You seem like you're doing a lot of stuff right — congrats!

I also recommend logging your food at one of the online tracking sites:

• cron-o-meter
• livestrong
• My Fitness Pal
• Dan's Plan

I have used both professional nutrition software and cron-o-meter to track my eating. I like cron-o-meter, because of its real-time graph displays, including the omega-6 and omega-3 fats (it's important to keep the ratio at 4:1 or lower). I haven't seen that kind of display in any other tool, but I'm not that tech-savvy.

The percentage of fat you should eat depends on whose plan you follow. For example, Jaminet's Perfect Health Diet calls for 50% of calories from fat. Other people's (Rob Wolff, Mark Sisson, Diane Sanfillipo, Chris Kresser, Dan Pardi) plans have different guidelines. Personally, my body seems to work best when I eat 65–75% fat.

What I will suggest is that you get more saturated animal fat (except chicken, which is high in inflammatory omega-6 fats) in your diet. Plant fats are usually just 1 major type of fat, but animal fats are always a mixture. For example, lard is half mono-unsaturated (like olive oil), but the other half is some omega-6 fats (a little is good to eat) and then other fats that your body uses for immune functions and hormone production.

The drawback to putting more lard, tallow (from beef), suet, and the like is that you have to make it yourself from the raw material of animal fat that you have to find; prepackaged animal fats sold in stores, especially lard, is usually hydrogenated to extend its shelf life, but that's bad for your health. Since mammals store the byproducts of detoxification in their fat (that protects the animal), it's ideal if you can get fat from pastured, organically-raised animals. If you have a butcher shop in your area, that's the easiest source. Whole Foods meat dept. is generally willing to save beef fat scraps for you with a few days notice. You won't need much — just about 5 lbs. of animal fat for a batch that you can refrigerate for months. And you need to eat only 2–4 T/day. It takes about 2–3 hours to prepare a small batch of fat, and you can find instructions by Googling "make lard." Essentially, you just cut up the fat into small pieces and simmer it on low heat, until you have a lot of liquid fat, plus some hard pieces of connective tissue (the cracklins).

It's reasonable to think, "It would be so much easier to get more fat from nuts, especially almonds." There are, however, a few problems with eating nuts:

• All nuts, including almonds, are high in inflammatory omega-6 fats.
• You need to soak nuts in water overnight to de-activate the chemicals in them that interfere with digestion of protein, and then dry the nuts to make them tasty again.
• Nuts are high in phytates, which interferes with the absorption of minerals. That's why almonds, for example, despite having a lot of magnesium, are a poor source for the mineral.
• Nuts are very caloric. And while eating paleo/low-carb might give you some slack in how much you eat, calories still matter (although they're not the only thing that matters).

You've identified a problem with your sleep, and you're quite right to do so. Studies show that bodies slow down weight/fat loss (among other problems) when you don't get enough. Part of the paleo concept is about adequate rest (see Chris Kresser's blog post or his recent podcast with Dan Pardi on this topic for an example).

You were also right to defer exercise for a few weeks. Adapting to a new fuel source is quite stressful on its own. Your regimen seems fine, although you might want to alternate the circuit training with a stability ball routine to focus on strengthening your core muscles. I've used the book Ultimate Core Ball Workout by Jeanine Detz as a guide, but it's old and has never been updated.

Regarding a target weight, I always suggest that people first establish a target body fat %, and then derive the appropriate target weight from that. Here's a web page that explains more about why you should set your BF% target first. You can start with this page; be sure to look at the age-adjusted chart for your gender.

Next, calculate your current percentage of body fat. The best tests (dunk tank and BodPod) are very accurate (within 1%) and very expensive. Calipers are next best (within 1-2%) but cost about $15 and require practice (and some personal guidance) to use skillfully. All other methods are accurate to within 3-5%. If you have a tape measure, you can use this online body fat % calculator.

Then, calculate your ideal body weight.

Lower carb = less need for sleep.

In ketosis I can get away with 5 hours of sleep. That would never happen if I raised my carb intake past ketosis.

keep track of your progress and if you see the results that you want to see, keep doing what your doing until you hit a plateau. if it happens ajust your macro numbers(lower carbs and up the fats) i hope this helps justin

For me, personally, that would not be enough fat ... but I think it just depends on your body and how you're feeling. After my first few weeks of Paleo, I was tired and really, really sad a lot of the time. I was grilling all my meats, eating a lot of raw salad, etc. I did some reading and many reported similar experiences that cleared up when they upped their fat intake. Now I cook an afternoon snack and dinner in a lot (really, a whole lot) of coconut oil, and I feel much better. It hasn't slowed my progress with weight loss either.

I went from 220 to 183 today so I suppose the weight parameters are similar. I think your diet looks very short on meat, I ate 3-4 times a day with fish or meat in 3 meals. I never had grilled anything! During my weight loss I avoided starches and had plenty of fat and protein.

You don't need some detail: "a larger (usually a Starbucks venti =24oz) black coffee (no milk, cream, sugar, or anything added)" we only need to know as "black coffee." Same for the salad breakdown e.g. "salad w/ avocado." Some detail is superfluous that's all I'm saying.

This is coming from someone who logs all his macro's in Excel. Detail this instead and tell us your daily kcals and carb / fat / protein grams and then your question is easy to answer! What size is your single piece of daily meat? How many grams of fat are you consuming each day?

Not working out for the first two weeks was a great idea. Regular strategic deconditioning is very useful for long-term progress and people easily shock their systems while acclimatizing to new diet.

If you end up looking too thin at the end on your weight loss project it'll be easy enough to eat and train for size in the next phase. It's a journey.