The One We've All Been Waiting For

When Joe started his stats looked like this...

Chest: 50"
Waist: 49"
Hips: 48.5"
Thigh: 26"
Weight: 301.5 lbs
# Push ups in 24 sec: 12

And he looked like this...

Ignore the drawings on the wall.

And now, 24 (ok it's 25, we wanted to wait till it was TOTALLY over before doing measurements) days later his measurements look like THIS...

Chest: 47.4"
Waist: 46.7"
Hips: 46.7"
Thigh: 23.9"
Weight: 284.2 lbs
# Push ups in 24 sec: 16

Which means JOE HAS LOST 17.3 pounds and 8.8 inches in three weeks and three days which is basically AWESOME!

Seriously people, this is a big friggin deal. I'm super excited for him and for our family as whole. Ya know why? Because this is an awesome first step and I can tell that it's not the end. Today, while not on the challenge, he still took snacks to work, still took a healthy lunch and when we ordered pizza to celebrate he ate a totally normal serving size which is hugely different from before. We're talking about the man who once ate an entire Little Caesar's pizza in about 5 minutes.
We got our most recent shipment from AdvoCare this afternoon and Joe will be starting up his MNS 3 again tomorrow, along with Catalyst, Meal Replacement Shakes, Omega Plex and Spark. Why?
Because today he came home from work talking about how tired and achey and just plain awful he felt after one day of no Spark and no MNS. 

Because he's got a goal to get down to 220 lbs, and when you have momentum and it's working you don't quit.

Because he's happy, he feels great and he can keep up with life and work and kids for the first time in a long time.

Because he's discovered that the hole he kept trying to fill with food didn't need filling that way, and he's sick of letting all that weigh him down.

Because he has a PURPOSE and part of that Purpose is showing his kids that THERE IS A DIFFERENT WAY TO DO THINGS. He's ready to live his life instead of survive it. 

And when you have a Purpose like that, you don't quit.

Ok, I'm going to stop shouting at you now. Sometimes I get a little carried away.

So as we call this the end of our first step towards a brand new way of life, I have a question for you.
What's your purpose? Do you know? Have you sat down and thought about where you want to be, where you want your family to be next year, in 5 years, in 10? Or, are you doing what we've done for the last 5 years and just getting by until the next paycheck? Do you have dreams anymore, or did you give up on all that years ago?
This thing we're doing, yeah, it's a little bit about getting physically fit, but it's so much more than that. It's about being mentally fit, ready for anything that happens. And it's about being financially fit, so that we're not checking the bank account every time we need diapers. It's about our time ACTUALLY BEING OURS.

If any of that sounds good to you, don't hesitate to ask either of us how we're doing it.
And if you're someone we love, don't be surprised when we tell you how whether you ask us or not, because this thing has changed our lives. And when something changes your life for the better... you don't quit.

Day 8 - 16, Why I've Been AWOL & What's New

So on Day 8 the Guardians of the Ribbon came to visit my Mama, along with all six of her children, two of their spouses, and every last one of her ELEVEN grandchildren
(+one neice and her ADORBZ little baby boy). You can watch her tell her story right here.

Yeah, and there are still two spouses missing...

Then, on Day 10, Mom had a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery.  So on the following days I have been trucking back and forth to the hospital, or my Mom's house to take care of the dogs and have been beyond distracted from this blog. 

Joe, however, has stayed the course. While he hasn't been blogging up a storm about it, Joe's been trucking right along. He's been sticking to the changes in his diet, making sure he has snacks at work, taking his supplements on time and drinking tons of water. Kind soul that he is, he's even been keeping the kids in evenings and over night sometimes for me while I hung out with Mom in the hospital. 

So here's the deal, since it's been EIGHT STINKING DAYS since I've updated I'll just give you the highlight reel instead of the play by play. Deal? Perfect.

Day 10 was the last day of the cleanse, which means that's the last day Joe took his ProBiotic Restore Ultra, drank his Fiber Drink etc... 

Day 11 marked the very first day of THE MAX PHASE. 

Which means that Days 11-16 looked a lot like this:

---------------------------

5 AM

Wake up, take an MNS Color Packet (Joe is using MNS Max 3, which is comparable to the new MNS 3 -- Pick this option if you want a good balance of appetite control and sustained energy)

Take Catalyst

5:30 AM

Drink your Meal Replacement Shake

Make a Spark, drink that on the way to work.

Sometime between then and lunch

Eat a snack. (Joe usually picks Almonds, an Orange, an Apple, or a Banana)

10:30 (AKA 30 minutes before lunch)

Take your second MNS Color Pack, Take your Catalyst

11 AM

Take both MNS White Packs.

Lunch (Steak and Coleslaw, Steak and Kale, Chicken and Kale... basically, delicious protein + veggies)

Sometime between then and dinner

Eat another snack

5-7 PM

Take your OmegaPlex , eat dinner (just wait until I tell you about this Turkey Meatloaf we made)

Bedtime

Have another snack.

Take your Catalyst

----------------------------

If you're wondering what the heck MNS is...

Magic. It's magic in a handy little vitamin strip pack. This is what comes in MNS 3

Before Breakfast Color Packet

Calcium Plus – 2 caplets

ActoTherm SR – 1 caplet

ProBiotic Restore™ Ultra – 1 capsule

Before Lunch Color Packet

Calcium Plus – 2 caplets

BioTherm – 2 capsules

White Packet

CorePlex® – 3 caplets

CardioQ – 1 capsule

White Packet

OmegaPlex® – 2 softgels

While this is not exactly what's in Joe's (the version he's using is from the previous version MNS MAX 3) it is very similar and it's the currently available version.

