Green Smoothie for Veggie Hater

Meet Adam. 

A vegetable hater. 

We made him a green smoothie yesterday and, in his words;

"I don't love it. But I don't hate it either. I would drink this if someone made it for me again."

That, dear readers, is a huge mark of success. 

We used our new favorite special ingredient for his smoothie - Schwan's Golden Fruit Blend. This fruit blend is incredibly delicious. It includes pineapple, mango, peaches and strawberries. It is our favorite frozen fruit blend that we have ever used. It is too expensive for us to use with great frequency (given that we are drinking 3 a day we do try to use ingredients we find on sale) but we have both agreed that we enjoy this blend so much it will become a staple in our freezer for extra special green smoothies.

Here is the recipe we made Adam

8oz Kale

1 carrot

4 Tablespoons coconut oil

1.5 cups Golden Fruit Blend

about 1 cup water

about 2 frozen bananas

about 1 cup of ice

Green Smoothies - the Liquids

THE LIQUIDS

We broke down the content of our smoothie into 4 basic groups so that we could easily build a healthy smoothie each time based off the basic groups. We always make sure to add items from each group to ensure a nutritious and delicious smoothie.

As mentioned before, these are our 4 groups:

Greens

Liquid

Fats

Special

I am going to do a separate post about each category to keep it simpler and more organized. 

All posts should be up by the end of the weekend! 

I have tried my best to answer questions as they have come up, if I missed your question or you have another one feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. 

LIQUID- There isn't a whole lot to say on this addition. Liquid is essential to help blend and thin out the smoothie. You can play with the amount of liquid you add to change the thickness of your smoothie and also the consistency of your smoothie. We mainly use water and if we use something other than water we do consider it as part of the 'special' group, but for the sake of organization I will list all of the liquids we have used here.

- Water

-Grapefruit juice

-Coconut milk

-Milk*

-Apple Juice

-Almond milk

*we are slowly weeding milk out of our diet. We haven't used it in a long time, but we use to.

We also consider ice as part of our liquid, and as mentioned before sometimes use frozen cucumbers or frozen bananas in place of ice. 

The liquid should be added first to your blender as it helps create a vortex of sorts and blends up the greens more thoroughly. And as several people commented earlier, it helps prolong the life of the motor.

Since this section is rather short I'll add a fun tip we discovered a couple weeks ago: if you have extra smoothie pour it into a Popsicle mold and put it in the freezer - easy, cheap and tasty Popsicle treats that are good for the kids! 

I had hoped to get the whole series complete this weekend, but I was in Atlanta all day Friday for a Photoshop seminar, spent yesterday pulling staples and cleaning glue off the hardwood floors we discovered upstairs under the carpet,  tomorrow we are spending all day with various friends and Tuesday we are going away for our first camping trip with the boys. I committed to more than I can complete this weekend, so the 'fats; and 'special' will be addressed later.

Happy Memorial Day!

Green Smoothies - the Leafy Greens

We broke down the content of our smoothie into 4 basic groups so that we could easily build a healthy smoothie each time based off the basic groups. We always make sure to add items from each group to ensure a nutritious and delicious smoothie.

As mentioned before, these are our 4 groups:

Greens

Liquid

Fats

Special

I am going to do a separate post about each category to keep it simpler and more organized. 

All posts should be up by the end of the weekend! 

I have tried my best to answer questions as they have come up, if I missed your question or you have another one feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. 

GREENS - The foundation of every green smoothie is of course the green, leafy vegetables.

Leafy greens have more nutrition  per calorie than any other food. They are a significant source of  vitamins A, C, E and K and several B vitamins. 

Greens are a rich source of calcium, magnesium, iron and potassium. In fact we use greens as our number one source of calcium for the boys.

They are rich in fiber, extremely low in fat and carbohydrates and provide an excellent source of protein.

For our smoothies I use:

-Kale

-Spinach

-Turnip Greens

I have used Mustard Greens and do not recommend them. Perhaps one day I'll find a good mix for them, but they are somewhat spicy and not at all enjoyable to us. 

I have heard that you need to mix up the greens you are eating, but I was unsure why so sent an e-mail to my MIL asking her. Here's what she said:

"Because of a substance called oxalic acid in some greens like spinach and parsley, it is good to alternate your greens. Oxalic acid is a mineral inhibitor (it blocks the absorption of minerals in the body) that is deactivated with cooking so using these kinds of raw greens in large quantities can be a problem. Swiss Chard and romaine lettuce are free of oxalic acid. Kale is low in oxalic acid and should not be an issue."

