Well, Ellington, our newborn daughter is now 4 days old!! She’s doing so amazingly well and Cindy is doing great too.  I thought it might be more difficult to stick to the diet program around the birth, but it wasn’t bad at all.  We stocked up on fruits and veggies and more salad items.  That way after Cindy had Ellington on Saturday, I’ve had plenty of things to snack on and fix for meals ever since.  Even with people bringing meals over for Cindy, I’ve got the salads to stick with to keep me satisfied.

So I weighed in this week and I’m at 198 pounds!  I lost 2 more pounds to get below 200 pounds for the first time in years.  That puts me at a total weight loss of 27 pounds so far.  Even better than that, I’ve lost 5% body fat during this time too.  You’ve heard the statistic that every pound of fat requires and additional mile of blood vessels?  The extra fat puts a huge strain on your circulatory system, but also effects your hormone levels dramatically as well.  Fat is an estrogen dominant tissue.  The more fat you have, the more estrogen you release….men or women either way.  So if you’re a woman and you’re estrogen dominant, you will build up more fat tissue to store the estrogen.  But the negative cycle is that the fat releases MORE estrogen so you just keep building up more and more and more of the hormone in your system.  Same goes for guys but usually in reverse.  Guys usually gain weight and put on fat and that creates an estrogen problem instead of an estrogen dominance issue creating a fat issue.  That’s one other reason why I’m enjoying working out so much.  When you have more fat tissue we said a minute ago that your estrogen levels are a lot higher.  You need testosterone in order to get better results working out and to have the drive and motivation to continue with it.  The more estrogen in your system (either from hormone imbalance or from stress or from being overweight) the less testosterone so working out is a total drag mentally.  Not to mention it hurts because you’re overweight, and it’s really really hard because you can’t breath as good or move like you should at all.  I mentioned a few posts ago that I’ve started running 2-3 days a week.  Nothing major, just 1.5-2 miles each time, but for me that’s a huge amount.  I never enjoyed running at all until now.  Now that I’ve lost this weight and been doing some circuit training, the running is totally fun and enjoyable!

My family (mom, dad and grandma) have been in town for a couple days helping us out with Harper and Ellie as we transition into our new role as parents of 2.  They’ve been shocked at how much less I eat at each meal than I used to.  I’ve probably heard 10 times, “That’s all you’re going to eat?” or “You’re already full?” LOL.  But it is so true that your body really realizes better when it is full eating “real” food than when you’re eating processed foods.  I eat one good helping of salad with a side of lentils or whatever cooked (today it was a few brussel sprouts) and I’m good to go.  Eating raw fruits and vegetables really helps to balance your blood sugar and utilizes your neurotransmitters (signals) in your digestive tract to appropriately tell your body when enough is enough.  Cooked, dead food, or processed foods don’t allow your body to realize when you’ve had enough food and you’ll consistently eat too much, leading to weight gain.

Alrighty, I’ve got to get back to my kids PLURAL!! Ha ha!! So much fun.  Love you guys and will post a “What am I going to do now?” blog in a few days.  So stay tuned!

Dr. JB