What my ketone meter showed while I was on peptides

[rch02474]

Anyone else testing blood ketones? Keto Mojo is what I use for ketones and blood sugar. Owned it a while, and I rarely need to check that I'm in ketosis, but I've picked it back up to see what peptides do to these numbers.

First off, my fasting ketones sit low (0.7-1 mmol/L) even with net carbs kept very low. I was also getting a big dawn effect, with glucose highest first thing in the morning and tapering off over the day.

A short stint with reta I'll skip — that's another story.

Tirz at 5 mg/wk came next and the results were predictable. BG slightly lower, ketones 1.2-2.

Then SS-31, followed by MOTS-C at a fairly low dose (5mg/wk each, SS31 split over 7 doses, 3 doses for MOTS-C), and my blood ketones jumped past 3 mmol/L — the first time since I started measuring. Whether that's just cells taking up glucose more readily, or something else, I couldn't say. Fasted glucose stayed in the 70s-80s.

Either way, feeling pretty good, and I'll keep tracking to see where it goes.

 

[lastresort]

Are those the urine strips?

 

[rch02474]

lastresort said:

Are those the urine strips?

No, this is blood. A strip just like a glucose test strip, only it's made for ketones. Not cheap, but Keto Mojo comes in well under a lot of the alternatives and seems fairly accurate.

 

[lastresort]

rch02474 said:

lastresort said:

Are those the urine strips?

No, this is blood. A strip just like a glucose test strip, only it's made for ketones. Not cheap, but Keto Mojo comes in well under a lot of the alternatives and seems fairly accurate.

I had no idea blood testing came in strips!

 

[rch02474]

lastresort said:

rch02474 said:

lastresort said:

Are those the urine strips?

No, this is blood. A strip just like a glucose test strip, only it's made for ketones. Not cheap, but Keto Mojo comes in well under a lot of the alternatives and seems fairly accurate.

I had no idea blood testing came in strips!

Yep! A few exist, though anything from the traditional blood glucose monitoring companies is really pricey, and I doubt insurance picks those up in most cases.

With Keto Mojo you land around ~$1 per test once the separate glucose strip is factored in (I run both together a few times per week to work out Glucose Ketone Index). One stick, 1x, and I just make sure there's enough blood for both. There are discount codes floating around if you want to give it a go and save a little $.

 

[rch02474]

fatjacked said:

Lately I've been coming across more discussion about ketone tracking, and I'd like to know how you actually do it and what you take away from the readings. For example, what numbers are you watching for, what's the goal you're working toward, and how do you establish your baselines? I've done some googling, but nearly everything that comes up is about diabetes, which isn't relevant in my case.

Glad to go into detail!

Blood glucose and blood ketone readings are what I track with a Keto Mojo meter. It functions much like any standard BG meter, with the difference being that ketones need their own strips. From those 2 values, the app derives a Glucose Ketone Index, which is essentially a measure of how "deep" you are in ketosis. A lot of folks who follow this number are using ketones for therapeutic reasons such as seizures or mental health.

When the goal is weight loss, ketone readings and GKI are not very informative. That's why most people only use them to confirm they are in ketosis, or to find out whether a new food will push them out of nutritional ketosis. As a rule, higher ketones don't mean more weight loss. I could add 500 calories of olive oil, drive my ketones up, and still put on weight.

That said, my situation gives me a fairly solid baseline for comparison, since I eat within a small window, my calories and macros stay similar from day to day, and I always test fasted before that window opens. It struck me that if a peptide was supposed to improve insulin sensitivity or boost fat oxidation, I ought to be able to detect a shift in my BG and ketones.

As it happens, at least in my case, I have measured clear changes in BG and ketones with SS-31 (slightly lower BG, ketones up), 5-amino-1MQ (ketones up mildly), and MOTS-C (BG down more, ketones higher). Since my eating and activity stay about the same, the higher ketones have appeared to line up with more weight loss, because they come from greater body fat oxidation rather than simply a larger share of fat in my diet.

A few caveats:

Diabetes has never been my diagnosis, yet my A1C sat solidly in the "prediabetic" range, even back when I was active, working out, and eating a moderate carbohydrate diet. Metformin was part of my routine for years, until a high protein ketogenic diet replaced it. All of which is to say that significant insulin resistance has been with me since an early age. Before I began SS31 and MOTS-C, eating 10-15 net carbs/day left me only barely in nutritional ketosis. I plan to get bloodwork done before long and find out whether these peptides shifted my fasting insulin levels and inflammation markers.