Nutritional ketosis occurs when your body starts to burn fats instead of glucose. This method involves taking ketogenic diets, and over time, your body uses fat as a source of energy, helping burn those excess fats, leading to weight loss. If you start taking ketogenic diets, you expect results after a few weeks. But how do you know that your ketogenic diet plan is working? Keep reading to learn signs that show that your keto diet is working.
Increased ketones
Ketosis is the process where your body uses fats as a source of energy because it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates. So ketogenic diets are typically rich in proteins and fats and low in carbs. During ketosis, the liver produces ketones which are released to the body. Ketones can also be found in blood, breath, and urine. So you should do a nutritional ketosis test using blood ketone strips to know the ketone levels in your blood.
You can do several tests at the start, but as time goes by to can test once a week. You just need to buy many blood ketone strips to ensure you have enough for the tests. If you have blood ketone levels of 0.5-3 millimoles per liter, you can smile because your ketogenic diet plan is yielding positive results.
Alternatively, you can use a breath analyzer to test for ketone levels in your breath or indicator strips to test the urine for ketone levels. The testing, whether using blood ketone strips, a breath analyzer, or any other ketone testing kit, will help you know the ketone level in your body. If you have a higher concentration of ketones, know that your keto diet is working.
Weight Loss
The main purpose of taking a ketogenic diet is to help one lose weight. Low-carb diets trigger the body to use fats as a source of energy. So the body will burn stored fats, leading to weight loss. One can lose weight in just a few days, but it will take several weeks to see a significant change in weight. But when you want to accelerate the process, you can combine a ketogenic diet and exercise, and you will get better results quickly.
Thirst
Ketosis has many side effects, and one of them is feeling thirstier than usual. This mainly happens as your body loses too much water, causing dehydration. The process can also cause electrolyte imbalance, which will trigger your body to ask for more water and electrolytes to restore balance. You can avoid dehydration by drinking plenty of water and other liquids with low sugar levels.
Stomach Complaints
You will likely experience stomach upsets or other complications whenever you change your diet plan. So when you switch to a keto diet, expect to have digestive complaints. But that is not always the case. You can easily deal with the complaints by taking a lot of water, eating non-starchy vegetables, and fiber-rich foods with low levels of carbohydrates.
Muscle Cramps and Headaches
A ketogenic diet will cause dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, which will likely cause muscle pain. Electrolyte imbalances and dehydration can easily cause muscle cramps. Also, switching to ketogenic digest can cause headaches for a few days, but some people can experience the pain for longer.
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