There are so many different products available today with promises to “lose weight fast!” and “get the bikini body you’ve always wanted!” But…at what cost? And what the heck is in them? This is my story of how I lost weight (and am still working hard to!) from scratch. No fancy supplements or diet pills, just hard work and some delicious recipes that I will be sharing in my weekly email! (Don’t forget to click subscribe to get access to these!)
As you know if you’ve read my previous fitness articles, I have always been a healthy, active person. I worked out for the majority of my pregnancy and didn’t eat a bunch of junk, yet during my pregnancy with Harper I still managed to gain 40 pounds… a lot more than I anticipated! I immediately lost almost 20- just from childbirth itself, but then was stuck. I had to stop breastfeeding, which is a huge help in losing all the baby weight (you burn an additional 500 calories a day!) and I was still eating my healthy diet and started doing P90x. But I was really just maintaining my weight, even gained a little more. So I knew something really had to change! I was recently a bridesmaid in our friends BB and Brooke’s wedding, and back in May I knew I needed to step it up to fit into that dress! And guess what…. I did!! When I first tried it on I almost couldn’t zip it and could barely breathe, by the time the wedding came it was a perfect fit!
So let’s get to the “How did you do it!?” question.
Probably going to sound very familiar since it seems like the new thing to do… 😂 but Jordan and I stuck to a strict low carb/keto diet for about 5 weeks to see what would happen. Now let me warn you, it was HARD and took A TON of self control. That’s why we sort of set a end goal for us, we knew that when we got to our family vacation in Estes Park 5 weeks later we could chill out and enjoy a pizza (or two 😉).
Five weeks went surprisingly fast, I lost 11 pounds in the first 2 weeks! Never have I ever thought that was possible. It was so motivating for me to keep going when I weighed/ measured each Sunday and saw that number drop. After the first couple weeks it was kind of on and off, some weeks we weighed the same, others we had lost one or two pounds. Overall in those 5 weeks where I really stuck to this low carb diet, I lost 3 inches off my waist line and 14 pounds!
If you’re not quite sold yet…I want to give a special shoutout to my friend Kayla who’s lost 30 pounds in less than five months by sticking to 30g of carbs or less every day!!! That take’s some serious willpower. She cut out grains, beans and bread, fruit etc and sticks to just veggies, proteins and some dairy. I can definitely vouch for this as well when she told me:
“I feel so much better and my mood has definitely changed along with my body”
…TRUTH!
Now if you’re anything like me, you’re very skeptical and needing some scientific proof of some sort to show you “how does this ‘low carb’ thing actually work?
When we first decided to try out this diet I did a lot of research. I had no idea what it meant or how much carbs were actually in everything I was eating. We decided to use the Atkins website to guide us. For this specific diet we had to keep our NET carbs (more on that later) less than 40g a day. You actually increase fat intake and decrease carb intake. I know that sounds crazy, but look at the back of all the “low-fat” products you buy and consume- full of sugar! These products actually have the opposite affect on weight loss because of these hidden carbs and sugars, here’s why…
With a low carb diet, you’re decreasing sugars and starches in your blood, which allows your blood sugar to stabilize, which causes levels of insulin (the fat-storing hormone) to drop! This then results in ➡️ an increase in fat burning & more of a “full” feeling when you eat ➡️ reduction of food intake ➡️ weight loss!
So what’s step one?
Like I said, I used the Atikins website for a lot of my meal planning starting off. It has this really cool meal planning program where you just plug in your recipes and it tells you your carb count, fat count and protein. I used a lot of their recipes provided on the website, and really ate almost the same breakfast, snacks, lunches each day (other than weekends) and a different dinner every night. I used this meal planning program for the first few weeks and then really got the hang of what was and wasn’t low carb. Using this program for those 5 weeks really gave me a lot of self control, patience and motivation! Below is a sample of what one week of meals looked like for us… you can see I even calculated in a Coors Light for Thursday night softball games! 😂
If you are super serious about weight loss and want to lose 10+ pounds I highly recommend this low carb diet/lifestyle! I added the Atkins link here if you want more low carb recipes or access to this website for meal planning. There are plenty of other resources to use, just google keto/low carb diets! This is another one of my favorites.
Now as I said before, it is a lot of work, but mostly just those first two weeks. When we got started, we got rid of anything we knew we would be tempted to eat that had sugar and carbs (painful I know)! Then I spent some time filling in my whole weeks worth of food, made a grocery list, then meal prepped what I could. I made the spicy chicken for a weeks worth of chicken wraps for lunches, then spent some time meal prepping the breakfast burritos for Jordan and I for the whole week.
We sort of strayed from the strict diet plan for about a month, we had bachelor/bachelorette parties, vacations and a wedding! We decided it was okay to celebrate- but not go too crazy! I stayed low carb for most meals during those 3 weeks, didn’t have time to do a lot of my daily workouts and still managed to loose 2 pounds! So it’s okay if you give yourself a break every once in a while, don’t become overly obsessed with the scale.
The important thing is that you feel good about yourself, you’re exercising and treating your body well! That’s what matters.
But as of today, weddings are over and I have about 15 pounds to go to get back to that pre-baby weight and to fit into my old clothes! So I’m back on it! Stay tuned for more on my weight loss journey and how I’m dealing with this low carb lifestyle! I’ll be sending out some of my favorite low carb recipes each week in my weekly email, so don’t forget to subscribe below ⬇️ !
If you would like more info or tips on low carb diets send me an email in my contact page or drop a comment on my discussion page!