Day 18

Well it's been a few days! It was just a busy weekend, and we were running around the whole time. I want to take a second to praise the Lord for the work He is doing in my brother Daniel! Daniel went with us to church again and wants to start going every week. We also bought him a very handsome student study Bible to begin reading. It is an answered prayer that he is interested in church!

So, back to the juicing: it's still the same. Although there are some changes: our new craving is Chipotle, haha. We've also been talking about ways to make the things we love most in healthy ways, and Chipotle (other than portion size) isn't going to be horrible to have as a treat every now and then. The other big change is the weight we've lost: Andrew is at 30 pounds lost as of this morning, I'm 23 pounds down! We are seeing the difference in each other, in the way clothes fit, and some people are telling us they can see it. My new discovery is I can see one side of my collarbone: we have clavical, people! Stoked!!

Energy is still there when we're up and moving, but we just have been so tired and can't seem to get caught up on sleep. So when we sit down, we kind of wilt, haha.

But we are hanging on. The changes we see spur us on and make resisting tempation much easier. I realized this weekend I can't wait for the 60 days to be over, not only to be able to eat...but to be able to eat all of the healthy recipes we're finding. We are so stoked about salads! We've got a whole cookbook on salads and homemade dressings, and we are so anxious to start our life after juicing 24/7!

Our brother, Zach, bought a juicer and made his first juice this weekend. It sounded like he needed to tweak it a bit, he didn't care for the bitter kale. We gave him some tips to make it slightly sweeter, and I'm so proud of him for making the decision to put such good nutrients in his body!!

I'm really excited, I go back to my doctor that diagnosed me with PCOS next week. I know he will be SO HAPPY to see what I've accomplished so far! He gave the go-ahead for me to do this, but I don't think he's prepared for these results! I'd love to be down an even 30 pounds (if not more) by the time I see him.

I read an interesting article recently in response to someone telling me that "animal protein" was better and you got more protein from meat than vegetables. I was going to talk about it here, but I'd end up plagiarizing the whole thing, hahaha. So I'm going to put the link. It's set up weird at first, with there being "blanks" for you to think of answers to the questions. But after that, it gets back to the nitty-gritty of the article. And I did a LOT of fact-checking when I was done: and everything I looked up was true. So I highly recommend you look at this when you have a few minutes, it's not horribly long. Unfortunately, the guy is trying to make money off of his program, but he gives you basics (vegetarian is much healthier than you think!) and that's enough to get a good idea. So please, please, please check it out!

http://thmastery.com/_blog/Protein/post/Can_I_Get_Enough_Protein_From_Just_Fruits_and_Vegetables/

Andrew and I are also planning a vacation this autumn to see his parents, and we are going to make a day trip to Chicago! I'M SO EXCITED!!! I've never been, and they apparently have pizza and deli sandwiches that are some of the best in the country.

I know what you're thinking, "Um, aren't you eating healthier? No pizza?" Yes and no. We plan on adopting a healthy lifestyle, but there's no way I can go to Chicago and not try a food they are "famous" for! We actually plan on taking our juicer with us on vacation, haha. We want to do a nice balance of juicing and relaxing the diet for a few days. Besides: there will be Rally's up there. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a love for Rally's that cannot be denied, and there will be no resisting that temptation, hahaha! (Zach and Holly are probably shaking their heads going, "Oh Lord..." at that!) ;)

So that's really about it for now! We had a wonderful, busy last couple of days, we're STILL going strong and loving the results from juicing, and the continued love and support is such a wonderful thing! Thanks, everyone! Hope you are having a great start to your week.

As Joe Cross says: Juice on!! =)