Ketosis South Beach Diet™: Hundreds of recipes and 24-hour support! Ketosis happens when your body burns fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. When you are on a low carb diet and your body has run out of carbohydrate reserves, it turns to your fat stores for energy.

Since you probably started the low carb diet to lose weight, this is exactly what you want! Since your body can only store 2 days worth of carbohydrates, embarking on a diet of less than 30g carbs per day will cause your body to turn to your stored fat for fuel. Ketones are the waste product that results from your body burning fat for energy and when they are present your body is in a state of Ketosis.

While in this state, you will have a diminished appetite and may feel sluggish for the first couple of days but will gain energy after that. This is not harmful, and merely indicates that you are burning fat. Although a high amount of Ketones can be extremely harmful, this should not happen on a normal low carb diet. This state should not be confused with Ketoacidosis which is a very serious condition where your bodyhas low insulin and high blood sugar and can occur inalcoholics, diabetics and people who have been under extremestarvation.

How Do You Know If You Are In Ketosis?

One way to tell is by using Ketone test strips. Thesepaper strips are treated to detect the presence ofketones in your urine. They will turn varying shadesof purple depending on the level of ketones present. Click here to buy Test Strips to see if you are in Ketosis