Spiced-Up Green Tea Smoothie

 

I was experimenting today (like I usually do when it comes to making smoothies) and concocted this gem of a drink. It is packed with healthy fruits, veggies, and spices. I don't know that you could create a drink with more antioxidants than this one! Green tea, berries, leafy greens, cinnamon and ginger are all high on the list of antioxidant powerhouses.

Warning: while there is fruit in this smoothie, it is NOT sweet! Prepare yourself for something more like a V8 kind of drink than a Jamba Juice style smoothie. But it is yummy and so, so healthy!

8 oz of unsweetened Green Tea (I used Lipton Superfruit today)
3/4 cup of fresh blueberries
3/4 cup of frozen raspberries
1 fresh peach
1/2 cup of fresh mint
1/2 of a fresh orange
4 cups of fresh greens (I used parsley, spinach, dandelion greens, purple kale, and fordhook chard)
2 small thumbs of ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

I put all of the ingredients in my Vitamix in the order listed. I also added quite a bit of ice toward the end since I like my smoothies cold. This filled the entire blender so it's plenty for a whole family or a couple of very hungry friends! You could take out the peach and it would probably taste the same; I happened to have one that was on the far end of ripe and didn't want to throw it away. Taking it out would cut the sugar/calories. Keep in mind that if you are following Weight Watchers, they don't count the fruit and veggies in a smoothie as zero Points Plus. I calculated 6 Points Plus for the ENTIRE recipe (which, as I said before, filled the whole blender). This is an incredibly nutritious and filling 6 points! If you had less and added a little protein either into the smoothie or on the side you'd have a snack or meal replacement that could make you happy for at least a couple of hours.

On a side note, I bought these cups at Sprouts and I love them for smoothies.They have the little wire ball inside so that you can shake up a powder smoothie without using a blender. If you don't guzzle down your green smoothies pretty quickly they can start to separate and then you have a thick frothy part that I don't find very appealing. A quick little shake in one of these bad boys and it's good as new!


I hope you enjoy the recipe! Let me know what you think!

!!!!!Richard Simmons!!!!!

I'm always talking about making exercise fun and finding healthy ways to celebrate life's accomplishments. I recently practiced what I preach by celebrating my birthday with Richard Simmons at his Slimmons Studio in Beverly Hills, CA.

I have always loved Richard Simmons. He just makes me smile. I believe that he genuinely cares about people and loves helping them get healthier and happier. I love that he is so authentically and unapolagetically him. Taking a class with him was definitely a "bucket-list" item and I thought it would be a meaningful way to celebrate my birthday and the fact that I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

A group of my students and friends drove up early Saturday morning (we wanted to make sure we had spots since his classes can fill up quickly). We were all a little shocked when Richard walked in as he was looking a little less "Richard Simmons" and a little more "drag queen". It turns out he was doing a Korean pop music theme for class that day and came costumed for the occasion.

The class was fun; Richard was playful and engaging. I was happy that there were a few front row divas to watch since Richard moved around the room a lot and was usually hard to see. I happened to be towards the front next to a gorgeous guy who really knew how to dance so I "followed" him ;) Richard was a little raunchier than I expected and really loves dropping the F-bomb. I tend to use that expletive quite a bit myself so I responded well to that! At one point he yelled, "Keep your tits up ladies!". I thought that would be a fun alignment reminder to yell out in my classes but I'm not sure how it would go over at the Senior Center. I guess that's one of the perks of being a fitness icon and owning your own studio :)

We all agreed that it was worth the drive and that we'll be heading out to his class again soon. Wanna' join us?


Here are some more photos from our day.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I followed this up with a night of indulgent food and wine with good friends. Hey, it's all about balance, right?

My Favorite Green Smoothie Recipe

I splurged and bought myself a Vitamix recently and I'm soooooo happy I did. I've been experimenting with different combinations and so far, this recipe is my favorite. I made some the other morning for the kids and they not only drank it, they said it was "delicious"! Granted, I prepped them by reminding them that it wasn't going to taste like the smoothies I make them with yogurt and berries. I wanted to manage their expectations so they wouldn't immediately say they didn't like it just because it was different. I also told them (for the gazillionth time) that our bodies need a lot of different nutrients and that this smoothie provided many, many good things for them without them having to eat things like a kale salad.

