Ketone tracking is the best way to know whether or not your ketogenic diet has taken effect yet. Humans, by default, burn carbs to get our energy. When we switch to a low carb or ketogenic diet, we burn fat for energy instead. Understandably, this helps considerably with weight loss. Unfortunately, extremely high ketone levels can be dangerous. While most people will never approach a dangerous level, testing your ketones while on a ketogenic diet is a good idea. There are three ways you can do this, but using ketone test strips to check your urine is the best for long-term diets. It’s also a little easier on your wallet.

Track over the course of the day

Ketones are byproducts of your body burning fat. When you’re on a diet intended to boost fat burning, ketones are expelled through your breath and urine and carried in the blood. Testing your breath or your blood will tell you what your ketone level is at the time tested. Testing your urine will give you a more general impression.

Urine isn’t produced when it’s expelled. Instead of reading your ketones at the current moment, you get a more averaged reading of your day as a whole. If you have high ketones and are worried about it becoming dangerous, that can be a bad thing. If you’re trying to monitor how your ketone levels are doing as an estimate of how well your diet is working, it’s much more useful to get the big picture. On average, how was your day?

For the most accurate readings, you should measure your ketones at the same approximate time every day, and after the same types of activities. You’ll have a different reading during the morning than you would at night, for example. It doesn’t really matter when you test, so long as it stays consistent from day to day.

Low cost

Ketone test strips are the most affordable way to regularly measure your ketone levels. Blood reading is the most accurate, but the blood strips are much more expensive than the urine strips. Testing through blood can set you back $5-$10 per strip! On the other hand, testing your breath doesn’t require an ongoing cost at all. You simply have to buy the testing unit. Unfortunately, these units can run $300 or more. If you’re not sure if a ketogenic diet is going to work for you long term, there’s no need for you to invest that much money up front.

Ketone test strips combine affordability and function into one package. You can get a feel for your average ketone level during the day and see if your diet is working. At the same time, the lower cost means you can try it out without committing to too much at once.