I’m on day 3 of a water fast, on day one and two my ketone levels were coming out as ‘trace’ (0.5mg/dl). However because I was drinking a lot of water my urine was a very pale yellow color.
This morning (day 3) I tested after I woke up so my urine was a bit more concentrated. This seemed to correspond to ‘small’ (15mg/dl).
Is the strip just responding to more concentrated urine or has there actually been a 3x increase in ketone production overnight?
Keytone strips are the best we can do to monitor keytones, but it’s not extremely accurate as to what is actually happening in your body. Urine is what your body is dumping. It’s very possible for your body to be in a deep ketosis but pee light keytones. It’s because your body is using the keytones and not dumping them.
UPDATE: Just tested again with much less concentrated urine and the ketone levels seem to be higher, so it seems that the strips can detect ketone concentration independently of perceived urine concentration. I guess this makes sense as the bladder isn’t actually concentrating the urine, its just collecting what’s coming from the kidneys, even if the amount of water collected is low due to lower hydration overnight, the ketone concentrations should still be proportional to what’s in the blood