I alternate based on what is on sale or what I can find in stock, but we primarily use kale because it is the cheapest and we drink so many. Spinach has the least texture and taste to it so if you are starting out I would recommend starting with that.

Other options we haven't yet tried include Swiss Chard, Collard Greens, Parsley, Dandelion Greens and Beet Greens. Lettuce can be used too but it is not as nutritionally dense as the other greens.

In addition to the actual leafy greens we also include other vegetables in this category. They never take the place of the leafy greens, but they can be added in addition to. 

Other vegetables we add include;

-Carrots - these add a great flavor and texture to smoothies

-Cucumber - not sure that they are worthwhile nutritionally wise, but they are used to balance out the 'liquid' category sometimes. I have also frozen them and used them in place of ice.

A friend of mine uses beets in hers, but we haven't tried that yet.

Tips on Buying & Storing Greens:
- Purchase the bundles of greens instead of prepackaged. Yes, you'll have to wash them yourself, but you will save a lot of money!

- Buy 3-4 days worth of greens at a time, any more than that and we have found they start to wilt.

- Ask the grocer how long the greens have been sitting out for and/or if they have any fresher greens in the back they could bring out for you. They have always been so kind and helpful in bringing me the freshest greens. And this is just a me thing - but if they come from the back that means the general public hasn't had a chance to touch or sneeze on them yet. So much less gross to get them straight from the back!

- Buy the biggest bundle. Our greens are pre-bundled and sold by the bundle, not by weight. I have found bundles that are twice the size of the other bunches, and for the same price I snatch those up!

- Wash your greens on an as needed basis. I just use water to thoroughly clean them.

Why We Drink Green Smoothies 3 Times a Day Part 3

 In part 1 of my explanation as to why we drink 3 Green Smoothies a Day I told you about my struggle with weight and my time using Mannatech. Part 2 explained my phase with the Warrior Diet, which while successful left me craving more vegetables than I could chew! So then we started...

Blending Our Greens

Somewhere in the midst of all this Paul asked me what I thought of getting a Blendtec Blender so we could do Green Smoothies 3 times a day. We had been looking at the Blendtec on and off for the past year but it had always seemed like an unnecessary luxury.

We have been making green smoothies for several years but we have also burned through 4 blenders in our 5 year marriage. We knew we needed a quality blender in order to keep up with our usage and with where we were both at fitness wise we knew we needed to shake things up a bit. 

Luxury or not it suddenly seemed like a necessary item and since we had the cash to purchase it we went ahead and bought the Blendtec. (side note: you do not need a fancy blender to make the green smoothies! I personally think the Blendtec does a better job blending than our previous blenders, but apart from killing the motors on the other 4 blenders they did a good job blending the greens up.)

Using the Blendtec three times a day has made all the difference in our lives as far as getting nutrient rich vegetables in our bodies and our boys bodies. Each smoothie is loaded with vegetables, healthy fats and some fruit - nutrients we would otherwise not be getting.

Since starting the smoothies 3 times a day my skin has become the nicest it has ever been - in fact I have entirely stopped wearing cover up or foundation because I actually really like my skin!

I imagine one of the top questions in your mind is "If you are eating 3 green smoothies a day, what else are you eating?" Well, I am glad you asked!
Here is how our eating schedule typically goes:

Breakfast: Green smoothie for everyone. Boys eat additional breakfast of fruit, eggs, waffles, etc.

Lunch: Green smoothie for everyone. Boys eat additional lunch

Pre-dinner: Green smoothie for everyone

Supper: Raw and cooked vegetables, protein, fats and carbs (pretty much still copying the Warrior Diet)

Snacks: Honest, our snacking has almost been eliminated. If we do snack it is on more fruits or veggies, raw nuts, popcorn or crackers.

Drinks: mainly water (I aim for 100+ oz a day), tea, coffee
We are fairly simple.

Once a week we set a day aside to eat all day long and whatever we'd like - this is to give us a "cheat" day so we don't feel the need to actually cheat and it also shakes up the metabolism. While we still maintain our 3 green smoothies we are free to eat anything else that appeals to us on that day without concern. That being said; the longer we've been eating this way the less we want to eat junk food.

 

Back to the smoothies... in order to make them a balanced part of our diet we came up with what we call

"The 4 Smoothie Groups"

The groups being:

Greens
Liquid
Fats
Special

The Greens and the Fats being essential to a healthy, nutrient rich smoothie, the Liquid being needed to make it a smoothie and the Special making it palatable.

