Last week, for one of my Best Body Bootcamp mini challenges, I decided to fit in at least 5 green smoothies for the week. And fit them in, I did.  Now, I’ve had green smoothies before – you know, any smoothie where you sneak in (or deliberately add) some greens – spinach, kale, swiss chard, etc – with your fruit? But I’d still consider myself a beginner, and had always stuck with spinach, usually frozen, at that. Granted, I didn’t stray very far from that last week, but I did try kale and a few new recipes – so I still consider it a success.  I can see this mini challenge coming back before bootcamp ends, as there are more recipes I want to try and having the plan to get 5 in per week makes me a lot more likely to make them.

To begin my green smoothie quest, I wanted to find some recipes, as I’ve over-spinached my smoothies in the past by making up my own concoctions, heh.  As you can imagine, there are tons of recipes out there.  I think I even have some Kindle books with recipes, but at the time it was much quicker to search the internet than to sync the books to one of my gadgets to read. I’ll round up some of the places I found recipes that I didn’t try yet at the end of the post.

The first recipe I tried was from a nifty free ebook – The Green Smoothie Guide, courtesy of Raw Smoothie Recipes. You need to sign up to get the link to download the pdf file, and they send it right away. There are over 17 recipes in the book, along with a lot of suggestions for your own variations and some recipe guidelines for success.  This would have been helpful to have read before the over-spinaching incident.  I’m sure you could probably find similar recipes online elsewhere, but the pdf file was nicely done, and I like having the option of easily transferring it to an ereader later on. And besides – you can’t be the price, so I highly recommend this ebook.  Pardon my lame cell phone pictures.  Though I doubt the pictures would have been much better with my camera.  A photographer, I am not.

Kale and Pear Smoothie

First up, was the Kale and Pear smoothie, from the free Green Smoothie Guide. It has kale and pear, obviously, as well as banana, grapes, and an orange.  I really liked the addition of ice for this one – and the extra cold temperature of it made it taste even more fresh.  I didn’t like that the recipe called for half a pear – since I’m just going to eat the half of the pear anyway – it’s not as if I was going to wrap up half a pear for later, heh. This was my first kale smoothie and I really, really liked it! I think I could even add more kale next time. I also think I’d cut back on some of the other fruits so I could just use the whole pare. This smoothie was pretty heavy on carbs, given the amount of fruit, so I think I would try to have it along with some protein next time I make it, too. But it sure was tasty – and will make a great treat in the summer!

Spinach Citrus Smoothie

The next smoothie is a quick and easy recipe from a friend of mine.  She suggested having a green smoothie made from spinach and a whole grapefruit.  I was game to try that, but since I can’t leave well enough alone, I also added an orange.  And way too much frozen spinach.  I know that there’s a significant volume difference for using frozen spinach versus fresh, but I sure didn’t guess at how much to use very well! I gotta say, that first one was very, uh, grassy-tasting. Last week I had a much better result. I ended up making two of these – one with frozen spinach and one with fresh.  I liked them both, and added a bit of orange juice to them this time, since I has some that needed to be used up. So, the “recipe” is about a handful of fresh spinach + one peeled grapefruit + one peeled orange (optional) + splash of orange juice (optional). Blend and enjoy. I may have to start adding some ice cubs to this one too, since I really liked the chill the ice cubes gave to the Kale and Pear smoothie.

Blueberrry Banana Dream

Another recipe I enjoyed last week was for the Blueberry Banana Dream Raw Smoothie, again from the free Green Smoothie Guide. This one certainly turned out more purple than green, but there were plenty of greens added, I promise! This called for spinach, blueberries, banana, ground flax, and water. They suggested sweetner if you needed it, but my banana was super ripe, so between that and the blueberries I was all set. This was was pretty thick, which is fine by me – and I also liked the nuttiness from the flax. I can see making this again and substituting other berries, too.

