Fruits and Veggies make colorful and nutritious "green" smoothies.

And the results are in!

Today, I stepped on the scale and have lost a total of 10 1/2 pounds! Okay, so those are just pounds. I don’t put a lot of stock in what the scale says, it can go up and down from one day to the next. A couple of days ago I was a bit lighter. A friend had told me to be sure to measure myself too, because sometimes you might not lose weight, especially if you’re working out, but you’ll lose inches, which is really what people see. Fortunately we don’t wear a post it note telling people how much we weigh.

I found a measuring chart which had measurements all over the body. r upper arm, r forearm, l upper arm, l forearm, chest, bust, midriff, waist, abdomen, hips, buttocks, r upper thigh, r mid thigh, r lower thigh, r knee, r calf, r ankle, l upper thigh, l mid thigh, l lower thigh, l knee, l calf, l ankle. There were some places where I didn’t lose any inches and others where I lost a lot. All together adding up the measurement loss it was 24 1/2 INCHES! Where did it go? This is maybe the best part for me, seeing the results.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if things I’m noticing are a placebo affect or if they are real, but here are some other things I’ve noticed.

My hair doesn’t seem to be coming out as much as it was before. I had been getting annoyed by how much hair was coming out on my brush, but that is markedly less. Now, I know that hormones and things affect that and maybe I had shed all I needed to, but I have noticed.

Bathroom time is GREAT! I can tell that my digestive system is working the way it is supposed to. Not going into more details about that.

I don’t crave sweet things at all! I don’t want to grab a piece of candy as a pick me up. I’m perfectly content.

There doesn’t seem to be a sugar spike at any time of the day. I just go through the day, smooth sailing. I’ve been out of protein powder for the past five days, so haven’t had my mid-afternoon protein drink – I do miss that and am looking forward to buying my next supply.

The desire to put yucky stuff in my body is so gone!

I would say I have ingested more fruits and vegetables in the last 30 days than almost my entire life combined – especially spinach.

Now, for the cons:

My kids don’t think there’s any food in the house.

I do have to go to the store frequently and desire to buy organic, which is of course a little more expensive. But I do love how good my body feels knowing I’m putting some great things in the body.

Fruit flies – uh, yea, this is the biggest con.

This is one of my favorites:

You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
William W. Purkey

This amazing quote reminds me of my mom. She may not have been able to write this, but she sure did live it.

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching.” She would do this little jig thing and you just knew she was happy. The first time I remember seeing it, I thought it was silly. She had just bowled a strike, she turned around and did a little hip action, arms up in the air, jig. I was embarrassed. She was not.

She would just randomly stop and dance a little in parking lots. If music was playing, she would take her little stubby finger that got cut off in a printing press and pretend to dance.

The afternoon in the hospital after finding out she had about nine months to live, we were walking through the corridor with “her dance partner” the IV pole. She began to dance with the IV pole. She twirled it, shook her hips, and did a couple of finger waving jigs. “To make people happy.” She told me, “I’ve never set goals in my life, but now I’m going to set one. Every day for the rest of my life, I’m going to make people smile.” She didn’t have to try too hard, because she lived the quote.

Two days before she died I was helping her get out of her bed and into the wheel chair. She took my hand and did a little swaying dance with me. Oh how I miss her!

I often see her in my mind dancing in heaven with all of the little children who are waiting for their parents.

“Love like you’ll never be hurt.”

Mom had a lot of hurt in her life, especially at the hand of people who “loved” her. But that never stopped her from always pouring love onto people. She would take people into her home and feed and clothe them. She didn’t have much, and would often give the last of what she had because someone else had even less than she did. When I would think of the love of Jesus, my mom would appear in my mind. She just had such a special gift of giving love to everyone – no judgement, just love.

“Sing, like there’s no one listening”

My mom told me a story of being in the children’s choir at her church. She loved to belt out the music! One day the choir director told her that she couldn’t sing but if she wanted to be in the choir she could just stand their and mouth the words, but she wasn’t to let any of the words come out. This story crushed me! But it didn’t crush Mom. She was going to sing!