While it is in no way an exhaustive list the next part in this series will jump into the 4 Smoothie Groups we have made up  and explain the health benefits of the items we chose to put in our smoothies...
 

The Warrior Diet

I decided to refocus a bit - while this originally started out as an explanation as to why we drink 3 green smoothies a day it is ultimately my journey of losing the weight I gained with two nearly back to back pregnancies. My diet has played the largest part in losing weight, but working out has also played a significant role. I am going to continue the course I started, which was explaining how we got to where we are today with our diet, but I plan on making this a larger series and expanding it to fitness for moms. Or fitness for anyone. You don't need to be a mom, but it will take having little ones underfoot into account.

Note: I did utilize the use of a gym with a nursery but I am currently doing my fitness regime at home so the series will cover workouts for both home and gym.

And also note: I am in no way an expert in physical fitness. But my husband is so it will be pretty good information!

Without further ado..

The Start of the Warrior Diet

With 30 inches of fat off my body I felt incredibly energized but also increasingly aware of the heaviness of my body. 172lbs on my frame is a lot and I was feeling it.
In February I started following an eating plan that Paul has used off an on throughout our married life which is called The Warrior Diet. The Warrior Diet is a book written by Ori Hofmekler and the premise of it is the eating habits of warriors of old.

Ori Hofmekler was formerly in the special forces and developed the concept for his book through his special forces training.

The basic idea of the Warrior Diet goes against all of the commonly accepted diet advice.
It is, simply put, that you overeat once a day in the evening.
Of course it breaks down into something a bit more complex than that and I will share a bit more into the concept below. However if you intend to adopt this diet into your own lifestyle I would encourage you to read the book for yourself. It is a bit wordy (ok, a lot wordy!!) but there is a lot of important information in there on how to do this right and how to wean yourself on to this diet.

When I started this plan I jumped right in and did the entire plan from the very beginning, but that isn't necessarily the best way to do it and you want to make sure to not overwhelm yourself by going full force and causing yourself to get discouraged and quit.

The Warrior Diet encourages overeating at night and under eating during the day.
The under eating stage, which is done throughout the day and should be combined with exercise, triggers what the author refers to as "a primal survival mechanism." This in turn helps "the body cope with stress, burn stored fat as fuel for increased energy demand and improve endurance to better survive."

In other words; you are burning stored fat and creating more energy.

During the under eating stage there are limited foods you are able to eat including raw vegetables, fruit and light proteins.

The overeating stage is the fun part - you can literally eat whatever you want, you just have to follow the order.
The order being salad, cooked vegetables, protein, fat and then carbs.
In the beginning I was able to fit in a lot of carbs and then a bowl of ice cream at the end of the evening, but my body naturally regulated itself and would crave the healthy nutrients and I began eating the junk foods less and less.
I had never been more in tune with my body and it's hunger, full and thirst cues.

I found it relatively easy to follow the under eating and overeating pattern. I consumed a great amount of raw vegetables throughout the day and within the first 8 weeks lost 12 lbs. I was still working out but due to a several cases of colds and the flu I wasn't at the gym as frequently as I could have been.

By the beginning of April I was at the most fit stage of my life (note: I didn't say thinnest!) - I was under eating throughout the day and, following the recommended order of eating, would over eat in the evening. I felt fit and had a lot of energy - but I couldn't keep up with eating all the raw vegetables my body was demanding throughout the day. The day I ate through 16 ounces of carrots, 2 cucumbers and numerous amounts of fruit by mid afternoon I knew I had to change something. Eating all those vegetables was getting tedious! 

And that is when we got serious about buying a $400 Blender. 

To be continued...

Lychee Fruit & Green Smoothies - 5 recipes

 A lychee fruit on top of a smoothie

Lychee fruit has become a favorite special treat to add to our Green Smoothies. 

I probably shouldn't even admit it since we buy it canned as they aren't in season yet and the canned fruit probably has none of the nutrients that Lychee fruit is known for, but Lychee fruit is SO yummy!

Lychee fruit has a bit of an odd texture when eating it whole but blended up in a smoothie you would never know. It has a light, sweet taste to it and all four of us really enjoy it. I pick up a can every time I am at the Asian grocery store, and they have told me that they should be getting fresh Lychee fruit in sometime in June.

I have 5 recipes below that we made up using the Lychee fruit. 

We have also introduced coconut oil and cod liver oil to our smoothies for the added health benefit they each offer - I'll get more into the details later - but you will find one or both of those ingredients in all our smoothies from now on. They can easily be left out.

We freeze our bananas, peeled, in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Once they are frozen we transfer them over to a ziplock bag.

