Day 20

A third of the way through this juice fast...time is going by pretty fast, I have to say!

Andrew has lost 31 pounds, and I have lost 25. We are having BBQ and Chipotle as our latest cravings, but they're less powerful than the cravings were when we first started.

I have stolen an idea from a friend of mine (it wasn't hers originally, either, so I don't feel too bad, haha) and decided that to better aide Andrew and I in grocery shopping once we are ready to start eating healthy foods, we should start having meal themes during the week. That way we go knowing we buy certain things for our meal on Monday, Tuesday, etc. This will prevent a lot of "let's grab this and this and this and maybe we'll make something with it" which is what we used to do. We are actually really excited about them! We will have:

Meatless Monday: this is pretty self-explanatory. This will be a night for a big salad, a vegetable soup, etc.

Taco Tuesday: this is also self-explanatory. We can make veggie tacos, grilled chicken tacos (also with veggies), and fish tacos (still more veggies).

Whatsacomeandago Wednesday: I know..."what the heck is that?" As many of you know, we are HUGE fans of Craig Ferguson's late night talk show on CBS. Well, he curses a lot on the air, and they of course bleep him. When they do, they put up random flags from around the world over his mouth, and he has a word or thing from that country dubbed over it. Like the French flag popping up may come with a "Croissant!" or "Ooh-La-La!". The Swedish flag comes with "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo!". Australia's goes "Crikey Dingo!" But by far my favorite is the Italian flag, where it goes, "Whats-a-come-and-a-go!" in his horrible Italian accent, haha. So we took that "phrase" and it's now our Wednesday theme, healthy Italian food! We can make veggie lasagna, healthy pizza, and "pasta" using spaghetti squash or these Shiritaki (spelling?) "noodles" that are like 40 calories for the whole bag.

That's a Crock Thursday: Crockpot recipes!!! Easy, deliscious, and tons of way to do it up healthy.

For the Love of Cod Friday: seafood!! And veggies go PERFECTLY with seafood, so it's another way to get them in during the week.

Saturdays and Sunday will be either leftover healthy stuff from the previous week or soup/salad, something easy.

I'm on the hunt for the perfect recipe book with blank recipe cards, we are going to fill it with the stuff we come across on the Internet (I look obsessively on my break to find creative ways to use veggies in otherwise unhealthy dishes), our favorite recipes from the books we have, and things to make on each of our theme nights. I want to have it separated into sections for the different themes and fill it with tons of options to last for a long time, plus on each recipe I want to have suggestions for substitutions to make the same dish in a completely different way.

It's been a great (and tough!!) 20 days. Only 40 more to go, and I think we are past the worst of it. We're seeing new things daily, I LITERALLY am finding areas where the fat's just disappearing and my body looks SO DIFFERENT. Shape is slowly starting to return, and it just makes me cry sometimes. I'm so happy we did this. I only wish we had found this before our wedding, but the Lord knew what He was doing and did this for us at this point in our lives for a reason. I am so thankful!!

Juice on!