Will Atkins/Low Carb Diets speed up detox?

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any information about detoxing with the Atkins diet or a similar diet that kicks your body into ketosis after a few days. I have tried searching online for any information in this area with no luck at all.

I actually was on the Atkins diet about 4 years ago and lost about 40 pounds in 3 months. Of course I have gained that weight back since then. lol.

My theory is that since the Atkins diet starts burning nothing but fat after the first few days, it might significantly speed up the THC detox. Since THC is stored in the fat cells, and since I actually lost close to 10 pounds the first 10 days I was on the diet, this seems like it would work.

So has anyone even tried this? Anyone think it would help a user detox in a couple weeks vs. a month or more? Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

THC is stored in fat cells, but when fat cells burn, the THC metabolites are released back into the bloodstream and end up in your bladder as a result of being filtered from the bloodstream by the kidneys.
If a person is still "dirty" (lets say, after taking a home test) and the U/A is 0-3 days away, then all fat-burning activities should be avoided. The person should eat large meals and be lazy as possible during this period to prevent releasing a bunch of THC metabolites into the bloodstream which will end up in the urine to be detected.

I have heard so many conflicting things about detoxing. Work out a lot, drink lots of water, keep your body fat under 4%, etc... But in the last few days before a test you should stop the working out part? That actually does seem to make sense, so thanks for the contribution BT.

However, I was just wondering if you could SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the detox time with the Atkins diet. I realize that trying to detox in 3 days with the Atkins diet is unrealistic, but how about 2 weeks for a chronic smoker instead of over a month? This seems like it MIGHT be possible since it burns a shit load of fat at a very fast rate. I mean, how many people could lose 10 pounds in 10 days even if they ran 5 miles a day? I did it by basically going on a meat and salad diet (Atkins).

So I have the theory already - Atkins can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to detox THC, maybe even cutting the normal detox time from one month or more to less than 2 weeks. But this is just a theory. I haven't tested it, but was wondering if anyone else has tried it.

I think the only hiccup in the Atkins theory would be bowel movements. You get rid of aproximately 75% of the metabolites through bowel movements. But with all the protein from the Atkins diet it considerably slows that process down. So any metabolites in the bowel can get reabsorbed.

Maybe an extreme version of the Atkins where you cut out all the proteins also. In the first 2 weeks you are allowed salad up to 3 times a day. Maybe just eating small salads 3 times a day and no meat and no carbs. Sounds extreme, but I wonder if that would eliminate the reabsorption problem.

You'd probably be better off with metamucil.

I think I may have to test this one. Worse case scenario it doesn't help at all. Best case scenario maybe it cuts the detox time in half and can clean out the average smoker in 2 weeks instead of 4 weeks.

I gained back the 50 pounds that I lost on the Atkins diet a few years ago. I plan on doing it again in the near future, so I'll try to stop smoking for 2-3 weeks to see how fast it works. If I'm still testing positive after 3 weeks I can probably safely conclude that it makes little or no difference.

I'm starting to think I may be the first person to seriously test this theory. But like the guy from Dirty Harry said, "I gots to know".

Well, I can tell you guys this - I was a heavy, heavy smoker - 3-10 bowls of heads a day for the past 6 years. I've used ketosis/lipolysis before to lose weight, and I am somewhat of an expert on its effects on the body.

I stopped smoking 10 days ago, I just took a dipstick test (I bought like 50 of them for this purpose) and I failed. However, the other day I had been drinking a LOT of water, as you do when on a ketosis diet because of the dehydration/need to clear out ketones, and I failed...sorta.....there were 2 lines (usually a pass) but the line that matters, was extremely, and I mean extremely faint - although the directions state if there are 2 lines, regardless of how faint, its a pass - but any normal person likely wouldn't have even seen the line unless looked at very close.

That's a 50ng cutoff....sadly, the one I have to pass is a 15ng cutoff, and, I don't know when its coming...trying not to get too stressed about it though.

That said, its only been 10 days, in the past I've used ketosis to get clean in as little as 14 days - again, extremely heavy smoker here.

I do believe that ketosis speeds up the process - However, I believe that only due to the fat burning aspects of it - its a bit of a mixed bag, in that I think ketosis speeds up the burning of fat and getting clean, but while in it, also creates more metabolites for a drug screen to pick up on.

My recommendation would be stay in ketosis right up until a day or two before the drug screen, then drink a glass of sugar water with 200g of sugar in it to knock you out of ketosis prior to the drug screen, and use the dilution method as well.

I thought I'd add that I'm now on day 17 of no smoking, and as of day 16, using dilution (sorta, honestly just drank three 16oz water bottles, as soon as piss was light color used a sample for testing) and I passed.

I'm still not passing with dark color urine though.

I've been following this thread with interest for a few weeks. I've been on Atkins for a while and am down 100 pounds, I have noticed a big difference in the effects of smoking when I am in hard core ketosis or just light ketosis. When in hard core, smoking knocks me on my ass, sometimes literally. Anyone else experience this?

I'm thinking since my system is keeping a constant supply of fat in my bloodstream for energy and maybe that's where the THC is attaching and it isn't getting stored, so its all active in my system. Make sense to anyone else?

No it does not. Fat cells are burned for energy. And as I stated in post #2, when fat cells burn, the stored THC metabolites are released into the bloodstream.