Choco-nana Cherry Spinach Smoothie

Finally, I knew I wanted to try some kind of chocolate green smoothie this week – and that wasn’t something I had tried before.  I really, really enjoy my chocolate based smoothies – whether it’s with peanut butter, coffee, banana, or simply more chocolate – and I was slightly concerned that adding spinach or other greens might mess things up, heh.  Well, I’ve certainly read other accounts on several blogs before, so I should not have worried.  Yup, I agree – you can’t taste the greens in a chocolate smoothie.  At least, not in the one I made. Hee. I did another web search to find chocolate-based green smoothies and found a ton of results.  One that sounded very good to me was this Chocolate Banana Spinach Cherry Smoothie Pudding. Say that three times fast!  When I started to make the recipe, I realized it’s very similar to one of my favorite go-to smoothies, sans spinach. So no wonder I though it sounded good, heh. Using that recipe as a guide, I also added some kale with the spinach, tossed in some chocolate protein powder, reduced the banana to a half (since I keep them on hand, divided into half banana servings in the freezer), kept the cherries, increased the almond milk to 1 cup, and increased the cocoa powder to 1 tablespoon. And then I was back to what I usually make anyway – except for adding the greens instead of my usual square of frozen dark chocolate.   Either way – I enjoyed it very much!

Here are a few more green smoothie recipes and resources that looked good to me and I look forward to trying in the future.

Green Diva Mom – 12 quick and easy green smoothies

Raw Family – love that they have a “beginner” green smoothie section, and that they also show more exotic ingredient for the “advanced” greenies

Green Lite Bites – Roni shows several options – including some that are tested kid-friendly

Green Monster Movement – some chocolate green smoothie options that look to be right up my alley

Healthy Blender Recipes – I’m intrigued by the use of dates in this recipe, and also slighty worried that my inexpensive blender may not handle those well in a smoothie, so I’ll have to try it and see. Plus, that site seems to have a super-cool interface letting you search for all types of recipes (not just smoothies) – dietary preferences and/or restrictions, equipment required, and more.  I’ll definitely be checking out more over there.

Oh, and I almost forgot – below are the Kindle books I have that are Green Smoothie specific. I probably picked them up when they were free (I hoard free Kindle books, so it’s hard to keep track), and if you keep an eye on them they may be free again sometime. So, I haven’t tried any recipes from these yet, but it’s on the to-do list!

Raw is the Answer – 30 Day Green Smoothie Diet Learn how to make 30 different green smoothies containing more calcium than a glass of milk and more than 100% DV of omega-3 fatty acids. By simply replacing one meal per day with a healthy green smoothie you can greatly increase your energy, maintain your cardiovascular health and lose weight. Only simple, fresh fruits and vegetables are needed to make these smoothies, along with optional supplements such as flaxseed oil, chlorella and agave nectar.

Green Smoothie A collection of Green Smoothie recipes and and look at the many benifits of Green Smoothies.

The Green Smoothie Guide How to make the best tasting, most healthy green smoothies

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Summer-like dog walk...in March!

Week 2 of Tina Reale’s Best Body Bootcamp is in the books! Week 2 went alright for me, though I could have done better. While I got in a few solid workouts and some bonus activity with dog walks and a bike ride, I fell short of my goals for week 3. I only completed 4 of my 5-6 planned workouts and ended up with 3 days of bonus activity out of the desired 5 or more. Still, I ended the week feeling pretty good, and learned that I need to do better about getting my main workouts in during the week, since I tend to let other things get in the way on the weekend.  I did get all of my water (and then some) in and it’s finally starting to feel automatic to keep up on my hydration – with my water bottle, of course.

I’m looking forward to a stronger finish in Week 3, and am going to give myself lots of no-dread workout options to make this week fun. The weather continues to be unseasonably warm, so I’ll likely get outside for a few more bonus workouts, too.

My mini goals for Week 3

• Drink 48 ounces of water, in addition to any water I consume during workouts
  This goal will remain in place, as it really makes me stay aware of how much water I’ve consumed throughout the day.
• Green Smoothie Week!
  This mini challenge should prove to be interesting – I’m pledging to get in at least 5 green smoothies this week. I really enjoy smoothies, and have had a few green smoothies in the past, but want to up the ante by trying some new recipes and also trying some greens and chocolate combos to go outside my comfort zone a bit.  And get in some extra greens, of course! 