We had this old piano on our front porch. My dad “restored” it by painting it green. He took it all apart, and the put it back together, except for those four long screws. He never did know where those went. (sorry I digressed) The piano was in the house for awhile and then ended up on the front porch. My sister and I took piano lessons. The piano was horribly out of tune. I don’t think they ever had someone come tune it. Mom loved to go out and make music on that thing. She had found some old opera song book and would play and sing. She couldn’t read music so she just kind of made it up as she went along. I can still hear her singing, “Beat me, Beat me, All the day long!” I don’t have a clue why that was the song she chose to sing, but whenever she had an especially trying day, I would find her out on the piano banging out the beat me song. She definitely sang as if no one had ears!

“And live like it’s heaven on earth.” To me that means you find joy in everything. Mom collected stuff. She found joy in just ordinary things, like rocks. Just any old rock would do. She would pick up a regular rock and tell my kids all about that rock. She found a story in everything. She always wanted to travel so she became a truck driver. She bought a big video camera, you know the old VHS ones that you would lug around on your shoulder. She would narrate stories to the kids as she would go down the road. Sometimes she would be reminded of a song, and start singing it. Sometimes the camera would start to dance because she would crack herself up and start laughing uncontrollably. JOY. Yep. That was Mom. She lived with joy. She died with Joy.

In her last weeks these were her celebrations. She stepped on the scale at the doctor’s office and was thrilled to have lost another 5 pounds. She pretended like she was putting a space helmet on when getting her radiation. And she made is PAST the 9 months. She felt like a conquerer. And to us – she was!

The night before she died, she hadn’t really been very lucid. I would stand by her bed. Sometimes I would play soothing music for her. But that night, we knew she was getting so very close. I looked at her and said, “I sure do love you!” She looked at me with every ounce of her being. I saw her eyes dance. I swore I could hear her singing. Her final word to me was simply a giant smile and a light squeeze of my hand.

65 years old is too young to die. But she sure did live!

More veggies less fruit - 1 Pair, 1 cucumber, bunch of carrots, bunch of tomatoes, baby field greens. I added lots more greens after I blended a bit.

I don’t think I would have thought I could go more than 21 days drinking a green smoothie every single morning, but I sure have and can’t imagine not having this vital wake up drink. I’ve never been a morning coffee drinker, but I was a morning coke drinker. I often referred to it as my “morning coffee.” Now that it’s been more than 21 days without a coke, I can honestly say I don’t miss it one bit.

Last night I decided to have a Starbucks drink with Mike. We had gone out for dinner and it was a small disaster with slow service, a kid in the booth in front of us standing up, leaning into our booth and coughing (without covering his mouth of course) and other things that just made it not an outstanding experience, which made me feel like I wanted to have a little comfort time. So I ordered a tall, soy, with whip, cinnamon dolce latte. The first taste was BLECK! Oh my goodness it was SO sweet I could barely stand it. Funny, I remember when I first started getting an occasional drink from Starbucks I would always order extra pumps of the sickly sweet stuff. My first several dates with Mike were to Starbucks. When I began working as a REALTOR® and was working late into the night developing marketing materials, Mike and I would pop over to Starbucks right before it closed. So, for me Starbucks is more a “date” thing than a coffee thing. I did eventually enjoy the drink last night, but I think it will be another month before I have another one.

The weigh in this week wasn’t as exciting as last week, only a half pound lost and 2 1/2 inches. So far I’ve lost 2 inches off my waist and all the other places are losing inches too. Woo hoo! My body is adjusting to the new routine, which is actually a really good thing.

It was fun fastening my pants yesterday, there was a good inch and a half extra rather than having to suck in just to get them fastened.

I’m ramping it up with more exercise now. I bought two kettlebells and they came with workout DVD’s. I chose the contour bells from Bob Harper. The workout was too hard for me. I had to do a modified workout, but I went through the whole thing and made sure I did the stretches and the cool down. Boy was I sore yesterday though! Really? I have muscles there??? I’m still feeling a little sore today, but will do another workout today. My experience has shown me that if I give myself a day of rest, then I often come back feeling stronger, even if I’m a little sore. I’m looking forward to my new fit and healthy body! It’s what keeps me going. My plan is to do an every other day workout, then walk on the in between days. Sometimes it’s too hot to walk and I’m not a morning person, so I may have to figure out another way to get in a nice long walk during the summer. I could get up early but — well….One step at a time – one step at a time.

I have found that I am sleeping way better. I rarely wake up in the night and I’m definitely not waking myself up snoring. My face doesn’t look as fat. You know that under the chin hang? It’s beginning to firm and disappear! I hated that extra stuff. I’m going to have to start adding some skin brushing so I keep my skin tight as I lose weight. Don’t want saggy skin…no no no.

