Drink To Energize
No, silly…. I’m not talking about a shot of vodka as you wake up …… I’m also not talking about anything with caffeine in it.
I used to have a protein powder shake with concentrated dried vegetables and some ground chia and flax seeds. The past few days I decided to change it up. I was feeling a bit “bulgy” so wondered if I started to incorporate more green… especially at the start of my day, what the impact would be.
I blend spinach and lime juice….. although you can mix it up with lemon, maybe some cucumber and today I added a bit of squeezed orange juice. I don’t like to have too much fruit in the morning since that is still sugar… it’s not refined but there is a crash even if it’s from a natural source.
Drink To Energize – My usual breakfast routine with my green smoothie.
Having my green smoothie really does zip me up in more ways than one. I get over that dragginess in the morning pretty quickly….
A lot of health-conscious folks will show you all kinds of ways to make the smoothie… maybe adding almond milk, a banana, soy milk, regular milk or just a bunch of fruit.
I consider myself the “Smoothie Queen”…. I’ve probably made thousands of smoothies in my life with all kinds of variations.
If you make it with some kind of milk, it’s usually refined and de-nourished since the production process of something like almond and soy milk usually ends up robbing it of it’s essential natural nutrients. Naturally soy and almonds are some of the most nutrient dense things you could eat. With Monsanto genetically modifying soy and most of the seeds in the industrialized farm world, you end up getting soy that is not ideal from a nutrition perspective.
( If you make your own almond or soy milk then you are getting a ton of nutrients but not sure who would be willing to do this).
A bit of fruit in the smoothie is ok but I wouldn’t load it up with a ton of it since the natural sugars in fruit end up resulting in a sugar crash. Technically lemons, limes and avocado and tomatoes are fruit but they are low sugar-fruits. I wouldn’t event consider getting any kind of packaged juice and adding much of it to your green smoothie since these are filled with all kinds of refined sugars…. sometimes high fructose corn syrup.
I actually seem to think more clearly in the morning when I have my green smoothie…. I’m not usually that hungry in the am so this actually does tide me over till noon or so. If for some reason I get hungry and can’t get to lunch then a few handfuls of sesame seeds or raw almonds does tide me over for awhile.
Having the same thing for breakfast every morning might seem monotonous for some but mornings are such a hectic time with getting things ready for the baby, my hubby going off to work and the dog so when there are less decisions about what I am going to eat, that just frees up my brain for other things.
I’ve also noticed some of my bulges have gone missing… YAY! I’m just starting to incorporate more green into every meal. If I have some kind of chicken, lentil dish then I can just heat that up over spinach……..
Spinach is definitely my veggie of choice. It has a slightly sweet taste and it never overpowers the other flavors. It cooks up very fast ( like 2 minutes). I actually don’t even bother to cook it a lot… if I heat up a dish like chicken or lentils and just put it over some spinach, then the greens will just wilt…. voila…. less cooking, less dishes. It doesn’t have the bitter taste that a lot of other greens have so it is much more palatable than most of the other ones. It’s also easy to get at any kind of supermarket and it’s pre-washed usually so it’s easy to prepare.