Green Smoothies...YUM!

My First Green Smoothie

Looks like a big glass of grass, but tastes great, and the health benefits are AMAZING!

So I had my first glass of green smoothie Tuesday May 24th.  I have been really studying the benefits of raw foods lately in my quest for health.  I came across the green smoothie idea on greensmoothiegirl.com about a year ago and have been getting emails from her since.  I kept being led back to her website in my research and finally decided to order the digital download, 12 Steps to Whole Foods by Robyn Openshaw.  Basically, you do one step a month for a year.  I love her approach, it is so realistic.  She is a mother of four super healthy children and teaches you how to incorporate her ideas for your children as well.

The first month is having a quart of green smoothie every day. I was both excited and curious about this step.   Excited because doing this gets you about 15 servings of fruits and veggies a day!  Curious if I would actually enjoying drinking blended greens and fruits!  I was so happy when the taste was awesome, I love them.  I have had one everyday for almost 2 weeks now.  

So far I have noticed several benefits.  The main one being more energy.  After I drink my smoothie in the morning, I feel like actually doing something.  Having a newborn and 2 toddlers, this is AMAZING! lol  For this reason alone, I will continue to drink them every day.  

A few other benefits I'm noticing are:  better moods, clearer skin, shinier hair, fewer sugar cravings, and improved digestion and elimination.  I haven't lost any weight yet, but my body just shed 24 pounds after delivering Ava Mae, so I'm not expecting it to let go easily for a while.  Plus I am breastfeeding and don't want to lose to quickly and mess up my milk supply.  I do have a goal to lose 20 pounds in 4 months.  That will have me back to my pre-Noah weight.  Once I get there, I will strive to lose 10 more, but if my body wants to stay there, that is my happy weight and I'll be content.  

Here is a video link to how I learned to make a green smoothie from Robyn.  In the video you will see that she is using an awesome Blend Tec blender.  I have been using my Oster beehive blender but ordered a Blend Tec last night and am SO excited to get it!  Jason told me we could get one when the Oster burned out.  It worked great for about the first week.  Then Jason himself started wanting me to make him smoothies also.  This became so time consuming since I can only make one quart at a time and the blender takes a while to mix it all up.  It also began to show signs of soon burning out, so after some complaining and explaining a new blender means more smoothies for him, I was told to order one! :)  YAY! Thanks honey.  So you don't HAVE to have an expensive blender to make them, but I now see WHY you NEED one if you plan to make them everyday.  Plus, they do SO many other things that it makes it totally worth it to me. 

I am also reading the book "The China Study".  Every single whole foods resource I encounter has recommended this book to be the first thing you read.  Since I just started reading it, I don't have a lot of comments about it, but so far it is eye-opening!  It is based on the largest nutritional study ever conducted.  It describes the link between nutrition and disease and how animal-based foods are linked to disease, while plant-based foods heal them.  

So I'm doing great getting my plant-based foods into my diet through my green smoothies.  Jason and I are still dealing with old habits and emotional issues a bit, but they are getting better.  The cravings for those foods are starting to really diminish, which is fantastic!  I'm trying to look at this as adding to my diet the healthy plant-based foods instead of this is all I can eat.  Slowly I think we will be able to really eliminate the disease causing foods just out of natural response.  I don't want to ever feel like I am controlled emotionally by foods, what I can and can't eat again.  So far the simple act of a green smoothie daily has made this whole foods transformation so much easier.  I encourage you to watch the video and check out greensmoothiegirl.com.  There are tons of other great raw, whole foods websites out there too.  Green smoothies are yummy and while I'm still working on a recipe my kids like, I am so excited to finally have a way to get raw fruits and veggies into my family's diet every single day.