The problem or challenge with most diets is seeing their impact. You can change your lifestyle quite dramatically but have to wait weeks to see any tangible impact or benefits.
Switching to a low carb high fat / ketogenic diet is not easy. However, unlike many diets it is relatively simple to check if your body is in ketosis ie. if the ketogenic diet is actually working. Sure, it won’t happen overnight, but you should be able to see results within 7 to 10 days. There has to be an upside to the carb withdrawal after all!
In order to get into ketosis and stay there you need to reduce your carb intake quite dramatically. In my case I’m below 40g per day most days, though I’ve heard of some people needing to get below 20g before they get into ketosis. Bear in mind that the average Irish or American person is consuming several hundred grams of carbs per day. It doesn’t take much – bread, pasta, root vegetables and sugar are all source of carbs.
The simplest way to check is to test your urine using a ketone urinalysis urine strip. You can easily get them on Amazon or elsewhere. The strips will simply check to see how high the ketone levels are in your urine and therefore tell you whether you are in ketosis or not.
For example, with the ones I bought a shade of purple indicates ketosis with the darker the shade is indicating higher levels of ketone in the blood stream.
Testing is simple and easy. Just collect a urine sample, dip one of the strips in it. Wait a few seconds and check the colour against those on the side of the container. And you’re done. No hanging about or waiting.
There are other methods for testing, though they’re either more expensive or invasive. Do you really want to spend hundreds of Euro on a breath tester? Or draw blood to test your ketone levels?