Does being in Ketosis mean that your body is definitely burning body fat, or does it just mean that your body is burning fat, period (which could either be fat from the food you've eaten or could be body fat)?

As an example... If i was to eat loads and loads of food, but it was all zero-carb (like meat), i would put on weight because i'd be eating far too many calories. Would a Ketostick still turn purple because all the calories were from fat or would i come out of ketosis because some of the fat i ate was being stored in my body?

Over the last 2 days the ketostick has been a lighter shade of purple, even though i've been well under 20 carbs per day and have been eating about 8x my weight in calories (about half what i burn, after exercise, according to fitday).

I've just finished the first 2 weeks of induction, nearing the end of week 3, and the only foods i've added back in are Humous, Peanuts and peanut butter.

I should stress, though, that all 3 of these foods are treats and i don't have them every day. Even when i do i stay under 20 carbs.

I don't know whether i'm still losing weight/inches because i only weigh/measure myself every 2 weeks and i did it last week. I don't like to do it more often than that otherwise, one day, i'll get disappointed when i don't lose any for a few days.

burning fat period .. you can't go for a calorie free for all !

Ketosis means your body is burning fat for energy. If you eat enough calories of fatty food, your body can just burn that and doesn't need to go into its reserves of stored fat. That's why Dr. Atkins says, "We don't count calories, but calories do matter." However, it doesn't sound like your are eating too many calories, so this shouldn't be a problem for you.

I can't tell how much you lost on induction, because it doesn't look like you have updated your statistics. However, if you lost a lot of weight -- and 8 to 10 pounds is a lot of weight -- you may well go through a few weeks of not losing anything while your body gets used to its new weight. If this happens, just stick it out and you will start losing again, although slower than you lost on induction.

I have found that I can eat nuts in small quantities and continue to lose -- the problem is when the quantities creep up (which happened to me recently). However, everyone is different, so you will have to experiment and see what works for you.

Good luck! This way of eating really does work -- you just have to find the right balance for yourself.

Thanks,

TBH i think i'm still losing (and i lost about 12 pounds on the first 2 weeks BTW) because i tend to burn at least 1000 calories more than i eat every day (I log everything in fitday religiously and swim about 6 kilometres per week)...

Which brings me to my next question... If calories have no impact on Ketosis, and i've been staying under 20 carbs per day... why isn't it as dark as it has been?

The ketone test strips only test for excess ketones in the urine and for only one type of ketone at that. If your body is using most or all of the ketones produced for energy, there will be no excess to spill into the urine or the strips can be a lighter color. A better test than the strips is whether or not you are losing pounds and/or inches. If you are, then you are burning body fat.

I've never tried to figure out if I am in ketosis or not. I am just happy that I am losing weight and inches. I probably am not in ketosis because I have not noticed any halitosis, or odd smelling sweat.

Black57