365 Challenge Day 243 – Smoothie +

This is more than a smoothie, this is a protein shake!  I used almond milk as a base, then added a big scoop of vegetable protein powder (it is mostly made from pea, rice, chia, and hemp) frozen mixed berries, and a big handful of organic baby greens.  It was pretty good!!  I did feel a bit of indigestion afterward.  Which I guess did help to make me feel full… but it was kind of uncomfortable.  Anyway, this is going to be my new go to drink, I’ve been craving the extra protein and want to take a break from fish and beans.

365 Challenge Day 223- Green Smoothie Fail

This looks a lot better than it tasted…

Here is the bad news: My Vitamix broke!!!  It sounded funny for a little while, then the motor was spinning kind of sporadically, the speed would go up and down on it’s own, and then, it started smoking!!  It is still under warranty so I can send it back and they will fix or replace it.  But in the meantime my green smoothies leave something to be desired.

After watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead 2 last night, I’m re-inspired to get back into juicing and making green smoothies.  At the same time I have certain fruits and veggies I may need to avoid for a little while (spinach, strawberries and bananas, all my smoothie stables.)  So, this one has blueberries, celery, cucumber, Boston lettuce, and water.  It was actually a pretty good combo, but, I made it my food processor and it was a little chunky, I was literally chewing it as I drank.  Ewww.

But it felt good to get those nutrients into my system.  As I always say, It’s an acquired taste.

365 Challenge Day 138 – Cleanse

40 Days to Personal Revolution- Day 28

In the fourth week of the 40 Day program, there is a 3-day fruit fast.  I didn’t have any intention of doing it, since my friends and I are all just doing the program in a very unstructured way and adapting as we like.  I also don’t think having just fruit is necessarily that healthy because that’s a lot of sugar.  But yesterday I realized I was going to have an extremely mellow weekend, with not much planned, and I’m just coming off a cold from last week, so I spontaneously decided to go ahead and do it.  Except I’m having mostly vegetables and a little fruit.  The funny thing is I didn’t even realize the fruit fast was in the fourth week, I had thought it was later in the program.

I actually started yesterday.  Here is what my day looked like:

Morning – Green tea (with a little soy milk); a big green smoothie with spinach, celery, strawberries, banana, and some chia seeds (they really help cut the hunger.)

Midday – A blended carrot soup with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and one potato, boiled with salt, pepper sage and bay leaves.

Evening – baked spaghetti squash served with fresh parsley, salt and pepper. 

Snacks – more green tea, a couple of bananas. 

The day went really well yesterday, and I felt fine!  Didn’t get hungry.

Today so far I’ve had:

Morning – a smoothie with a banana, almond milk and some green tea matcha and some chia 

Midday – a blended mushroom soup with baby portabella mushrooms, onions, garlic, celery, sage, salt, pepper, and a little almond milk for creaminess.  It was delicious!!  I also had a tiny bit of sliced avocado and tomato. 

But today I’m really dragging.  I feel tired.  In yoga class this morning I felt like my body was filled with wet cement!!  The 90 minutes felt like 2 hours!!  And I think the green tea I had in the morning was nothing compared the two cups of coffee I usually drink before a 9am class.  But I’m sure it was really great for me to sweat in the hot yoga class during this detox.

But I don’t feel hungry, and I don’t feel unsatisfied.  It feels really great to be eating this way this weekend.  I bought a bunch of fruits and veggies to make more green smoothies and more hot veggie soups.

 

365 Challenge Day 129 – Revolution

40 Days to Personal Revolution – Day 19
Yoga: HURRAY, I felt well enough again today to make it to class. I missed it!! I actually participated more than I expected to because I’m still not 100%. It felt really good to be there.
Meditation: Will do 20 before I sleep.
Food: For a while I’ve been interested in making a savory green smoothie. Had my first attempt tonight with spinach, wakame, celery, radish, garlic, a quarter of an avocado, and squirt of sriracha. I drank half thinking it was not bad for my first try, and then decided it was kind of gross and threw the rest away. Oh well. Then ate peanut butter and jelly on rice cakes, which was totally satisfying!

365 Challenge Day 77 – Smoothies

Okay, this is going to sound very strange.  I went to the optometrist today and for the last several years, my eyesight has been improving every single year.

