Starting Keto!

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard of the Keto craze that's going on right now - it's a low carb, high fat way of eating that works to pull energy from ketones instead of glucose.  You can Google it and read all about the ins and outs of it, but I'm choosing to begin Keto mostly because I feel like it's a sustainable, easy way for me to try to lose my baby weight.

BACKGROUND

Before I became pregnant with Harper my weight was pretty consistently between 150-155 (up about five pounds from before I got pregnant with Hadley #tears).  During both of my pregnancies I gained about 50-60 pounds.  RIDICULOUS.  After I delivered with Harper my natural weight fell to 180, and then over the fall I dropped down to the upper 160's, and I've currently been fluctuating between 166-169.
One of my "issues" is breastfeeding - I am one of the unfortunate few who doesn't lose any weight while breastfeeding, and even more important, my milk supply really drops when I actively try to lose weight.  My goal with breastfeeding all along was to just make it another month, especially after our struggle in the beginning, and so the fact that we've made it nearly 10 months is something I'm really proud of.  But at this point, I have a good stash of breastmilk from my sister in law, and I feel like I'm ready to start REALLY losing weight.  Harper is taking bottles finally, so I'm currently nursing her through the night (this is a huge problem, ugh) and nursing her before bedtime.  I'll breastfeed if she's fussy at nap time.  My plan is to keep nursing until the milk all dries up, which I expect will happen sooner than later.

ANYWHO.  Back to my weight.  I've been sitting at 168 for a while now and man, I'm just over it.  Up until now I've just sort of tried to deal with it, but now that I'm giving myself the freedom to jump in, I'm ready to JUMP IN!

My goal weight is around 145, so I have about 25lbs to lose.  It seems like a lot but I think if I'm strict with myself I could try to have it off by the end of the summer.  That would be about 5 lbs a month, which seems manageable!

STARTING KETO

So today I took some ungodly "before" pictures (those are seriously motivating...or seriously depressing, haha!), browsed through my new "Simply Keto" book by Suzanne Ryan, made a big grocery list and planned out my week.  Here's a basic list of what I'm eating:

B R E A K F A S T
eggs
bacon
protein shake
full fat yogurt with berries

L U N C H
lettuce wraps
salads topped with bacon or chicken
pickles wrapped in deli meat + cream cheese

D I N N E R
rotisserie chicken + mashed cauliflower
mexican soup
venison kebabs + zucchini/mushrooms

S N A C KS
lunch meat
macadamia nuts
cheese
pickles
beef sticks
veggies + ranch dressing

I find that most of the time I'm pretty filled up from a meal and don't need to snack, which is a nice change for me.  However, I really like making Keto "snack plates" and eating those as my meals instead!  The desserts are great too - I made Keto brownies tonight, and I've done some whipped cream sweetened with stevia.

My only concern with Keto is that I'll get bored with eating the same varieties of food, but it's honestly the only way of eating that I find sustainable right now.  So far it's been really easy to maintain and I haven't had one cheat all week.  I have my first weigh-in in two days and I'm curious to see if I'll have lost anything.  I'll update you on Tuesday!