So my body is struggling to enter ketosis. Even after 40 hours the strip doesn’t show much change. Can I still be burning fat stores while not in ketosis? I am worried about screwing up my metabolism if I’m in a deficit and my body can’t access it.
Think of ketosis like working out. If you’re not used to it, which a lot of us aren’t your body is going to resist. It’s used to that constant supply of high insulin telling your body to store fat, not burn in it. You need to exercise that response so your body will switch quicker to fat burning mode. Once your hormones are in check, you will start burning fat. Also, look into a low-carb diet for when you’re not fasting. This gets you into ketosis faster. Exercise and cold plunge also burn a lot of calories and can get you into ketosis faster.
What’s your insulin level?
Also the urine ketone test isn’t the optimal test for late stage ketone production. Once your body is better at making BHB, the urine test will be small to negative. It may not be that you’re not in ketosis, it may be you are already in deep ketosis! We’d have to run labs to prove it.
This I wouldn’t worry about. Ketosis is a state that your body is in, it doesn’t really mean anything to most people unless you have some medical condition where being in ketosis necessitates your survival. Fasting works because there is typically a fairly large deficit created, while fasting, which promotes fat loss. No different than calorie counting or exercising, other than it being arguably easier.
Some things that help in getting into fat burning mode faster: eat a low carb meal as your last meal before your fast (high fiber, healthy fats etc). Also, immediately after you eat your last meal, walk at a leisurely pace for 10 minutes: this helps to deplete the blood sugar levels in your blood early in the fast giving you more time to get into ketosis.
I was having the same problem. I was not used to fasting since I had not done it in over 6 months.
I bought a blood glucose and ketone meter as I noticed the strips aren’t accurate enough for me. With that tool it was easy for me to see that it was not until day three that my ketones really starting going up and over 1.3 mmol . I’m on day 4 of a fast right now and was finally able to get my GKI down to 1.76 and ketones to 2.6 after hovering around 4 or 5 the first 3 days.