Losing weight for the first time

My name is Lena, I live in Germany and I am in my late 20's. I started my LCHF-weight loss journey on february 7th 2013! I want to document my progress here.

[strawburreh]

I'm sorry for being absent! (+BIG NEWS)

I have been really bad with tracking my intake and losing weight lately. I also fell off the wagon for a while and gained some weight back, it's down again now though.

Also I have some big news!

I am getting married in January! I am super stressed out and I will probably be stressed until the wedding is over and done, but until then I will focus all of my energy on that.

I will post pictures though when the wedding is over, and we'll see if I even fit in the dress ;D

Love you all! If you have any questions about keto etc. feel free to ask me!

And here are some pics :D

-Lena <3

[strawburreh]

hey! congrats on your progress, you look great!!! How long did it take you to lose from 200-150? I know that's random, did you see your loss start to slow down?

Hi!

That's a good question, I don't really remember to be honest. I think somewhere between 6-8 months probably. The initial weight went down a lot faster than towards goal weight.

But I am sure if you work out it will go faster :)

[strawburreh]

Hey there I saw your wonderful progress pics, I'm on keto too but it's been just under a month now. I just wanted to know how tall you are as hight? Also we have the exact same figure which is apple shaped -our bellies protrude. knowing your height will help me determine how long it will take me to loose my belly too. And And And...When I get to your sort of flatness I want to to start corset training to get more of an hour glass figure. sorry for the essay. Karen x x

Hey Karen!

I am 167 cm tall. It took me about 3-4 months to see a significant difference in my belly, and after about 7 months there was a huuuuge difference. Also when I am not in ketosis I am also really gassy and bloated, so that also was a factor in my super round belly.

I hope the corset training goes well and I hope you reach your goal swiftly! 

-Lena <3

[strawburreh]

Progress pictures (1 year and 5 months on keto!)

I started tracking my intake properly again and lost more weight! I started at 107kg (235lbs) in February 2013 and now I am at 68kg (149lbs).

Here are the progress pics:

So yeah, I will keep tracking my intake and I will continue to keto!

See you all next month!

-Lena

[strawburreh]

16 months keto (progress pics)

So I started tracking my intake again and I did lose some more weight. Currently I am at 72kg, down from 107kg 16 months ago. This is all dieting (keto) and no working out. I would recommend working out though.

With no further ado, here are the pics!

[strawburreh]

Then and now

This is me about 2 years ago (pixelated the second person because I didn't ask her permission to put her on the internet) 

and this is me now: 

I just feel so much more comfortable with myself, it's truly amazing. Just wanted to give you a little glimpse into my life. 

See you all soon, I hope!

Love,

Lena

[strawburreh]

Progress pics 15 months of keto (~107kg - 73kg)

Well, I didn't make much progress this past month, but I will keep updating these pictures anyway. I am actually down to 72.8kg now (suck it, 73!) and so I feel kind of okay for the time being.

So here are the pictures:

Well, here is to more calorie-tracking, keto dieting and non-overeating!

Hope to have more results next month!

Love,

Lena

[strawburreh]

Enough messing around..

People, I have a little confession...

I have not been logging my intake properly lately. Actually I haven't been logging at all. I have stopped losing weight consistently (which is to be expected) because I have not been in a caloric deficit (for a while). 

I don't want to say I'm unhappy, I am in a very comfortable place with my body right now, but I really want to reach that goal. I want to prove to "them" and most of all to myself that I can make it. I can reach my goals! 

So from today I am logging my intake on Myfitnesspal.com again. No more farting around and "winging it". Obviously it hasn't been working.

If anyone would like to join me in dieting with a strict food diary then feel free to add Strawburreh87 on Myfitnesspal. 

I will continue to take progress pictures though, even if there is no significant loss. It's my personal reminder to not slack on the tracking.

Lots of love and hugs!

Hope to see you all soon, if you have questions feel free to send them in!

-Lena

[strawburreh]

Hi, I'm thinking of starting the keto diet and was wondering if you could give me details as to how you started.

Hey!

Well, when I started the first thing I did was read the FAQ on www.reddit.com/r/keto, next I looked at most of the links in the sidebar there and read through many low carb recipe sites. Then I made a profile on My Fitness Pal and I logged everything I ate and drank. I tried to stay between 1400 and 1800 calories a day and stayed under 20gr of carbs a day as well. When I was about 6-8 months in I stopped logging my intake that hardcore, but I try to still stay between 1400 and 1900 calories. When I am not consistently losing weight I log my intake for about 1-3 weeks and check if I am overeating. 