I got these ingredients from Sprouts and Trader Joe's. I try to get the greens from the farmer's market, but when I can't make it, I find Sprouts has a good selection, especially in the organic section. Trader Joe's has great prices on frozen fruit.

Pineapple-Mango Green Smoothie:

1 cup of water (to start)
1/2 cup of light coconut milk (unsweetened)
3/4 cup of frozen pineapple
1 & 1/2 cup of frozen mango
1" x 3/4" thumb of fresh ginger, peeled 
1 & 1/2 cup of spinach
1/2 cup of flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup of dandelion greens
1 cup of purple kale

I like my green smoothies very liquid-y so I usually end up adding some water at the end. I also like them very cold so I usually add a little ice. This recipe made enough for me to have a HUGE cup, my husband to have a normal-sized cup, and my kids each to have a small cup. That is all I had for breakfast at about 7 a.m. and it kept me satisfied through teaching a Zumba class and a Strength and Stretch class. I didn't eat again until 11:00 a.m. and I didn't feel like I was ready to pass out or commit a homicide!

I hope you enjoy the recipe. Let me know what you think and if you tweak it at all, please share the results!

Moderation Makes Me Fat ~ Part 2

I was going to post a different picture but it included some cake and I didn't want to trigger a binge for anyone ;)

In Moderation Makes Me Fat ~ Part 1, I discussed recent research and theories regarding why some of us binge-eat. Here I will share some of the strategies other people have used to stop bingeing as well as my own plan to try to get my behavior under control (and to fit back into my clothes comfortably!).

1. Retrain My Brain: Kathryn Hansen battled bulimia and has an interesting take on how to stop bingeing behaviors which she shares in her book Brain Over Binge. I have not read the book (yet) but I did spend some time on her website and her basic theory is that binge-eating trains your brain to binge-eat. Therefore, the key to stop binge-eating is to prevent the binge in the first place. There are many behavioral techniques to do so, most of which are intended to distract you from the food. You can go for a walk, call a friend, knit, clean, drink a glass of water, etc. Or you can be sure that you are eating "consciously": sit down, plate your food beautifully, avoid distractions. To me, though, this all seems overwhelming and exhausting since my urges to binge are almost constant. I already feel like I'm in perpetual motion and tired all of the time. The thing that resonated with me about what Kathryn Hansen proposed is that the battle can be won. It might not be a matter of resisting the urge to binge all day, every day, for the rest of my life. Maybe each time I avoid a binge, I'm making a little change in my brain. And maybe each of these little alterations will eventually change my brain enough that the urge to binge will subside or even retreat entirely. To me, this idea holds the possibility of liberation.

So my first step is to retrain my brain and body regarding what is "normal" eating. I'm sure you've all heard that it takes 20 minutes for your brain to get the messages from your body that you've eaten and are satisfied. Well, I've been doing my own personal research on this and have realized that for me, it takes more like 40 minutes to an hour for those messages to reach my brain. So part of my plan is to plate a reasonable amount of food (like, maybe even the actual portion guidelines) and to then wait 40 minutes to an hour before I allow myself to eat anything else. This is going to be very difficult for me. When I eat and don't feel stuffed, I think I'm still hungry. I'm not a fun person to be around when I'm hungry. So if you hear me yelling at my kids or I don't smile when you say "hello", please cut me some slack. Hopefully it will be because my brain is too busy retraining itself and dealing with pseudo-hunger to engage in social niceties.

