My Famous Smoothie Recipe!!

Delicious Smoothie Recipe!!!

*color may not always be appealing but doesn't reflect true delicious-ness

Would you like to know one of my favorite smoothie recipes of all time!?! Now I am by no means an expert smoothie maker but I have always wanted to be able to make amazing smoothies that I would actually eat! From my 15 year old self and up, I learned how to eat healthy and that your food choices can positively or negatively impact your body. I became health conscious and really learned how good quality foods can help your body function, and how each food impacts your body! 

So I always envied those perfect smoothies and delicious looking recipes but didn't know how to make them, and I didn't want to make unhealthy ones (because most are) and/or I always made them wrong! 

I haven't tried to make many smoothies because of how disastrous they have always turned out and let me tell you, for me, 'just add ice' for thickness NEVER worked. Either my blender was bad or too good and the smoothies turned out thinner than water.

If you are looking for an extremely healthy minimal calories smoothie that tastes out of this world, there are a few things you will need before you even get started on ingredients!

So first of all lets talk blenders.....

You need a good blender period. It is the difference between a good smoothie and a bad one. If you have a poor blender, you will never have a good smoothie. Splurge and spend that extra money upfront to buy a good blender so you don't waste money buying and re-buying ingredients because you think you made the smoothie incorrectly. Trust me. Now I personally have the magic bullet which is incredible. Absolutely incredible. I don't know about many other brands but do your research. I hear Nutribullet is great too!

Second of all, know your ingredients. When you look up smoothie recipes online, there will always be added sugars and unhealthy items in their ingredient list that is 'mandatory' for taste. Well that is not the case at all because what is a smoothie? FRUIT. What does fruit naturally have? SUGAR. And lots of it! Why do you think people who suffer from diabetes can't have a lot of fruit? So that means if you even have a little bit of fruit, that's all the sugar you will need. Period. If recipes tell you to add honey, actual sugar or other sweeteners, or chocolate, something is wrong. Stick to the basic foods found in nature as best as possible. 

Ok enough talk, this wasn't even supposed to be a chatty post but that's me. Here is my personal recipe that is the only smoothie I will eat truly.

Post Workout Dream:

Huge handful of baby spinach ~1 cup

1 small 5oz container of PLAIN Greek yogurt                                              (can be flavored but that means extra sugar 😬)

1 full cup of frozen fruit                                                                      (may be a little taller than the rim of the measuring cup)

1 frozen SLICED banana                                                                   (The banana is extremely important for thickness )

1/4 cup Trop50 OJ                                                          (Tropicana 50 calorie orange juice because it has only half the sugar)

makes 1 serving (about 12-14oz) 

Approximately 300 calories or less (great for post workout especially if you want to add a scoop of your favorite vanilla protein powder for extra protein. But remember that will add an extra 100-150 calories to your smoothie which is ok, just warning you)

So here is the break down:

1. So to make your smoothie, start with your base; this is something substantial, or the most flavorful part of the smoothie which is the fruit. I usually use frozen cherries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. And for the frozen banana, try slicing it before freezing to make slicing easier for you. You could even add protein powder also on this step. Don't quote me on this, I have not tried adding protein powder yet and I assume you would need more OJ for it to blend at all.
2. Next, add your binding agent which kind of holds the smoothie ingredients together, if you want to think of it that way, which is the yogurt and the Orange juice. 
3. Then add the fun stuff or extras. I consider the spinach the fun stuff because you can add as much spinach as you please to help get in your veggies for the day, and you honestly can't taste it AT ALL. I have put up to 2 cups of spinach in and it's true, you can't taste it at all in the smoothie because of the sweet fruit! Something else you could try is peanut butter. That might be weird to some because it is a smoothie not a milkshake but I am saying this for all the peanut butter lovers out there including myself! The only problem is the extra calories. But if you want to avoid that I suggest PB2! You can find this in the peanut butter isle at Walmart. PB2 is powdered peanut butter, perfect for smoothies and is only less than a fraction of the calories of a serving of real peanut butter. And it tastes great! PB2 is only 45 calories per serving compared to 190 of the normal peanut butter. 
4. Now I am still new to the smoothie world, so I will start finding new yummy healthy recipes by trial and error in the future but for now I am quite please with my smoothie. Anyway you can always modify my current recipe or any others you find to spice things up! Think of how many different fruit options there are for example and go from there! Have fun with it!

Literally post workout enjoying the delicious-ness

Enjoy! 

Kayla R.

3-26-17

P.S. I am trying to add a little variety to my blog especially since the wedding is over, I don't have any kids, and many of you may not know me and my family. So I am trying to add what I would like to see if I was someone from the outside looking in! I hope to start adding a variety and you can find a topic you like and I can write more about it! I love writing so much so I would love to share!

Topics in the future:

Faith

Workouts

50 things about me

My story

My dreams

Shopping wishlists

Engineering talks