Smoothie Madness

I have become nuts for smoothies over the last couple of weeks.
After years of HATING them!!
In fact, as an adult, I wouldn't even try them cause I have NEVER liked smoothies.

Well, over the years, my running friends and sisters would talk about smoothies and how much they love them and drink them everyday and all that jazz.. I would just grimace.

But our local women's running club had a New Year's Eve run and my friend that is a nutrition guru brought some of her smoothie for the group. I figured I could try it. She doesn't do dairy and since that's why I don't do smoothies as I can't stand the texture of yogurt, I figured, what the heck.. I might as well try it.

Here I am. Yes we captured the experience!

I was SHOCKED! I liked it! The texture of the fruit and vegetables didn't bother me at all!

And so began my journey into wellness.

Over the last two weeks I have had a smoothie everyday! Except for one day as we were out of stuff to make one and the day just didn't go right.. I made crappy food choices.

So I am committed! 

I feel better and I've lost 4 pounds in two weeks!

Amazing.

My girls are even drinking smoothies!

And these aren't smoothies for the faint of heart.. these are REAL fruit and veggie smoothies! 

Take a look at my go to smoothie recipe. It's a little longer process, but I really like the taste.

1. 1/2 cup almond milk and an orange. Pulse together.

2. Add spinach, carrots, grape tomatoes, a little avocado and some water.

3. Strain. This is a personal choice as I love the flavor of the orange but I don't like all of the pulp. And I want the real thing and not orange juice! This may not be a needed step if you have a good blender. I had a Ninja blender that I was using (as seen in the below pictures), but it wasn't making the veggies smooth enough. Nice blender but I think there was too much area for the veggies to move around and not enough force to break up the particles. I got a new blender and it is amazing.. now the pulp is creamy and not pulpy (is that a word?)

4. Add a banana, some frozen peaches and strawberries.

5. Blend.

6. Pour.

7. Enjoy.

 

The above smoothie color isn't pretty, but it is yummy. Notice that I didn't add any sweeteners. I don't really like it sweet. The fruits make it plenty sweet in my opinion!

After more than a full week enjoying smoothies and seeing that I really will drink them, I decided to get a blender made for smoothie making.  Oh the difference! It was incredible!!

I got the Nutribullet Pro and WOW! Look how beautiful that green is!!!

I am still straining the veggie mixture, but instead of needing to because of the grit, I am so that I have room for the fruit! In the old blender, once it was strained the mix would give me less than a cup of liquid. Look at how much liquid I have from this mornings mix! 

Once I added the banana, strawberries and peaches I had 20 ounces plus!

And a TMI sidenote: I've always had stomach/gastro issues. Too many salads in one week were not good. This has been an issue of mine on Weight Watchers. It's hard to process that many uncooked veggies. Well, the smoothies are no trouble. I feel better than ever and my system is happy. I'm sure its because I'm straining out most of the fiber and bulk, but hey, I've taken a giant leap into healthy eating, the "grit' will come later!