In Blog, Health

Keto Mojo is a Wahls Protocol Seminar & Retreat Sponsor.

In this interview we cover:

• Bioindividuality and monitoring ketosis
• What could suppress ketones
• What could be keeping you out of ketosis
• Personalized medicine
• Wine and Ketosis
• How often to test
• Glucose Ketone Index (GKI)
• Long-term Keto-friendly lifestyle
• Anthropology of fasting
• Ketogenic Foundation
• Keto Community
• Standard of care in research
• Issues of following a ketogenic diet
• Empowering patients
• Ketosis and diabetes
• Future of Keto Mojo

Bio-individuality is a buzzword these days, but it’s also an important factor in your keto plan because, as we’ve mentioned, the key to ketosis is not only eating the right types of food in the right portions, it’s also learning which specific foods adversely affect you and then avoiding them.

Trigger Foods
If you’re following a clean keto diet and staying in ketosis, you don’t have to worry as much about trigger foods. But if you find you’re still not in ketosis or would like to be in a higher state of ketosis for therapeutic benefits, then consider testing some of the foods you’re eating to see if they are suppressing your ketone levels.

There are lots of foods that can trigger ketone dips for some people, but not others. Following are common ones:

  • Dairy
  • Alternative sweeteners
  • Alcohol
  • Prepackaged foods

How to Identify Your Trigger Foods
The only way to tell if you’re reacting to any specific food is to test your ketones and glucose before and after you eat the food in question. It’s a three-test process, but it’s worth the effort because once you know which food(s) are getting in your way, you can eliminate them from your diet.

Here’s exactly how to test, step by step:

Note: these numbers below only apply if you’re nondiabetic; diabetics (type I, type II, and prediabetic) may have different responses.

Trigger Foods Identification in 3 Easy Tests
To discover trigger foods that may kick you out of ketosis, you will conduct 3 ketone and 3 glucose tests all in one day to see if the food you eat during the test adversely affects your ketone and glucose levels, and thus impedes your ability to reach optimal ketosis.

Required tools: You will need your Keto-Mojo meter, 3 ketone strips, 3 glucose strips, and 3 lancets.

Test 1: Your Preprandial (Before Eating) Baselines for Ketones and Glucose
The purpose of this test is to get your pre-prandial (before eating) or baseline reading. You need this so you can compare it to the results you get after you eat the food in question. For accurate readings, take this test at least 3 hours after your last meal (or 3 hours after any food).

Steps:

  • Make sure you conduct this test at least 3 hours after your last meal.
  • Wash your hands in warm water and dry them or clean them with an alcohol swab. Clean hands are important for safety and accuracy, plus, if you have food on your hands it can alter your reading.
  • Conduct a ketone and a glucose test: Insert a glucose strip into your Keto-Mojo meter and get your lancet ready. Prick your finger. Gently squeeze a matchstick-head-size droplet of blood from your clean finger, then touch the blood to the front tip of the glucose testing strip. When the meter displays your reading, record the number on a spreadsheet or in a notebook. Next, insert a ketone strip into your monitor and touch the tip to your blood droplet. You can use the same droplet of blood or prick another finger. (The ketone strip requires a bit more blood then the glucose strip.).

Test 2: The Postprandial Test That Hints at Your Reaction to a Food In Question

The purpose of this test is to introduce a food in question to your diet and see how your body responds to it. It is best to eat JUST the food in question, if possible. The more ingredients mixed with it, the more variables in the equation. For example, if you’re trying to test your response to heavy cream and you add 2 oz of heavy cream to a protein shake, you will get a reading that responds to all the ingredients in the protein shake, whereby if you eat 2 oz of heavy cream by itself, you’re testing your body’s response to nothing but the cream.

Steps:

  • Eat the food you are looking to test your reaction to, ideally all by itself.
  • It’s best to wait 30 minutes after eating, then test your glucose and ketones, following the same steps you followed in the prior test. Record your levels with each and be sure to note the food you ate. It’s normal for ketones to decrease and blood glucose to increase (by about 10 30 mg/dL) after eating, so don’t be concerned when your results follow this pattern. (There are a few exceptions: MCT oil, heavy cream, and coconut oil, for example, tend to show an increased ketone level due to their high fat content.)

Test 3: The Postprandial Test That Tells You What You Need to Know About the Food in Question

This is the test that allows you to see how quickly your ketones and glucose recover (or don’t) from the food you ate. If the results show your ketones are still low and your glucose is still high, the food you tested is a red-flag food.

