the rise lasts!
Another issue, was that I had a horrible sleep. We changed the position of the humidifier we were using and it was blowing directly at my feet all night which caused me to have a very disrupted sleep. I felt off all day long.
Not quite the complaints a caveman would have… but oh well!
added this to digg