Hi. I'm currently on Atkins, and I'm curious about the state of ketosis.

Obviously, the deeper the color on the Ketostix, the more ketones are present in your urine. If one makes the assumption that this indicates that you are burning more fat, one could then assume that being in a "purple" state is better than being in a "beige" state.

Now, I know very little about ketosis, but I did a little experimenting and what generally happens to me is that when I wake in the morning, my Ketostix are darker, presumably because I haven't eaten any carbs for the past 8-10 hours. Then, after I consume carbs, I have tested myself again and found that my Ketostix are lighter, presumably because my body is now burning the carbs I just ate instead of fat. After a while, I test myself again (I know, I know -- I'm going through Ketostix like crazy, but I find them fascinating!), and I'm back to a deeper state, presumably because my body burned all the carbs and has resumed burning fat.

My boyfriend's mother had a book called the "Carbohydrate Addict's Diet" -- I haven't read it, but she said it was about strictly limiting carb intake (and maybe everything else) for most of the day, and then, during one hour (of your choice) of the day, you could eat whatever you want. It was stressed that you had to stop after 60 minutes, though.

My question is regarding a sort of Carb-Addict's + Atkins theory. Is it better to eat all 20g of carbs at around the same time so that your body can process them all at once and get back to burning fat? Or should you "ration" your carbs throughout the day?

The theory is that if I wake up in the morning and am in a deep state of ketosis, then eat 0g of carbs for most of the day (keeping me in that deep state of ketosis), then decide I'm going to splurge and eat an apple in the evening after dinner, which puts me at 20g of carbs for the day. My body burns the carbs before I go to bed (if I tested with Ketostix post-apple it should be lighter). Then I go to sleep, wake up the next morning, and am in the same deep state of ketosis because my body burned off the apple's carbs either before I went to bed or during the night.

If I ration my carbs throughout the day (as I do currently -- I'm one of those people who loves a giant steak, but I crave a little something sweet afterward), this tends to lessen my ketosis throughout the day, and I don't achieve a really deep color on the Ketostix until I wake up from sleeping the next morning. (I am still burning some ketones though.)

I hope this makes sense to someone else... it just seems that lumping all 20g of carbs together would let your body burn them all at once, then get back to burning fat exclusively. That way, you're in a deeper state of ketosis throughout the day and thus, are burning more fat.

What do you think?