2. Go Cold-Turkey on my Trigger Foods:
I've realized that the times in my life when I've been successful at anything, it has been when I get a little extreme. So I've decided to get extreme with my eating. I've had to cut a lot of foods out of my diet due to allergies and I've realized it's not as big a deal as it seems. It certainly makes life a little more complicated and it's hard to watch people eat things like pizza, but for the most part, my life is not significantly diminished because I can't eat certain foods. I have binged on all sorts of food, but there are certain foods that are major triggers for me; chocolate, peanut butter and refined sugary treats are the worst culprits. With these foods, nothing satisfies my cravings. I eat some which makes me want more which ends in me either eating until I feel sick or until the food is gone (usually the latter). So I really do need to have forbidden foods. I've hidden the peanut butter in the back of the fridge so that it's there if the kids want it but I don't have to look at it every time I open the doors. Most of my other triggers can be kept out of the house entirely. I've also decided that if and when there is an occasion where I end up with these foods in my house, I will throw them away. This is another difficult action for me as I hate the idea of wasting food and money, but I think for now, it's the lesser of the two evils. My Weight Watchers leader has said, "You're paying for the food either way so you need to decide which is really more expensive." The negative feelings I have after a binge and the havoc it wreaks on my body is definitely more "expensive" to me than the few bucks I'm throwing in the trash.

Hopefully these concepts and strategies will work for me and might give you a starting point as well. I have already found that with each day that I am able to refrain from eating my trigger foods, I think about them less and less. Please let me know what strategies you are planning to try or what has worked for you in the past. 

Thanks for reading and sharing!

Moderation Makes Me Fat ~ Part 1



Hmmmm, is this really true for all of us?

One of the most common ideas in weight loss and maintenance is that you can eat anything, as long as you eat it in moderation. I believe this to be true. You can have some peanut butter, you just shouldn't have half of the jar in one sitting. You can have a cookie, but you might not want to have 15. I've also come to realize that for some of us, moderation is almost impossible. I am about to turn 38 and I've come to the conclusion that I am not a moderate person. My moods are extreme. I am either intensely absorbed by something or completely disinterested.  I am either in a smooth routine or my life is complete chaos. My house is either spotless or a complete shambles. Okay, that last one is a lie; my house is NEVER spotless. But you get the picture. I am either on point with my eating or am having (and giving into) major cravings and binges. When I binge, or just eat more than is necessary to satisfy a typical person's hunger, I wonder "why"? Why am I so extreme? Why can't I stop at one cookie, or a few chips, or a spoonful of peanut butter? Traditional thinking has posited that binges are a maladaptive way to deal with emotional troubles. This can absolutely be the case, however, it is usually not my "why". Luckily, researchers are conducting more and more studies to determine why people binge.  

Psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen has done extensive brain research and has shown that for many people, foods (especially sugar) activate the pleasure centers of the brain the same way the use of drugs stimulates the brains of drug addicts. Dopamine and serotonin are important neurotransmitters that affect our mood and feelings of satisfaction. Anything that causes a spike in these neurotransmitters is going to make us feel good. So for many of us, eating certain foods triggers brain activity that mimics drug addiction. You eat, and your brain gets rewarded with a "high". Then your brain sends messages that it wants that feeling again. This provokes a craving and you want more of that food. And just like an addict, our brains may need MORE each time to get the same "high". Studies have also shown that the number of dopamine receptors may be significantly lower in some people, especially obese individuals. This may make it so that they have to eat even more than a typical person to get the same good feelings (He-ll-ll-ooo binge).

Unfortunately for us bingers, it may not even take actually eating the food to trigger our brains to act up. A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Labaratory demonstrated that people who were diagnosed as binge-eaters had elevated levels of dopamine in the caudate region of their brains after just smelling their favorite foods. The significance of this study is that the caudate region of the brain is the reward-seeking center of the brain. The binge-eaters' brains were yelling at them to, "Go get the food!" after smelling it. The control group (non-bingers) did not have any elevation in ther dopamine levels (damn them!). I was talking to my friend Jenny about this and we are both convinced that all it takes is seeing food on t.v., or even thinking about it, to make our caudate regions go all dopamine-rush on us.

Another theory has been proposed by a woman named Kathryn Hansen who fought her own lengthy battle with bulimia. She also believes that many people who engage in binge-eating are prompted by a less than ideally working brain. She believes that for herself and many others, the actual act of bingeing is enough to establish patterns in the most base parts of our brains. Especially if this behavior started in childhood or adolescence. In essence, when we first binge, we are teaching our brains that this pattern of eating is normal. Our brains subsequently tell us to keep eating even when it is unreasonable to do so. So for many of us, the binge-eating isn't a symptom but rather, it's own cause.

