What is Ketosis? Learn What It Is and What Ketosis Means For Your Body

What is Ketosis? Learn What It Is and What Ketosis Means For Your Body
Page content

Ketosis is…

Contrary to popular belief, the state of Ketosis is not harmful for your body. Ketosis is simply the state in which your body is using fat for energy, and is a key component to weight loss. Ketones are molecules generated in the body as fat metabolizes, regardless if it is the fat from the food you just ate, or fat that you are trying to lose to make yourself thinner.

When you eat less carbohydrates—think of the popular low carb diets like the Atkin’s Diet—your body then turns to fat to burn energy, as many vital organs prefer to use ketones for energy than glucose. You can use your urine to test to see if you are in ketosis, with test strips available from a variety of merchants. It works by detecting the amount of acetone in your urine, as acetone is one of the ketones that cannot be used in the body and usually excreted through the urine and is known to cause the bad breath that is associated with ketosis. Generally speaking, the darker the indicator turns on the stick, the more ketones in your body.

The reason some people believe ketosis to be dangerous is the assumption that if the body has turned to fat to burn energy, it must not be getting enough glucose in order to produce energy for the body. This is usually not the case, and there is no research to indicate this as harmful to anyone.

One thing you need to worry about is the condition known as ketoacidosis known to sometimes develop in people who are affected by Type 1 Diabetes, because they have difficulty producing insulin, and ketosis affects the body’s ability to produce insulin. The close resemblance in name is a major cause for the two conditions being confused.

Image Credit: www.nutrivea-usa.com