This Ninja is for keeps

As a card carrying member of the Vitamix family, I soon discovered that the little Magic Bullet I purchased for workplace smoothies wasn’t going to be able to keep up with my demands. Today, I ventured out and purchased a Ninja BL600. This bad boy has 1100 watts of power, well over the 250 watts the Magic Bullet was churning out.

The sale price at Target was $111, on sale from $149! I also had a $5 gift card to boot. #WINNING

  
To get back down to my pre-VMware weight, I had to get serious about the calories I’d been consuming and straighten up. Since I’m recovering from shoulder surgery, I don’t grocery shop much & I cook even less. Smoothies are a quick meal and easy to prep for.
Today’s smoothie of the day #SOTD is a veggie blast!

• Carrots
• Lemon 
• Spinach 
• Strawberry
• Chia seeds
• Vanilla whey protein powder 
• Unsweetened almond milk
• Ice 

  
This Ninja is not to be played with. Not a carrot chunk or half blended spinach leaf to be found.  I wish I would have dropped the dollars sooner for a workplace blender! This is worth the investment.

  
So long Magic Bullet!!!

  

Junk Drawer Purgatory!!

Cranberry Smoothies are Groovy

Cranberries aren’t just for cranberry sauce!

• 1/2 cup of fresh cranberries
• 2 cups of curly kale
• 1 peeled lime
• 2 -2.5 cups of fresh or frozen pineapple
• 2 cups of water

 

Add the kale and water to the blender and blend, blend blend!! I use a Vitamix Blender and it makes quick work of any smoothie.

Drop in the rest of the ingredients and blend. Add ice if desired.
Makes 2 servings.

Voila!

 

Get your ingredients together and blend.

The finished product.

Instagram worthy!
Add some sparkling water and turn this bad boy in to a real spritzer! I’m a fan of Pelligrino sparkling water. Once added to the smoothie this is definitely becomes a brunch winner!

 

This wonderful recipe is from the 30-day Green Smoothie Challenge from Simple Green Smoothies. Check these folks out for more great recipes.

 

Give it a try and let me know how you like it.

Afternoon slump smoothie

Today has been a cardio day for the record books. I taught spin this morning (600 calories) and took a spin class at Body Cycle for lunch (540 calories). I brought my breakfast & lunch to work with me, but I’m ravenous and I just want sweets (I didn’t bring any yogurt or fruit, ugh!) and the noise from my sugar jones is way too loud.

It’s 3:30 and that mental slump is rounding the corner. To head it off, I decided to make a caffeine fueled smoothie to get me by.

• 6 oz of black coffee

• 3-4 oz of almond milk

• 1 heaping scoop of vanilla whey protein powder (I’m out of chocolate)

• Spoon of unsalted peanut butter

• Ice

My office magic bullet is a life saver and made quick work of of this smoothie. Since “I’m so Fancy”, I added some whipped cream to knock it out of the park.

Bye bye afternoon slump! Hello focus!

Humpday Post Workout Smoothie

Today started off horribly! I set my alarm for 4:00AM last night to get up in plenty of time to teach my Wednesday morning SPIN class at 5:45AM. Funny thing happened, when I woke up, the sun was coming up and I glanced at the clock and it was 5:12AM!!!

WTH!!! I overslept!

I jumped up, cursed and scared my poor husband! He saw me set my clock and even commented, “Why 4:02?”. I replied something smart and closed my eyes. I still have NO idea why I overslept, why my alarm didn’t go off (or better yet, why didn’t I hear it). Thank goodness everything was ready to go! I made it to the gym with 5 minutes to spare.

Texted this photo as soon as I got on my bike

After an intense morning with a great calorie burn (600+), I had to make a smoothie that could stand up to the morning I had and put a big old smile on my face. Today is a chocolate peanut butter banana smoothie!

 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

• 1 scoop of chocolate whey protein powder
• 1 small banana or 1/2 large banana
• 1 heaping tablespoon of freshly ground peanut butter (nothing added, just nuts) like the one from Whole Foods
• 1 cup of almond milk
• ice cubes

I always add the ice last since I’m at work using my magic bullet so it can get crushed pretty good.