Steps:

  • Wait at least 2, but ideally 3, hours after conducting the prior test.
  • Conduct the glucose and ketones tests following the prior protocol and note the results.
  • Analyze the results: By now, your glucose and ketone levels should have returned to close to your baseline/preprandial levels. If one or both hasn’t, consider eliminating the food or drink in question, retesting after eating a smaller portion to see if you get less disruptive results, or eating it in moderation with the knowledge that you are likely to have some level of undesired reaction.

Examples of How to Record Your Test Results

Ketones Tracking for Food Sensitivity

Food

Initial Reading

30 Minute Reading

3 Hour Reading

3 Tbsps erythritol

3

3

3.1

Bulletproof coffee

3.4

3.7

3.5

Keto Bar

2.6

1.9

2.4

Low-carb gummies

4.1

1.9

3.2

Blood Glucose Tracking for Food Sensitivity:

Food

Initial Reading

30 Minute Reading

3 Hour Reading

3 Tbsps erythritol

78 mg/dL

77 mg/dL

77 mg/dL

Bulletproof coffee

64 mg/dL

73 mg/dL

61 mg/dL

Keto Bar

64 mg/dL

81 mg/dL

66 mg/dL

Taking Direction from the Results
Generally speaking, it’s good to avoid foods that cause your blood glucose levels to increase more than 30mg from your baseline test. Regardless, as we already mentioned, by the 3-hour postprandial mark, you want your glucose numbers back or very close to baseline.

As for ketone levels, you generally don’t want a drop more than 0.5-1 mmol/L, and you do want a return to baseline by the 3-hour mark.

From the example above, the results of the low-carb gummies in the quantity tested is a red-flag because ketones levels dropped and didn’t return to baseline in time and glucose spiked. If gummies or some other food you are testing are important to you, you could retest with a smaller portion to see how your body responds or just decide that gummies are off the menu if you want to ensure you maintain ketosis.

You can allow a bit of leniency on the ketone drop if your blood glucose remains stable or drops very little. And in any case, you’re likely to encounter trigger foods here and there along your journey and they may be very different from other people. Testing gives you the information you need to optimize and individualize your keto lifestyle.

Download this infographic on how to test:

How to test for Ketones guide


About Keto Mojo:

Keto-Mojo – more than a meter – it’s a lifestyle.

For us, that lifestyle started back in 2015.

Dorian from ketomojo before and after

Every journey to optimal health begins somewhere. Mine began as I was reclining on a sun lounger in Mexico and realized that I could balance a bottle of beer on my protruding belly. Having ballooned to over 207 lbs., I felt constantly tired, was on anti-depressants and had nearly all the markers for metabolic syndrome. I had completely lost my mojo.

After much research, it became evident that the Ketogenic lifestyle was a path to measurable success. My wife, Gemma, and I started a lazy clean ketogenic diet and within six months I had lost 47 lbs. I came off all medications and finally felt like I was getting my mojo back. The ketogenic lifestyle changed my life so I wanted to give back and help “be the change.”

Our goal became to make the ketogenic lifestyle accessible, approachable, and enjoyable to the millions of people around the world that could benefit from it. But paying it forward wasn’t easy. Measuring blood ketones was an essential tool in achieving our success with a keto lifestyle, but it was an expensive one.  Ketone strips were produced by a few big players in the bio-tech industry.  Limited competition meant prices would stay high, and out of reach for many.

This was an industry that needed to be disrupted. After many months and countless doors being firmly closed in my face, I found a manufacturing partner and we worked to create an FDA approved meter and testing strips that were more accurate and affordable than any others on the market.

We launched Keto-Mojo in fall 2017, offering the first and only affordable, accurate blood ketone and glucose testing meter with a lifetime guarantee and .99¢ testing strips. Sidestepping big-pharma pricing and brick-and-mortar distribution, our products are sold directly to you, offering superior testing accuracy, unbeatable prices, and kick-ass customer service.

We were quickly embraced by influencers and educators in the ketogenic community.  When we lost our house in the 2017 Napa Valley wildfires, we doubled down, and put everything we had into Keto-Mojo…including our life savings and insurance money.

Now we are thinking even bigger.  Our goal is not only to sell a meter.  It’s to spread keto news, information, tools, and understanding, so that people can make changes that will allow them to live longer, fuller – healthier lives.

To help us do that, we built a team of equally passionate people—a team that will help us bring optimal health to people and the planet through a ketogenic lifestyle. We believe Keto-Mojo can help manifest healthier humankind by changing the way we shop and eat, which will lead to changes in health policy and ultimately influence farming practices.

We’re expanding our offerings to include a wealth of reliable information on how to optimize the ketogenic lifestyle and we’re getting involved with keto communities around the world.

We thank the community that has embraced us so quickly and we want you to know that we’re here to help you put the mojo back in your life.

Keto on my friends,

Mister and Misses Mojo
Aka Dorian & Gemma

Dorian from Keto Mojo

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