I used to have a prescription of  -4.25, then -4.0, then -3.75, and today’s prescription is -3.5!  She said she could even go to -3.25, but didn’t want to do too drastic of a change at once.  I thought maybe my far-sightedness was somehow cancelling out my nearsightedness, but the doctor was just as surprised and baffled as I was and said this is very unusual.

One of my friends suggested it’s from the green smoothies I drink.  I wouldn’t have believed it all, but Green Smoothie Girl claims she cured her vision problems through drinking green smoothies.  I can’t find which video she mentions that in, but if I find it I’ll post it.

I’m an epidemiologist by training, and I’m still going with my farsighted/nearsighted theory : )  But, just thought I’d put it out there!  There is definitely something strange going on!

The other thing I want to post about smoothies, is my awesome new dessert smoothie.  It’s a sugar-free version of Chunky Monkey : )  I made it last night with soy milk, a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter, a frozen banana, and a bit of vanilla.  It was SO delicious.  This is not low fat, or low calorie, so I wouldn’t overdo it, but it’s way healthier than ice cream!!

365 Challenge Day 45 – Running : )

Another great day of running : )

I’d still like to increase my time, so I went from 20 to 22 minutes.  It went great!!  I’d like to get up to 30.  I walked a lot today too.  And had some yummy, vegan, Middle Eastern food for lunch.

It was a beautiful evening along the pond.

 

And, enjoyed an awesome green smoothie (disguised with some mixed berries) with the addition of some hemp protein.  I was worried the hemp would ruin the taste, but it was still good.  YUM!

365 Challenge Day 25 – Staycation

I stayed home and enjoyed the 2nd day of my 4-day weekend.  It’s lovely.  I could do this every week…  sigh.

Well, I didn’t do an hour of yoga, as I had committed to yesterday.  The day just got away from me!  But I did 30 minutes.  Which felt really good.

I mostly continued with my spring cleaning today!!  I’m on a roll!  I love getting rid of stuff, it is time consuming, but just so satisfying!

I probably should have taken a “before” picture of my fridge to get the full effect, that would have been too embarrassing.  Let’s just say I couldn’t let anyone help themselves to a snack from fridge for fear they would get food poisoning.  I cleared the whole thing out, threw lots away, washed a lot of tupperware, and wiped it all down.  I also ordered a couple of parts (the middle shelf on the door has been broken for months.)  These are the little things I never get to! So, probably not very exciting for other people to read about, sorry, but I’m thrilled!

I also spent some quality time with my daughter, which is not an easy thing to do these days.  It mostly involved me driving her and her friends around.  But they appreciated it.  I even got a “Thank you, love you” from her, which was mostly sincere : )

I realized today that I haven’t really cooked since I’ve been back from Madagascar three weeks ago.  The first week I was exhausted, the second week I went to DC, and this week…  I have no excuse.  We’ve been eating a lot of take-out.  And I’ve been living on green smoothies and canned soup.  Next on the list of goals is menu planning/grocery shopping/cooking.  Maybe that will happen this weekend in between soccer matches.  In the meantime, I noticed when I cleaned out my fridge that I own a lot of hemp seed protein, guess I should start adding some to my smoothies!

365 Challenge Day 18 – Commitment

It has been harder than I had hoped to motivate for a regular yoga routine back at home. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been home 10 days and haven’t even finished unpacking yet! But last night I stayed up past midnight, and still didn’t manage to fit it in. I went to bed with a sore and tight back, and had a lot of trouble falling asleep; yoga really would have helped! Why is it so hard for me to commit to prioritizing this practice? It needs to become a habit, like brushing my teeth. I haven’t given up though! It always takes me a few weeks to establish a good routine when I return from a long trip.

I used to meditate every night. I would not get into bed until I did it. Sometimes I would procrastinate and start sitting on the cushion at 1am. But I would do it. Now I want a different approach. I don’t want it to be all or nothing. I want a regular practice, but not necessarily every day.