I’m enjoying shopping at the grocery store again. For a long time I really didn’t like going. But now it’s like there is a whole new dimension that has been added. It does take a long time though, because I’m reading everything! I’m also enjoying perusing the aisles of Central Market (like Whole Foods Market). I especially like to look through all the fresh ingredients.

So this lifestyle change is really taking hold of me. It really is changing my life.

Cheers! Now you can drink in the afternoon!

Here’s a recipe for Terri’s Chocotini – this was an afternoon protein drink

• 4 oz Chocolate Almond Milk
• 4 oz Unsweetened Almond Milk
• 1 cup ice
• 1 tsp raw cacoa powder
• 1/4 cup whole rolled oats
• 1 scoop protein powder
• 1 medjool date (pitted)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• cinnamon garnish (you can also add cinnamon to the blender, but I forgot so it became a garnish)

I poured it into a martini glass just for additional fun. The glass has olives on it, so that made it look just a bit strange.

All this goodness for breakfast!

First, decide what you want to put in the smoothie. You can follow a recipe, or wing it. You can get recipes all over the internet. Look at some of my other posts under the category “green smoothie experiment” for suggested resources. I kind of wing it. I know what I like (pineapple) and i know what tastes good and what doesn’t. I change up my greens, but my “go-to” green is definitely organic baby spinach. It’s readily available and not too expensive. I do spinach about 4 x’s a week. Sometimes I’ll do a spinach mix, like spinach and arugula or spinach and parsley. It doesn’t really matter all that much as long as you don’t use just one every single day.

I almost always add a banana because it gives a creamy texture. I like that! I also like to add an apple for the nice fiber. For even more fiber I throw in a tablespoon or so of ground flax.

For the smoothie this morning I chose three fruits, an apple, banana, and 1/4th of a pineapple. I buy them already cut at Central Market. It’s worth the fifty cents to not have the mess. If you have a vita-mix, you can just cut the apple in fourths. I discard the stem, but throw in all the rest. No need to cut out the core. Same with the pineapple. I just put it in core and all.

For veggies today I chose some baby carrots. They are so easy and convenient. My cucumber wasn’t organic so I did have to peel it. This is two large hands full of organic baby spinach.

The Loading of the blender

I began by putting 1 1/2 cups of water in the blender. Then added the apple quarters, the banana, followed by the tbls of flax, then the pineapple. I cut the chunk in half before putting it in the blender. Next I added the cucumber cut up into about 2 inch slices. This totally filled the blender so I blended it for about 10 seconds to make room for the greens. I then added the handful of carrots and one handful of spinach. I don’t normally have to load twice, but when I add a cucumber it takes up more space than when I just use greens. I have the 48oz container, but my larger container will be delivered today! We never have any leftovers because some of the other kids (Erica) will drink them.  Tina and I are drinking them regularly now. I had to blend for five seconds, then add the other handful of spinach. I then blended for about 20 seconds more.

And now —- The final result! When Tina retrieved hers out of the fridge she said, “I LOVE CUCUMBERS!” The combo of cucumber and pineapple is amazing! You should definitely try this recipe.

Love taking the lid off the blender to see what gorgeous color it is

48 ounces of pure goodnessCHEERS!

CHEERS!

As I write this – I’m on my second glass. It’s just that good!

Terri Camp answers your Green Smoothie Questions

I’m getting a lot of people on Facebook asking me about Green Smoothies. Somehow they’ve missed that I’ve posted nearly daily answering most of their questions in the category, “Green Smoothie Experiement” so I thought I would answer some of the most frequent questions here.

Q. Why did you decide to try green smoothies?

A. First, I was talking with a facebook friend about wanting to lose weight, etc. He mentioned that a friend of his started drinking green smoothies. That was the very first I had ever heard of them. He planted a small seed that day. He also planted the seed that I would want to get a Vita-Mix.

A few months later I watched a documentary on Netflix called, “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.” I wasn’t sick or nearly dead, but I was fat. Not like the kind of fat I was when I was 20, meaning size 6 fat. I need to lose at least 35 pounds. My belly has a ring around the whole thing. And I know this is not the way I want to live my life. In the documentary, the people are doing a juice fast for several days. They are feeling great and it changes everything about them. However, I didn’t want to do a juice fast. As I was looking up information on juicing, I came upon the Green Smoothie Girl videos on Youtube. I watched a bunch of them. Then I watched videos by Blend it and Mend It. I read a bunch of sites and watched a bunch of videos.

