What Are Ketone Strips (and Should I Try Them)?

The high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet is having a serious moment—celebs love it, you’ve seen it at your favorite grocery store and your bestie can’t meet you for dinner tonight because she’s meal-prepping for it. Something else your friend is doing? Peeing on a stick to test her ketone levels (yes, really). Here’s the deal with these ketone strips.

What are they? Ketone test strips measure the amount of acetoacetate (a particular type of ketone) in your urine, which helps indicate whether or not your body is in a state of ketosis. (Psst: Ketones are organic compounds that are the result of the body burning fat for fuel.) To use the strips, hold them in your urine stream for a few seconds (or dip them into a cup of urine), wait for about a minute and then match the color of the strip to one of the different levels of ketosis on the bottle. There’s typically six different levels to choose from, with the darkest colors indicating the highest levels of ketosis.

Wait, what’s ketosis again? Ketosis is a natural metabolic process where your body burns through fat for energy instead of glucose (i.e., sugar from carbohydrates), leading to weight loss.

Got it. And are the strips worth it? Since the whole idea behind the keto diet is to enter a state of ketosis, the test strips can be a good tool to help you achieve exactly that. And many people who’ve tried the diet say that the sticks can be a great motivator. But they’re definitely not necessary to do the diet and should be used responsibly (i.e., there’s no need to test your levels multiple times per day).

Where can I buy them? Unlike other methods of testing your ketones (like blood tests and breath meters), ketone test strips are pretty budget-friendly—you can get 100 strips from Amazon for $25. That’s a whole lot of sticks to pee on. (Just remember to check with your doctor first before trying the diet or the strips, OK?)

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