 

What a delightful, dessert-like treat! After the morning I’ve had, this was just what I needed to put a big ole smile on my face!

 

Happy Hump Day all! Make it an Amazing day.

Last Minute Jucing

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
― Hippocrates

I was literally running out the door this morning. I had a 6:00 AM personal training appointment with Char Biggs and I couldn’t miss it. I had a few minutes so I stopped to make some fresh juice for the day. I’d been juicing all weekend and I felt amazing. I didn’t want the great feeling to end so I filled up a bowl with vinegar water and started dumping in the goodies.

I made 2 juices today:

• Carrot, Orange, Ginger, Spinach
• Cucumber, Apple, Red Pepper, Spinach.

The carrot juice is so yummy! 5 carrots give it a really nice, smooth flavor. The cucumber juice is meh. I could have left out the half of red pepper, but I was just grabbing stuff & tossing it in.

All in all, I’m glad I stopped and took some time for my health and myself this morning. I know my body will thank me for it. Make it a great day.

 

Update!

After chilling in the fridge most of the day, the cucumber juice wasn’t half bad; dare I say, tasty, cool & refreshing!
 

I felt like Juicing

I’m in the middle of a fitness challenge and one of the requirements is to keep a food journal. As it stands, I have love/hate relationship with keeping track of my meals. I suck at it most of the time, mostly because I snack too much and those dried fruits, pretzels and spoons of ice cream add up.  This is the main reason I’ve stop losing pounds and started gaining them. More calories in than out. Well ,to try to remedy the snacking and to get more veggies into my system, I hit the Breville and served up some green goodness.

• Bag of Spinach
• 2 large cucumbers
• 1 bunch of celery
• 1 yellow pepper
• 3 apples
• 1 orange

This was enough for 3 pints of juice. I finished one off yesterday with dinner and I have 2 left to enjoy while at work. I wish I made time for more juicing. It really makes me feel so Fresh to death! It’s something about that liquid goodness that gives me just the boost I need. Filled with vitamins & minerals like A, C, E, B6, K, folate, iron, protein, potassium, calcium and manganese, this fruit and veggie combination is a winner.

Juice of the Day

I’ll be sure to share more of my concoctions with you. I usually use just whats on hand, but sometimes I do find cool new recipes online. I’ll be sure to post links and share the wealth.

Magic Bullet for workplace smoothies

I am growing to LOVE smoothies. Green smoothies, fruit smoothies, post-workout powerhouse smoothies and meal replacement smoothies (all are really meal replacement smoothies in my book!). The problem was that I could only enjoy them  at home. Like many of you, I spend a great deal of time away from home at this place called WORK and I really wanted to enjoy smoothies for lunch or for after a lunchtime workout. So I ordered a Magic Bullet to use in my office for quick, healthy smoothies during the day.

The Magic Bullet has several cups that you can mix your drinks in. Some of the cups are even microwavable and all of the cups are BPA free and dishwasher safe. For $49.99 from Target, you can invest in a blender that can help you stay on track with your nutrition (or off it if you so choose, see recipe book that comes with it)

Berries, Berries and more berries in my SOTD

I have read about goji berries and their wonderful health benefits and decided to buy some. Paired with some strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries, they would make a super berry anti-oxidant powerhouse smoothie. Here is today’s smoothie of the day (SOTD)

Goji Berry Orange Blast Smoothie

Post MJ workout Smoothie AKA SOTD

Monday morning SPINNING gets the blood pumping. I didn’t workout yesterday, so I really needed this to set me right. The regulars were in there ready for a sweat-feast as usual and I feed off of their energy. Today’s Michael Jackson playlist was enough to get the party started and trust me, they didn’t stop until they had enough!

No strength-training before class, but I burned 602 calories in 50 minutes. That included our warm-up and cool down and that’s totally on par with a normal class plus a few extra calories to boot. (Yay ME!). Today’s post workout smoothie had to be as kick a$$ as the MJ tunes we jammed to in class.