On my way to losing 175 lbs...27 lbs gone!

Please ignore the serious faces above. I AM THRILLED. The me on the left was taken in early October, 9 lbs into my Weight Watchers stint, so the difference is not actually all 27 lbs; it's 18. However, I do see a difference- especially in my waist.The low carb/ketogenic eating plan started at the end of Feb and now I'm finally at a new low for a total of 27 lbs down!!! I plan to hit 50 off by my 37th birthday on May 28th and I will gift you all with another sweet blue tank top picture.

So this week was my first full week back on low carb without a bunch of unnecessary drinking or carb-creep days and I lost 6 lbs (actually more like 6.4 but I've decided to switch over to the full pound results for purposes of my weight ticker and for the DRAMA)!!

As I mentioned on Saturday, I decided to track my food intake this week. I wasn't limiting my calories or portions, just aiming for 5% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 65% fat. Basically, that distribution qualifies as a low carb/high fat ketogenic diet, and I ended up at an average of 8% carbs, 24% protein, and 68% fat for the week. My Fitness Pal reports also count the carbs without accounting for fiber so my 'net carbs' is probably closer to 6%. To make sure I was in fat-burning mode, I tinkled on a ketostix three times this week and got a pink (not dark pink or purple, just a solid mauvey-pink) result every time which means I'm in ketosis.

If this is new for you and you're considering low carb, I highly recommend starting with the books or articles of Gary Taubes, and then checking out The Art and Science of Living Low Carb. However, if you don't want to actually buy a book, check out the Diet Doctor at http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf or this amazing page on ketosis: http://josepharcita.blogspot.com/2011/03/guide-to-ketosis.html - it gives you all the science, plus this nugget which helps explain how I lost 6 lbs this week even though according to that idiot My Fitness Pal and the old-school 'calories in calories out' theory I should have only been down about 2 lbs. The parentheses in blue are mine.

1G. One Will Lose Body-fat More Quickly on Keto Than Not 
 

The brain requires roughly 20% of daily maintenance energy (let's say 2500 calories will maintain your weight, your brain grabs 500 of those calories). Under glycolytic conditions (read: normal, high-carb diet- even a low calorie one) the predominate form in which the brain accepts energy is glucose (AKA sugars from carbs). 

Under fat-adapted ketogenic conditions the vast majority of the energy used by the brain comes from fat-derived ketone-bodies (basically there isn't enough glucose running around when you're eating low carb around so your body makes ketones out of your pudge to feed your hungry brain).
Under ketogenic conditions one will also sweat, excrete, and exhale fat-derived ketone bodies which can account for another 100 cal of energy lost per day. Say that a hypothetical person requires 3,000 kcal in order to maintain his weight-this person if under a ketogenic metabolism would lose an additional 580 kcal of fat than he would have lost if he had not been under a ketogenic metabolism (in short- a ketogenic diet cannibalizes fat to feed your brain, so you get to eat more fat and more calories than your friends on WW and actually lose more weight).

Regarding my personal calories and exercise this past week (Sat-Fri) I averaged 2120 calories a day, and I worked out on Saturday and Sunday only, burning about 1500 calories. As stated above, I lost 6 pounds, I was never hungry, and almost 70% of my calories came from FAT. By the way, my husband Adam also weighed in this morning and he lost 6 lbs in 6 days eating similar portions of carbs/fats/protein. 

Consensus: This is working. I'm going to track for another week and then I may or may not continue. I think it's kind of hysterical that when I complete a day with My Fitness Pal, their metrics tell me I'd be about 5 pounds down IN FIVE WEEKS if 'every day were like today'.

In non-scale victory news, my jeans and the dryer are now besties. I used to hang everything up to drip dry; now I'm trying to shrink my pants and they're still loose!

Have a super weekend!!