If you want to do it that way you need to put in effort, but for me it was entirely worth it.

Also a few tips for starting out:

1. If you live alone consider giving away carby foods.

2. Try to avoid being around people when they consume carby foods for the first 1-3 months, just so you aren’t tempted. If you wanted to quit smoking you probably wouldn’t want to be in a smokers break room either.

3. Read, read, read, read as much as you can about keto.

4. Ketochat from reddit. Seriously, these people helped me stick with the diet. They are like my diet support-system. Depending on who is online you can either have a fantastic experience or you can meet a few douchey people (I can be either depending on my mood), but generally it really helps to know there are others around to talk to.

5. Don’t obsess. Didn’t hit your macros? It’s okay. Ate 30gr of carbs instead of under 20? It’ll be fine. Fell off the wagon? Get back on. Try not to stress yourself out more than you need to, but try to learn from mistakes.

I hope that helped, I wish you the very best of luck with your dietary changes! 

Hugs!!

-Lena

[strawburreh]

Just found your blog and congrats on your progress. I'm only a few days into keto, but excited about how I feel already. How many calories do you eat a day? Thank you!

Hi!

Thanks! And good job on wanting to make a change, just keep in mind that no matter what diet you choose, it will take a while for you to see the first results, so don't give up too fast :)

For the first 3-4 months I tried to stay between 1400 and 1600 calories a day since I did not move a lot at all. Now I am roughly between 1400 and 2000, depending on what kind of day I have. I really am not too obsessive anymore about weight loss, but I do throw in a week every now and then where I aim at 1300-1500 just to start losing again. But as I said, I don't have a very active lifestyle.

Hope that helped! Lots of luck on beginning your weight loss journey!

-Lena

[strawburreh]

Do you know how your cholesterol levels are? Do you ever eat fruit or legumes on this meal plan? I am looking to see if it is good for me!

Hey!

I don't know the actual numbers, but I got bloodwork done about 2 months ago and the doctor said the "good cholesterol" is slightly higher and the "bad cholesterol" is a lot lower than it was when I was still severely overweight. Not sure if that helps, but that's the info I have. He also was skeptical of me being on a ketogenic diet at first, but at my last visit he said (roughly translated) "Whatever you're doing is working miracles! Keep doing it!"

I do not eat fruit, I do sometimes eat berries, but not too many. I had to look up what legumes were (English isn't my first language ^^' ) and from what I've read I do not eat legumes. I don't know all of what qualifies as a legume, but so far from what I've found they are all way too carby for a keto diet anyway. So it's pretty safe to say that I avoid (most if not all) legumes.

Hope this helped :)

[strawburreh]

Progress pics april 2014 (14 months on keto)

Well, here are my new progress pics.

Sadly I had a different mirror setup than I usually have since I haven't been home lately.

Gonna be honest here folks, not too happy with my progress lately. Maybe it's me being too hard on myself, but I feel like there should be more happening with my body at this point. But meh, keep calm and keto on I guess. See you all with another set of progress pics next month! Here are the recent ones: 

Love,

Lena

[strawburreh]

Face & mirror selfie comparison (105kg to 75kg)

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, been busy with life and stuff. Here Is a face comparison from before my weight loss and from now, plus a mirror selfie comparison as well! 

See you all soon with my April progress pics!

before:

now:

And the mirror selfies:

before:

now:

(Following a ketogenic diet, under 20gr of carbs a day, for more information consider looking at www.reddit.com/r/keto)

See you lovelies soon!

Love,

Lena

[strawburreh]

Hey ^^ you look fabulous!

Thank you very much :)

[strawburreh]

Oh! I saw you on reddit today! My boyfriend sent me your post as motivation :D You look amazing! I didn't know you had a fitblr! :)

oh that's really cool! :D thank you <3 <3

[strawburreh]

It's that time of the month... PROGRESS PICS! (13 months keto)

Not gonna say too much here, started at 105 kg (231lbs) and now I am at 73kg (160 lbs)

See you lovelies soon!

Love,

Lena

[strawburreh]

Hey, so happy for you that Keto worked out so good for you! Do you think it's also a good methode for vegitarians (no meat, no fish)?

Hey there! 

I think if you're vegetarian it's harder to live keto, but I do think it is possible. There is actually a subreddit dedicated solely to vegetarian keto ( http://www.reddit.com/r/vegetarianketo ) and if you are interested I would recommend reading through their vegetarian keto guide to see for yourself if that is something you would like. 

Thank you for your question!

-Lena