On the positive I have continued to eat really well. I am addicted to my green smoothies! I love them! Today with two minutes to spare before I had to head out the door I craved the fresh, green, tangy drink and through some spinach, celery and strawberries in the blender, put it in a water bottle, and headed out the door. Yesterday I combined romaine lettuce, fresh watermelon, celery, and lime. It was a little too sweet, but delicious. I should have added some cucumber!

The weather has also been gorgeous and I have spent a lot of time walking outside these last few days.  Even got my first sunburn of the season!

Well, even though I’m exhausted I did 20 minutes of yoga tonight. I wasn’t super motivated, and 20 minutes even felt kind of long, but I knew I’d feel better after doing it, and I definitely do. Yay! Positive reinforcement!!

365 Challenge Day 15 – Sitting/Standing

This is a very unexciting photo of my convertible sitting/standing desk.  We recently moved to a new office space, which has an open floor plan, filled with cubicles.  It’ not as loud and distracting as I thought it would be, and the natural light is amazing, but one of the best things about the move is we all got these desks.  I had been wanting a standing desk for a while, so this was perfect.  Sitting really aggravates my back pain, even with extra lumbar support on my chair.

I recently read this article in the Washington Post about the hazards of sitting:

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/the-health-hazards-of-sitting/750/

What I realized is that I have been working office jobs, and spending almost the entire workday sitting, for FIFTEEN years now.  Crap.  And despite good intentions, I have not maintained perfect posture during each of these eight-hour days : (

The first thing I noticed about my standing desk is that it is awesome!!  The second thing I noticed is that it is hard!!  I tire easily.  I need to build up to getting used to it, and if I’m feeling tired (like most of this week) sometimes I don’t even try.  But it’s something to work towards.  I would like to spend at least a few hours each day standing.  I really notice my body working when I stand.  I’ll get cold when I sit down, and warm when I stand up.  I also feel more energized when I stand up, I can feel it drop the minute I sit down.

For some reason it’s easier for me to do short tasks when standing, like checking and responding to emails, but harder for me to focus on tasks that require longer attention.  I think this will just take some getting used to.

On other topics, we had a gorgeous, sunny, 70 degree day today so I had to walk outside on my lunch hour!! And I got two of my c0-workers hooked on my green smoothie, they both marveled at how fresh and delicious it tasted, and asked for more.  Haven’t done yoga since I’ve been home, a week now : (  This week was hard for me to do anything in the evenings because I was so jet-lagged and tired.  I hope that next week I’ll be more energized and motivated!

 

365 Challenge Day 11 – Green Smoothies!!

I’ve mentioned them before, but today I am dedicating an entire post to green smoothies!!

Why am I so excited about them?  I just think they are a really healthy, really easy, and really yummy way to get some greens! And that’s gotta be a good thing.  Granted, it would probably be healthier to actually chew and eat all those greens, but seriously, who’s going to do that?  A whole bag of spinach for breakfast?  Plus, this way I’m not using any dressings or oils.

My go-to recipe is just banana, strawberry, and a whole bag of spinach.  But I’ve been getting more creative and adding more veggies.

This is what I used today:

Spinach
Romaine lettuce
Cucumber (with peel)
Celery
Frozen Strawberries
Frozen mango
Fresh lime juice
Green tea

All organic, except the mango.

It was good!!  If that sounds (or tastes) gross, you can definitely start off with more fruit and less greens.  Spinach has a very mild flavor and is easy to mask with the fruit.  Personally, I try to use a minimum of fruit and a maximum of veggies because I figure the more fruit the more sugar, which I avoid.  You’ll see a lot of green smoothie videos where they load the smoothies up with pineapple and fruit juices, and I question the benefits of this.  Too much sugar hitting the blood stream at once will cause an insulin response which does bad things.  I actually like the taste of the celery and greens, although I understand that might be an acquired taste : )

I recently saw a recipe for a savory green smoothie, kind of like a raw soup, and I’d like to try that!  It looked really good!  It had jalepeno, garlic, a little avocado… I’ll post the full recipe when I try it.

I’ve been drinking green smoothies for a while, but I’ve never done it very consistently.  It will be interesting to see if it changes the way I feel by having one almost every day.  There are plenty of people on youtube making all sorts of claims about the benefits.  I’m not expecting miracles, but it would be nice I noticed improved energy and health.  I’ll keep you posted!