For some of us, bingeing is a result of brain chemistry and structural activity that isn't working quite right. For me, this was a liberating finding. I am not just weak or repressing some sort of trauma in my past. Trying harder isn't the answer for me. It may not be the answer for you either. In part 2 of this post, I will share my findings on how to deal with this issue and explain my personal plan of attack. 

Crisp Apple Slaw

This is another favorite in our house. The last time my husband made it, the kids and I ate it all before he had any. He wasn't happy. So I decided to find the recipe, tweak it a bit to reduce the calories, and see if I could create the same magic. The result is cold, crispy, and sweet with just the right vinegar bite. I make enough for an army so the amount here would be perfect to bring to a bbq or to feed a large family. If your family doesn't scarf it down like mine, you could definitely cut everything by half and have enough for a dinner and leftovers.

Ingredients:
1 small head of green cabbage, shredded (12 cups)
1 small head of red cabbage, shredded (12 cups)
1 fennel bulb (3.5cups)
3 granny smith apples, cut into matchsticks (6 cups)
3 pink lady apples, cut into matchsticks (6 cups) -- you can use any sweet, crisp apple

3/4 cup canola oil (I found a non-GMO one at Sprouts)
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup + 1 Tbs no sugar-added apple juice
1/3 cup honey

Cut all the veggies and combine. I used a trick that I learned from my Aunt Kathy who loves to entertain and cook for crowds. I put the veggies in a clean trash bag and shook it all around. Then, I whisked all of the wet ingredients together, poured it over the veggies and shook it again. This can be done in a bowl instead, but then you don't get to dance around the kitchen shaking a trash bag full of cole slaw :)

This is fantastic for anyone with an egg allergy or who is vegan.  It is also a safer salad to take on a picnic as the dressing is not mayo based. Plus, it's yummy and healthy!

Serving Size: 1.5 cups

Weight Watchers Points Plus Value: 3

Nutrition Info:
     Calories: 114
     Carbs:    14
     Fat:        6
     Protein:  1
     Sodium:  24
     Sugar:    10

Next time I will probably reduce the oil a bit which will bring the fat and PPV down. I think the nutrition values/PPV are also a little high because if you let the slaw sit in the fridge for a bit, a lot of the dressing settles at the bottom of the container so you're not actually eating it. But, if you're trying to manage your weight, it's usually better to OVERestimate your calorie consumption.

I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know what you think. If you tweak it, please let me know how it comes out :)

I've Never Really Liked Chutes And Ladders

Weight loss is hard. Maintenance is even harder. I keep thinking that some day I'll reach the "Finish" space on the weight gameboard and be able to spend more time and energy on other parts of my life. I've been playing this game for the last 25 years and it's pretty exhausting. In December I landed on a dreaded chute space and got sent about halfway back to Start. So now, I'm up about 7 pounds and none of my jeans fit without my waist looking like an overstuffed sausage. 

Even though I feel discouraged to be in this place again, I know that I am in control of what happens from here. I know that I need to cut some things out of my diet (refined sugar and peanut butter) because my brain doesn't seem to get "moderation". I know that I need to drastically increase my consumption of leafy greens and cruciferous veggies. I know I need to drink more water (maybe it's time to revisit my Healthier You Challenge). I know I need to keep up with my exercise routine. I know what to do. I just have to actually DO IT. EVERY DAY.

Even if I only spin a 1 each day and move sloth-like across the gameboard, I will be moving in the right direction. I've also realized that I will fall down more chutes and will have to work my way back across the board over, and over, and over again. That is real-life. I'll never reach the last space. The difference for me now is that I'm catching the weight gain when it's 3 or 5 or 7 pounds instead of 30 or 40 pounds. While Saturdays at Weight Watchers haven't been fun for me lately, I've still stepped on the scale and faced the music each week. The truth can be difficult but I am being honest with myself which is instrumental in regaining control.

I will lose this weight and I will try to avoid the behaviors that land me on the chute spaces in the future. I will also focus on the ladders on my gameboard: my husband who will cook me healthy food, my parents who help with my kids, my reliable workout buddy Jennifer, my in-home exercise studio, and my kids and amazing students who keep me inspired to be the best *me* I can be.