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Week 2 of Tina Reale’s Best Body Bootcamp is here! Week 1 went quite well for me. The timing of this challenge was just right to get me refocused on healthy habits, and I’m pleased with how my workouts went last week. I was able to get in 5 solid workouts, and also met my mini challenges 5-6 days last week. To track my water intake, I used my trusty water bottle, which I normally have on hand most of the time, anyway.  The little meter on the lid came in handy for tracking how many bottles I had consumed, since I apparently find it hard to keep count, heh.

I also met my other mini challenge of preparing a healthy lunch 5 days last week. I didn’t have to work all 5 of those days, but I still prepared a healthy option rather than grabbing something from the pantry or freezer – so, mission accomplished! Two of my lunches were bases on this tasty recipe for Chilled Peanut Soba Noodles. Yum! I made half a recipe, added in some veggies and chicken, and divided it into two lunches.

For another day’s lunch option, I was running low on time (and groceries) and stared at the fridge and dug through the freezer to come up with an easy egg dish, with a side of (frozen) berries and a mini whole wheat bagel. To prepare the eggs, I sauteed some frozen spinach and added in some leftover turkey sausage, before cracking two eggs into the pan and scrambling. Then, I added a bit of shredded cheese – and black pepper and bacon salt for some extra kick.  Again, yum! For the last two lunches of the week, I used up some more leftovers and things I’ve been wanting to cook up by roasting a spaghetti squash. I also saved the seeds to roast up for a snack.  After the squash was roasted, I divided it into 3 servings, preparing two of them in a spaghetti-like fashion. I topped them with a bit of parmesan and mozzarella cheese, leftover chicken, and marinara sauce.  For the rest of the squash, I topped it with some zesty Italian dressing and some spices to have as a cold snack. And forgot to take pictures of that, of course, heh. 

Week 2 is going well so far, and I’m still following my own workout rotation and look forward to changing it up next week. I hope to have time to get some workout reviews posted soon, but time will tell!

My mini goals for Week 2

• Drink 48 ounces of water, in addition to any water I consume during workouts
  I’ll still consume the as much water as needed during my workouts, but also want to be sure to get 48 ounces of plain water in addition to anything else I drink. This goal was very helpful to me in Week 1, and I was surprised to realize how easily it is for me to get away from getting my water in when I get busy – or when I’ve had a latte or a smoothie. I want to keep this as a mini goal to continue to stay aware of my water intake.
• Get 30 minutes of bonus activity at least 5 days this week
  My original thought on this mini goal was to get in some extra movement by playing an active Wii game, more dog walks, and maybe some walking workouts. The weather has been unseasonably warm though, so it’s looking like it will be more about getting outside since it feels more like May than March! I might even get my bike out if the trail continues to dry out.

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Here’s a switch! I’m joining a bootcamp challenge starting today, March 5th running until April 30th led by Tina Reale. Now, I admit that normally anything with the word bootcamp in it is something I try to avoid.  In fact many of the workouts I have with the “b” word in the title are still waiting to be tried – or I may have tried them and am not itching to do them again anytime soon. There are some exceptions however, so I was intrigued by the flexibility of this challenge – you really can make it your own; bootcamp style workouts or not.  Full details on the challenge are available on Tina’s site.

I’ll be following my own workout rotation to start with, as I have some new workouts that I want to try out.  I reserve the right to try out some of the workouts Tina will be sending to us week, of course. There is also an option to add in two mini goals each week, to help with your healthy habits – and to increase your chances of winning the weekly prizes, too. 

My mini goals for this week (which may remain the same for most of the challenge) will be:

• Drink 48 ounces of water, in addition to any water I consume during workouts I’ll still consume the as much water as needed during my workouts, but also want to be sure to get 48 ounces of plain water in addition to anything else I drink
• Prepare and pack a healthy lunch/dinner for work
  This is something I usually do anyway, but lately I haven’t been cooking meals/snacks as often when it’s something just for me

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