I think that is all I wanted to mention about the ingredients... let me know if there's questions! 

Here are our 5 Lychee fruit green smoothie recipes:

• 2 frozen bananas
• 3 lychee fruit and 1 tsp syrup from can
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 8 oz kale
• 1 cucumber
• 1 cup water
• 1 mango

 

• 8 oz Kale
• 2 celery 
• 1 avocado
• 1 cup water
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1/3 pineapple
• 4 lychee
• 1+ cup of ice

•  8 oz Kale
• 2 bananas
• 1 grapefruit, juiced
• 1 mango
• 3 lychee fruit
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 tsp cod liver oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 1+ cup ice

• 8 oz Kale
• 3 lychee and 1 tsp syrup from can
• 2 celery stalks
• 10 oz frozen blueberries
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 tsp cod liver oil
• 1 banana
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1+ cup ice

• 10 oz mixed greens
• 1/2 can coconut milk
• 1/3 pineapple
• 1 mango
• 2 frozen bananas
• 10 oz frozen strawberries
• 5 lychee fruit
• 1 cucumber
• 3 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 cup water
• 1+ cup ice

Sharing on Tasty Tuesday and Tempt my Tummy

Why We Drink Green Smoothies 3 Times a Day

Why We Drink Green Smoothies 3 Times a Day

I have been trying for a week now to figure out the best way to explain why we drink 3 green smoothies a day and how we chose what goes in them and I feel a bit at a loss as to where to begin. Green smoothies have been a part of our lives for several years but have only recently been given such a prominent place in our diet. Our journey to Green Smoothies Overload has been a developing one and there are key places in our life where this story could start. I have chosen to start this story when...

Paul Told Me That I Was Gaining Weight.

It started back in the fall when Paul made a simple comment about how it looked like I was gaining weight.
A loving, concerned comment that I graciously received and appreciated. It sparked a resolve to lose the weight that I had never lost from my pregnancy with Wesley, where I tipped out at 195lbs and over 15 months after his birth hadn't dropped beneath 176lbs.

Paul and I discussed numerous options on top of healthy eating and regular exercise and we decided on Osolean powder, a Whey Protein Supplement created by Mannatech. The product, which follows the Osolean plan also created by Mannatech, is designed to aid in fat reduction.
It is a powder that is easily mixed in with food or drinks and you consume it twice daily. The powder itself took me awhile to get use to and I found it easiest to consume mixed in with Orange Juice with high pulp.
I started the Osolean powder in October '09, combining it with regular exercise and eating healthy and I officially ended my time with it almost 4 months later in February.

I started at a weight of 176lbs and ended at a weight of 172lbs. That number would have been extremely discouraging except for one thing - I measured my body in 23 different places every few weeks throughout the time period and that was the true measure of results. In the 4 months of using Osolean I lost 30 inches of fat from my body! My body strength and energy increased and I felt so good!

I stopped using Osolean for a few reasons - mainly it is because I had only ever intended for it to be a tool to help me get rolling on my weight loss goals. Secondly I stopped using it because it is expensive. And thirdly I stopped using it because I wanted to start losing pounds.

That brought me to the Warrior Diet stage, which is to be continued...

*Video* Green Smoothie - Recipe #3

 

I got the boys to help me make a Green Smoothie to show you how easy and fun it can be for kids to do!
We added Teddy Grahams and a lot of  milk to the smoothie which we have never done before but I wanted to demonstrate how you can use fun, recognizable items that the kids already love and blend them up along side foods such as nutrient rich Kale and Avocado.

If you do try introducing Green Smoothies to your children by using cookies or other treats in the drink you can easily cut back the amount of sugary treat you put in the smoothie each time until you have weaned them off the treats and entirely onto the Green Smoothie.

The drink we made in this movie was not very sweet and you couldn't taste the Teddy Grahams so you might want to adjust for tolerance levels - maybe add some honey and less Kale. Or start with spinach instead of Kale. You want your kids to love Green Smoothies, not cringe at the thought of them.

Our Kid Friendly Green Smoothie in the video used:

A firetruck (just kidding!)
A few handfuls of Kale
1 avocado
1 banana
2 cups of milk
5 oz frozen strawberries
small bowl of Teddy Grahams - .5 cup maybe?!
1+ cup of ice
2 cups of milk
1 cup of water

Check out more recipes at Tasty Tuesday

Green Smoothie - Recipe #2

This Green Smoothie is much more the style of what we consume three times daily. We have made a basic list, which I will expound on later, of the 4 'groups' we include in each smoothie - the groups being the base, liquid, fat and special (which is something sweet, generally fruit). 