I was out shopping at Costco with my friend Tamara. We were talking about eating healthy, putting better things in our bodies, etc. We were going to start in a week or so. Meanwhile, we were eating pizza and drinking coke. That night after feeling horrid about having three cokes in one day, plus the greasy pizza, I decided I was just going to do it! I had bought some spinach and a few other things at Costco so I decided to just get started. Read Day 2 of my Green Smoothie Experiment.

Q. What is the purpose?

A. My purpose is two-fold, maybe three-fold. First, I kept stepping on the scale only to see it traveling upward, not downward. I hadn’t really changed my eating habits in years and years, but I knew that I wasn’t giving my body the right things. Coke may be the real thing, but it is not the right thing. I’ve always had a problem with forgetting to eat — maybe it was all the coke I was drinking? I had success before with with a program that was a protein shake in the morning. I did well with it, but didn’t have the money to afford it every day. I knew that drinking in the morning was a way for me to succeed. I’ve never eaten well really. Vegetables? Bleck! So, I thought I would see what I thought of the green smoothies. I wanted to make a complete lifestyle change, not just a diet for awhile, but something that would really last.

Q. How did I learn about them?

A. I started watching videos on youtube. I simply searched for “green smoothies.” I watched a whole bunch of videos on making green smoothies. A couple of my favorites were by Green Smoothie Girl and Blend It and Mend It. Jane at BIMI was so personable and uses the acronym KISS Keep is Simple Smoothies. Anyone can do it! She gave me the gumption to get going and just start making them. Every night I read about green smoothies or read up on various recipes or watch a youtube video. I did look at a couple of books at Barnes and Noble but felt like I had enough information to start just with websites.

Q. What are the best two or three resources you use?

A. Youtube would be my first favorite resource. After that, I love Jane’s site, http://blenditandmendit.com. If you click on protocols, she has 7 day and 30 day plans. While I don’t follow the plans, they have been insightful and full of information. You can read something inspiring for each day. I love that! Jane has a sweetener she calls Nectar of the Gods (NOG) made with medjool dates and coconut water. That’s the only sweetener, besides the fruit, that she ever uses. Most of the time I don’t have to add any kind of sweetener.

I also like Green Smoothie Girl . For some reason though, BIMI resonates with me more. GSG puts Stevia in some of her smoothies. I don’t like the after taste of it, so that’s not something I’ll do.

A couple of nights ago I found another site that even has nutrition information. She also has recipes in categories like weight loss, detox, etc. That site is called http://incrediblesmoothies.com  I’ve been spending a lot of time there the past few days. She has loads of information.

I also downloaded an app for my iphone with green recipes. It’s called Green Smoothies by Raw Family. I haven’t used it yet.

Q. Have you lost any weight yet?

A. Yes. 7 pounds in 14 days and 12 inches all over my body.

Q. What other positive things have you seen?

A. There are so many! My skin seems to glow. It feels great to have my clothes feel looser and the belly not hanging out at much. Digestion and elimination are amazing! My energy level seems really high. I’m eating more and regularly fueling my body. No more missed meals for me. I’m only hungry when it’s time to eat. I feel completely satisfied. I quit snoring. (who knew?) I no longer have mucus running down the back of my throat. It’s really hard to believe that all these things have changed in just two weeks. Truly amazing to me.

Q. What are you going to do when the 30 days are over?

A. I’m going to keep going! This has made such a powerful impact on my life that I can’t imagine going back to cokes and being sluggish and not eating right. It’s all about choices. And I’m going to be making wise choices when I put things in my body.

Q. How many calories are in a smoothie?

A.  I don’t care. I don’t count calories. The only measure I use is if the item is good for me that I’m consuming.

Q. Do you have to use a Vita-Mix?

A. No. I used a cheapo blender for the first week. I loved the results I was getting so much that I knew the Vita-Mix would be an investment for me. I spent a lot of time going back and forth between that and a Blendtek. It simply came down to the fact that the Vita-mix has a fabulous reputation – and it was in stock at Costco. I’ll never look back!

Q. What is your favorite recipe?

A. My favorite recipe is anything with pineapple. I love how refreshing it tastes. This would be a typical recipe. I put the ingredients in this order.

1 Cup Water or coconut water

1/4th of a pineapple, cut in half.