The first day Joe started using MNS he had caught a little cold. Usually it'll take Joe at least a couple of days, if not a full week, to kick a cold to the curb. Obviously we can't attribute his practically miraculous recovery ( that basically took all of a day and a half) to MNS - I'm gonna go with Joe's just taking better care of his body in general, so it's stronger and more easily fights off these minor hiccups.

I won't put the number down just yet, but Joe's hopped on the scale a few times and the numbers are looking REALLY good. 

More than that though - - He feels awesome, He looks awesome, &

He has more energy and optimism than I've ever seen him have.

Not so long ago it was the norm that Joe would get home in the afternoons after a long day at work and he'd nap while the kids played and I fixed dinner.That hasn't happened ONCE since he started this challenge.He wakes up in the morning ready for the day, without all the aches and pains he had grown accustom to.He's more productive at work, and work doesn't take all the good parts out of him. He comes home and he's ready to play with the kids, go with us to a fall festival or help me help out at my mom's house. He's sleeping better. His clothes fit better. He looks a lot more like the guy in those pictures I posted in that first blog.

One of the biggest changes has been his significantly improved mood. This may sound odd, but he's been happier. He just feels better on the inside, he feels good about where his life is going and the positive changes he's making and it shows in a big way. Little things that used to get him down in big ways.. they get treated like little things again.

Bottom Line

If you're ready to feel better than you ever have in your life, 

If you're sick and tired of feeling sick and tired,

If you want to have more of yourself to offer your family & friends,

If you're tired of waiting for something to give ...

Don't you think it's worth it? Don't you think you're worth it?

The best part, is he isn't even finished with the Challenge yet. 

Stay tuned...

Duffey 101

Once upon a time I was 18 years old and I ran 7 miles almost every single day because I thought things like that were fun. I ate all the foods I wanted to eat, whenever I wanted to eat them. In fact, I pretty much ate ALL OF THE FOODS, ALL OF THE TIME with NONE OF THE CONSEQUENCES... it was wonderful. I looked like this...

Once upon a time Joe played football at Briarwood Christian School so he basically NEEDED to eat ALL OF THE FOODS, ALL OF THE TIME because he was burning ALL OF THE CALORIES. He looked like this...

And like this...

You can be upset about the overkill with highschool pictures later Joe. It's not my fault you're so cute.

And then Joe graduated and stopped playing football. And he happened to work at the most fantastic dispensary of delicious fried chicken on the entire planet (ChickFilA, duh) for about 11 years. Somewhere in there Joe and I started dating, and we looked like this...

Not long after that we got married, and we looked like this...

And we had a baby girl, and then a year later a baby boy, and our family looks like this...

She's 3 1/2 , He's 2 1/2 , we're .. older than that

It looks really nice in the pictures. But the pictures don't show the years of struggle we had in between those last two pictures. They show a really hard working man and mama who stays at home with two toddlers, but they don't show all those times there was too much month at the end of the money. They don't show just how tired I was and how we did enough to survive, but not enough to thrive. They don't show all the bad eating habits we got into - how I often wouldn't end up eating an actual meal until the end of the day because I was too busy focusing on the kids food actually getting into their mouths or how Joe would work from early in the morning, skip breakfast and often lunch too and basically just binge on dinner and snacks in the evening. There's a lot of missing information between those pictures.

And then there's this picture...

This is a picture from this August when Joe and I packed up a couple suitcases and drove from Birmingham, AL to Dallas, TX and brought my friend Beth with us all because of an energy drink. Ok, so it wasn't just because of the drink, but it is the thing that started everything. Let me explain...

Some friends of ours invited us to a meeting where we sampled Spark (the aforementioned road trip inspiring energy drink) and listened to a group of people tell us how Spark and AdvoCare had radically changed their lives. After four years of thinking the best there was for our family was just surviving, I heard hope for more than that. I heard people talk about how they went from having a house in foreclosure and being too tired to keep up with their son they made one decision and soon found themselves out of the red and feeling better than they had in years.
While I was listening I realized how late it was and how alert I was. Most nights for the last four years I could hardly wait to get to bed or curl up on the couch as soon as the kids were in bed and here we were almost an hour past their bedtime and I was wide awake. On the ride home, I was so pumped up that I sang the entirety of the Frozen soundtrack with my daughter. ALL OF IT. BY CHOICE.

The next morning I was genuinely disappointed that I didn't have another one of those ridiculous Spark drinks. I reluctantly hopped back into my routine of about 5-6 Cokes throughout the day to stay functioning. It was miserable.
Joe and I talked and made the decision to do whatever it took to get those products and that hope into our lives. We ordered our distributor kit and from the moment I had Spark in my house I stopped drinking all that Coke  -- and in 19 days I lost 9 pounds. NINE POUNDS, PEOPLE! With results like that from just one product, how could we not pack up the car and drive to Texas to be around these wonderful people, and learn everything we could about making some more life changing decisions?

We used to see survival and need. Now we have the chance for dreams fulfilled. We saw ourselves becoming people we didn't really recognize. Now we see a path to the us we knew before life happened and even better versions of those people. We used to see a lot of people stuck in their own version of our situation. Now we see people we get to share this hope with.

And this is what we look like...

At least, for now.