Summer and Vacation, Summed Up!

Hi there, Busy Bee here!

It's been a while since I posted. I told you we were busy people! I bet you thought we either quit the juicing, died, or fell off the face of the earth. Well, we haven't... and we're still at it!

So, when I last left you, we had just started exercising and we weren't quite at the level of juice fasting yet. But then we worked harder and kept at it until we got to the point of drinking three Juices and one Smoothie per day, plus an afternoon apple or rice cake, and an evening bowl of fruit. We drank plenty of water, and we both were completely weaned off caffeine, and all of that made a HUGE difference in our weight loss! And symptoms, I might add.

We also worked harder at the exercise part, and we got up to taking three one-hour walks per week, walking an average of 3 miles per walk, burning about 500 calories each time, and by using our handy Endomondo phone app we've been trying to beat our 17-minute mile time! This app is great because it also tells us how much to drink to stay properly hydrated!

Anyway, we kept that up for a few weeks right up until the day our California vacation began, which was June 22. Then it all went downhill from there...

No, actually, we did fairly well considering the circumstances! It was going to be a long trip, just a day shy of two weeks, so we tried to be prepared. We were smart enough to bring along the OmegaVert juicer so we could keep up as much juicing as possible.

Aww, it made it through Security!

So we started each day with a Juice and nothing else. No fluffy steaming Chinese baus (buns) filled with roast pork or buttery sweet coconut. No Chinese dahn tats (egg custard pies). Not this time. That would have been our usual San Francisco treat. And before we went off to play for the day, we would walk for an hour to burn off the calories we'd be ingesting later on. We even walked across the Golden Gate bridge one day!

Yep, we walked from this side, to that side!

The sidewalks are NOT wide enough for
four lanes of traffic!

We still went for lunch to our favorite spots, eating our favorite items (even the ones with meat!) though we certainly ate less of it, and we stuffed ourselves with as many veggies as possible during each meal. We generally skipped an afternoon dessert, with three exceptions, and we only had to get coffee once because we were away from the juicer and there were no juice bars in the area. (Disneyland, you need to GET ON THIS JUICING BUS!) For dinner, we tried to eat mostly vegetarian when there was the option, with the exception of a few regular favorites we like to have when we visit each year. And we only went out once for a late night dessert! Typically, this would nearly be a daily thing during our San Fran visit!

Though we slowly gained some weight (Bee gained about 5 lbs and Owl gained about 10 lbs), we also gained some food knowledge! We visited some friends in Santa Barbara, and they introduced us to this lovely place called Backyard Bowls. They made the BEST oatmeal, (which we learned how to make and we'll share the recipe with you soon) and smoothies and something called an Acai berry bowl. It's a frozen concoction made of blended Brazilian Acai berries with the texture of thick, melted sorbet, and topped with all sorts of healthy items such as granola, honey, and fruit. It was FABULOUS.

The one with the bananas is oatmeal!

This one had broccoli and spinach blended into it!

We're going to fiddle around with some recipes and try making our own, and I'll definitely share it with you once we've mastered it! And we also found some tasty snacks to eat for when we need something to crunch on once in a while, and I'll be sharing those things too.

It was hard going back home to straight Juice, so we had to re-wean ourselves off the solids all over again. We tried the hard core way but both Owl and I got really snappy, so we had some vegan meals and I decided to finish off the frozen waffles while he ate a few handfuls of nuts. But, finally, after nine days, we're back to where we left off before vacation, both in weight and in habits. Today is a mostly Juice day, and tomorrow we'll be back to our usual exercise routine!

AND YOU JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE OUR HEALTH UPDATE!!! I never thought in our life that we'd be able to make the progress we have been making now. I had hoped, that's for sure, but I never truly believed we could become so healthy. We're foodies at heart and we can't give it all up permanently. So we will be good all year long knowing that on certain times of the year, we can have whatever we want. (In case you are wondering, these are the days we shall look forward to: Our two vacations per year, Each day of our birthdays, Our anniversary, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chinese New Year. Maybe Easter. No leftovers, either.)

We don't want to sabotage all the good we've done for ourselves, so we're going to keep at it! And we think YOU should, too! It takes lots little baby steps to get from where you are now to your goals in the future. It takes a lot of patience, and some failure, some bad moods and some serious lows. But it gives back ten times the amount in energy, happiness, and feeling good! Not to mention the long, healthy life we'll get to live!

Thanks for reading- I'll buzz ya later!
~Bee