1 Banana

1 apple

1 Tbls Ground Flax Seed (you can add whole seeds if you have a high powered blender) I bought these before the blender.

Small handful of fresh blueberries or other berry on hand

Three very large hands full of spinach.

Whirl until smooth. About 30 seconds in my Vita-Mix. If you have a cheapo blender, you might want to whirl the fruit before adding the spinach.

If I have ice, I’ll sometimes add ice to make it really cold, or maybe use a frozen banana.

If you have any other questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll address them by updating this page.

Q. Is this all you eat?

A. No. I have a green smoothie for breakfast, then I have a protein drink around 2:00. I eat a sensible dinner. It’s amazing what I don’t want to put in my mouth now that I’ve had so much goodness going in.

Yesterday when I got dressed, I looked in the mirror and for the first time in a very long time, I said to myself, “Wow! You’re looking pretty good!” I’m still so far from my goal, but to see the scale tipping downward, and the clothes fitting better, and just the all over great feelings I’m having, I see this as not just being a fad diet or a lose some water weight today, only to put it back on next week kind of thing. This is most definitely a lifestyle change for me. I can’t even imagine getting up and not having my green smoothie. Oh my…I’m hooked!

Today I shared my smoothie with Erica. Then Tina came down and was so disappointed that there wasn’t any left for her. So I taught her how to make them. I should be getting my larger container and will be able to make a bunch for us at one time. 

I went shopping at Central Market on Monday and bought some more produce and another young coconut. I haven’t cracked it open yet. I’ve been saving it for a special drink. Tomorrow I’m thinking of making something like an almond joy. I dreamed about making it last night. 

Tamara was with me shopping. She’s my best friend, married to my other best friend, and also the mom of my daughter’s husband. Kind of cool how that all happened. She’s also such a great spiritual friend. One of those kind that everything we talk about centers on God. I just love that! So, we’re talking about this green drink she saw at Sprouts when suddenly she sees it. We’re looking at the bottle, reading the label, when we’re struck by the statement, “do not shake.” Why can’t we shake it we wonder. There’s sediment on the bottom, surely you need to shake it to distribute it throughout. I had never heard of the stuff before. It’s called Kombucha. I sure wished I knew someone who knew something about it.

Just then this guy walks over to us and says, “Do you want to know anything about Kombucha?” 

“YES!” “Like, why can’t we shake it?”

He proceeds to tell us all about it. Have I ever mentioned before that God really wants to be involved in every area of your life? He wants to help us answer our questions, even the simple ones like, “why can’t we shake it?”

To find out more about Kombucha, this is a great article http://www.seedsofhealth.co.uk/fermenting/kombucha.shtml 

After Chad stops talking to us, Tamara and I both decide that it was a “God-thing” that we ran into him, or rather that he approached us. Then later in the car he came over and gave us his business card. Funny thing is that he is a personal trainer and has a training school, which is something one of my kids really wants to get into. So, may be a great connection for her too! Awesome! If you’re in the DFW area and are looking to learn more about health, creating meal plans, personal training, and other health information Chad is an amazingly nice guy. I can’t wait to be able to get to use his services soon. His website is http://becomecustombuilt.com  I love that! The other thing I love is that he is a Christian. Tamara asked him. gotta love boldness.

This time I went a little more complicated. I added a tsp of cinnamon, about 8 jumbo cashews, a whole apple (quartered), a frozen banana, a bunch of spinach, a Tbl of flax seed, and some water. This was almost like a dessert to me. Soooo yummy. In fact it was so good, I found myself wanting to chomp down on it. If you’re trying smoothies – definitely try this one!  

I took another 30 minute or so walk through the neighborhood, stopping only to watch the little turtles bob their heads in and out of the water by the pond. It was windy but about 85 degrees. Such a great time of spiritual reflection and quiet time thinking. Wonderful!

One of my favorite activities of the year is going on this weekend in Southlake Town Square. Art in the Square is an annual event that I attend. I try to go a couple of times during the weekend. We were watching Jordyn so we packed her up (not that a 2 1/2 year old really takes that much packing) and I pushed her around in her stroller – walking and walking and walking. I walked through the food vendors three times. I so thought of stopping to pick up something completely horrendous for my body, but I did not, even though I was very hungry.