This smoothie includes items from all four groups.

I used:

about 10 ounces of mixed greens, Kale and Turnip greens

2 carrots

1/2 pear (leftover from snack time)

1 ripe avocado

 1 bag of frozen strawberries

2 cups of water

about 1 cup of ice

We've been using more and more greens lately and a trick I have picked up is to blend them with water first to make room in the blender for everything else. 

It blends right up and makes room for the fruit and ice.

I wanted to try a banana free green smoothie recipe since most of ours use bananas and Stacy mentioned that she didn't like them - you may not like avocados either if it's a texture thing but you inspired this one Stacy and we like it! 

Check out this video on Green Smoothies for kids or newbies

Green Smoothie - Recipe #1

Green Smoothies turned Purple.

This is a great Green Smoothie recipe to start with as the blueberries color it a pretty purple color, which is a bit more normal of a color for a smoothie, and the taste is rather sweet given the yogurt, blueberries and banana. This is what we call a Dessert Green Smoothie and we don't typically eat this, but I thought it would be a good one to start with!

What you need:

about 8oz of fresh spinach

 1 6oz cup blueberry yogurt

1 10oz bag frozen blueberries

1 banana

1 cup of water

1/2 cup milk

1+ cup of ice

Fill the blender with greens first - we always have just to make sure we fit them all in, but several of you commented or emailed me to let me know that it's best to put the frozen stuff in last for the sake of the motor, so we'll be more intentional about that from now on! Thanks for that tip.

Add all other ingredients and blend until everything is a smooth liquid.

We taste test as we blend - if it is too thick, add more liquid. If it's too watery or not sweet enough add a banana. You could also add a bit of honey if it's not sweet enough for your tastes.

More Green Smoothie recipes coming soon!

Green Smoothies - Fast Food for on the Road

Two weeks ago we purchased a Blendtec Blender - it was a hefty investment but Green Smoothies are such a huge part of our life and we have been through 4 blenders in the past 5 years. None of them have stood up to our daily use and when we decided to make Green Smoothies three times a day we knew we would have to purchase a blender that could keep up. After much research we chose the Blendtec and have thus far been thrilled with its performance.

We have used this blender at least 3 times a day for the past 2 weeks and it has surpassed our expectations. 

It efficiently blends everything to a drinkable consistency - full length carrots, kale, whole apples, flax seeds - we've tried many other various fruits, vegetables and seeds too and they have all been blended into a smooth, drinkable consistency.

It is so simple to clean - the Blendtec has a wide base making it a breeze to clean, unlike traditionally shaped blenders where things get caught in the narrow base. We rinse under hot water and then put a bit of water in it and pulse and it's clean - this was especially helpful over the past weekend when we took our blender with us on our trip. 

Paul blending at our campsite on Grand Isle

Paul told me he'd like to bring the blender along with us on our anniversary trip and while I initially thought it a bit weird I am so glad we had it - it helped us maintain a healthy, regular diet which made the trip so much more enjoyable!

We kept a cooler full of greens, carrots, fruit, eggs and ice. Our initial plan was to simply use our power converter in our car, but it wasn't strong enough to power the blender so our backup plan was to seek out truck stops along our way to use the outlets in the trucker lounges. 

While there are signs up saying "Truckers Only" we were welcomed into all of them, if you try this yourself I would advise making certain that you aren't disturbing or annoying anyone by your non-trucker presence. :)

Traveling with the Blendtec made for inexpensive, convenient and nutritious meals and we have decided we won't be traveling without it. While we did end up paying more for fruits and vegetables as we picked up exactly what we wanted on the go (as opposed to purchasing them in bulk and on sale) and we occasionally picked up overpriced convenience produce (pre washed greens or cored pineapple) none of the smoothies rang up at over $5 for a blender-full that was more than enough for Paul and myself to share.

That is $2.50 per person for breakfast, lunch or snack! You can't beat that price and you'd be hard pressed to beat the nutrient packed meal at any price from a restaurant.

I am working on writing down exactly what goes into our smoothies so I can share recipes - it's hard to do as Paul and I both have a tendency to throw things together, hold our breath and hope it works.

Both our boys adore these smoothies - in fact Wesley woke up hungry in the middle of the night and when I brought him into the kitchen and asked him what he'd like to eat he asked me for a smoothie. The boys have no idea that they are eating about 4oz of Kale or Spinach, 1-2 carrots and various other fruits and vegetables each day - they just love their "Smoovies".

And we love them too.