Drinking Beer on the Keto Diet

Beer is one of the things that I simply can't give up for this diet. I know drinking beer will knock me out of ketosis but I wanted to see how far I get knocked out of it. 

Last Saturday I went on a date, knowing I would be knocked out of ketosis during some part of the day I decided I was going to just call the day a cheat day.

Here's how my meals went throughout the day:

• Breakfast 
• 1 Cup of Matcha Green Tea
• Brunch
• Black Iced Americano
• French Toast with 1 Ounce of Maple Syrup
• 3 Strawberries
• 8 Blueberries
• Afternoon
• 16 Ounces Stone Berliner Weisse 4.9% ABV
• Dinner
• Chinese Hot Pot
• After Dinner
• 16 Ounces Goose Island IPA 5.9% ABV
• 8 Ounces Angel City Pilsner 5.6% ABV
• 2 Ounces Black Market Peach Gose 4.2% ABV
• 2 Ounces Anderson Valley The Kimmie, The Yink, & the Holy Gose 4.2% ABV
• 2 Ounces Stella Artois 5% ABV
• 1 Ounce Angry Orchard Crisp Apple Cider 5%
• 6 Ounces Bottle Logic Horadric Imperial Red Ale 12.5% ABV

My Ketone Levels After Having a Beer

After I had the beer in the afternoon I had walked around Pasadena on the date for about 1.5 hours. It took another hour to get back home and I ended up getting home around 4. So 2 and a half hours after I finished the beer I measured my ketone levels.

My ketone levels were at 1 mmol/L which I didn't expect. I thought that I would be out of ketosis but I guess the walking had put either put me back in.

My Ketone Levels After Having Several Beers

At the end of the night I had gone to a friends house for some blind beer tasting. The amount of alcohol ended up being approximately 3 beers worth in alcohol. I didn't feel very drunk but I noticed that I was more inebriated than I would be if I had been on a more normal diet.

My ketone levels after measuring when I got back home was 0.4 mmol/L. I was actually surprised by this. I could still feel the alcohol in my body and wasn't sure if this was a false reading or not. 

If the reading wasn't false I would only be 0.1 mmol/L away from being in a light ketosis. 

What May Have Affected My Ketone Levels and Readings

Ketone readings register acetone (which is a product of processing alcohol) as ketones and could have made it seem like I was producing more ketones. This could explain why my ketone levels were higher than I thought they may be.

This could also be why some people think that having a shot of vodka or whiskey is good for you and can put you further into ketosis. 

While my brunch was french toast, my dinner was basically all meat. The Chinese hot pot place that I go to has an all you can eat option and normally we get as much meat as possible to make it worth it for us. Suffice it to say we chose the fattiest possible meat options. 

I'm going to continue with the diet this week and see what my readings and weight is at the end of the week.