After Art in the Square the kids wanted to drive through Starbucks. Everyone in the car – except me – got a drink. I didn’t even feel tempted there. I was tempted however to skip eating dinner. I had only a small handful of nuts (oh, and a bite of cotton candy). Starvation is not what I’m going for here, so I took myself into the kitchen around 10:00 and made a nice little tuna salad with some tomatoe slices. Worked great for fueling my body.

I took a little taste and felt like I had bitten into the dirty green part of a rhubarb. Yea, that took me back to my childhood real fast. Bleck! Also, the consistency was more like ice cream, really thick. I’m NOT going to pretend this is a chocolate milk shake – no way! If I was going to salvage this one, I had to think quick on my feet. (I’m so dramatic aren’t I?) I decided to add a large heaping spoonful of the nectar of the gods sweetener and a little more water. It still tastes a lot like that rhubarb, but I should be able to gulp it down this time. I was tempted to make something else, but decided that I want to change my life, so I decided I was going to drink that purply brown smoothie that tastes a little like salted dirt. 

Funny thing happened on the way to an empty glass – I started liking the flavor. The salty taste came out a bit more. I wonder if I would have liked it more with a little added salt. Remember as a kid dipping the rhubarb into a bowl of salt? Hmm? Anyway, the more I drank, the more I really liked it. So, I guess…the verdict is … I will make this again the next time I have chard, but I’m not going to go out and buy chard. If I acquire some, I’ll make this drink.

The day was absolutely beautiful here in N. Texas, a few clouds and 84 degrees. I decided to take a nice walk through my subdivision. I walked fast for about 30 minutes. Not much, but it was more than I have been doing most days when I just sit and stare at my computer screen. There’s something so wonderful about walking. You get to clear your head, pray, and think about things. 

I had a few temptations today. I felt a little more hungry than usual. A couple of the kids and I went to the grocery store. I don’t know if they were trying to tempt me, but even ice cream looked good to me, and I don’t particularly like ice cream. I didn’t give in though – no, not even one oreo for me. 

I didn’t get to eat dinner until almost 9:00 tonight (I had a salad with just a few dribbles of dressing) so I had a little snack of tomatoes and a small handful of cashews. It actually worked quite well to curb the appetite.

Some of the kids wanted me to make guacamole. Rather than making it my usual way with avocado, sour cream, and guacamole seasoning, I opted for a fresher batch. I diced an onion in my vitamix for like a second. John was SO impressed! He kept telling people it was like (snapped his fingers) that! Then I added some fresh cilantro, a little picante sauce and a couple of the sweet red peppers. I even had a little snack of a sweet red pepper stuffed with a teaspoon of guacamole. It was actually pretty good.

Did I mention that I dreamed about making green smoothies last night? How weird is that?

I took a picture of the brown sludgey drink from today, but I think I’ll skip posting it here. You can look on my FB wall if you want to see it. One of my kids scolded me for posting something that looked disgusting. 

I’m looking forward to a new experience tomorrow. Don’t you love that each new day is fresh and if you didn’t like this day, tomorrow always has the opportunity to give you better things. 

I was standing in the kitchen talking with Tina when she suddenly said, “Mom, you look radiant.” I pooh pooh’d her, telling her it’s probably the extra sun I got. She said, “No, I really think you’re radiant, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the sun.” Wow! Cool!

Today I decided to kick the fun up a notch and created a pina colada green smoothie in my cheapo blender. 

I was making enough for two, so I started with at least a cup of water. I just pour it in. I need more water in mine because of the cheapo blender. If you have a vitamix, you may be able to just skip the water altogether, but I don’t know, because I don’t have one. Next I blended up my blender full of spinach. I’ve been mostly using spinach because I have two giant containers of it. Use what you have! I then added a frozen banana, some of the coconut meat from the young coconut of yesterday, and half of a pineapple. I added a smidge of alcohol in the form of a tsp of pure vanilla. All it needed was an umbrella. OMGoodness! It was so delicious. I am pretty sure I have developed a love affair with the green smoothie. Who knew that life could be so great drinking fruits and vegetables in the morning?

When I started, I really wanted to get a pro blender but I wanted to be sure it was something I would enjoy doing. I’m convinced. So today, I’m ordering my blender!!!! I made more than enough at my garage sale so I’m using the proceeds of that. YEAH ME!

My oldest son, David turned 21 today. He lives at home and I wanted to make it special for him. He didn’t want to go out to eat, which would have been a bit easier for me to choose to eat something good for me. Anyway, I made him a cake and did take a lick from the beater. He wanted mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli plus some kind of meat, but not chicken. I bought the family BBQ ribs from Texas Road House. I had one. ONE. I also had a small scoop of potatoes and a large scoop of broccoli. I didn’t have any cake with the family. So, while the choices I made weren’t all natural and super good for me, I didn’t indulge too much, but I did enjoy the choices I made. It’s all about choices!

I’ve said that my whole life. It’s all about choices. No one makes us do the things we do. We make the choices.

Are you where you want to be? Look at what you’re choosing to do.

Tina and I went to the gym about 10:30 pm and did two rounds with the kettle bells. Sometimes two rounds is all we can do. But that’s two rounds more than I do when I don’t do anything.

Tomorrow is the one week weigh in and measure – stay tuned to find out if I’ve made any progress.

The most noticable was 2 inches around the chest. Wow! Can’t believe it! My boyfriend had given me a hug tonight and said, “Wow! I can feel that you’re losing inches!” Another surprise was an inch around each knee. Really? That flabby stuff that I hate is goin’ away! lots of exclamation points in this post.

I slept eight hours last night – EIGHT HOURS – without waking up even once! Here’s another interesting thing, but it might be kind of gross. I used to have phlegm running down the back of my throat all the time. I don’t even notice any now. That seems strange to me, but I’m happy about it. 

As you can imagine I couldn’t wait to get started on my drink this morning, mixing it up in my beautiful new Vita-mix. I loaded it up with an orange, 1/4 pineapple, 1 banana, 1/2 a head of romaine, and the left over fruit icee from last night. I think it’s amazing that every time I make one of these I take a big whiff. I just love the aroma! Then, I take a drink and almost always say, “Wow! This is delicious!” Funny that I’m always surprised how great it tastes. I particularly love the pineapple in the drinks. Makes me think I’m in the tropics. I may not get an island get-away any time soon, but I can certainly pretend I’m sipping a nice cold drink in the Bahamas. I do like the drinks cold, but often just make them room temperature. That works too. 

I need to get some ice cube trays as my ice maker in my fridge is broken and it’s not worth the cost to fix it. 

My afternoon treat was the ever enjoyable half ‘n half with cashew peanut butter. If this is the first time for you to read my blog the half ‘n half drink is a blended concoction of chocolate and plain almond milk, plus a tablespoon of cashew butter. Sometimes I use vanilla, but today I used plain.  

Since I had sweet red peppers from the co-op and didn’t have a clue what to do with them, I decided to roast them in the oven. I had never done this before, so did a little google search and found a few ways to do it. I spread them out on a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil on it. Then I put a little olive oil with a truffle infusion on them. Realizing that I probably didn’t want to broil something with olive oil on the pan, I transfered them to a clean aluminum foil pan so only the peppers had oil on them. I broiled them for about 30 minutes, turning a couple of times. After they cooled for awhile, I cut some of them in half and scraped out the seeds. Then, my adventurous self decided to try one. I was determined to not make a funny face. And I didn’t have to. My goodness, it was so delicious! I ended up eating three of them, just for fun. Love the red color too.

Another experiment for dinner was to make a soup in my blender. I chopped up some onion (took like 3 seconds in the vitamix), added some of the truffle infused olive oil to a pan and sauteed the onion and a bunch of asparagus. I then added some chicken broth from a jar and some water. I let that cook for about 20 minutes. Then I whirred it up in the blender. I then added an avocado and some almond milk. It was so delicious! I garnished it with some red pepper strips to look like someone saying, “ta-dah!” However, even with the lovely garnish, Mike didn’t like it. He said he liked the flavor just fine, but he couldn’t get past that it was green and the consistency of pudding. Oh well – more for me! I LOVED it! It was so smooth and creamy and yummy – and GREEN. I guess if I want to make Mike dinner, it’s probably going to have to not be green. Maybe I’ll try a tomato bisque soon. 

After dinner I finished cleaning all the peppers and put them in the fridge, but not after eating another one. I sure hope these things are good for me! 

The “firsts” for me today: roasting red peppers and cooking asparagus. I had never done anything with asparagus in my own kitchen. I love eating it, but usually have it at a restaurant. Next time, I think I’ll save some and roast them too.

Tomorrow I’m going to make another salad smoothie, adding some of the red peppers.

Anyone know of a great way to do something with beets? I guess I could put the greens into my smoothie tomorrow. Uhhhh  that might be a little too daring for me. What if I hate it?