Fibre intake
While needing my medication for the back every single day for the past weeks again (yeah, things have been not so great with my back) it also means that I should be very aware of what I eat and drink so that I won't have the pleasure of getting constipated after a few days. This is what these heavy meds do and because of stress, I could not cope without them. A very shitty vicious cycle which I hope to be able to break again soon. More about that later..
A week ago or so, I had a horrible few days because I failed eat enough fibre and maybe also didn't drink enough water, probably a combination of both, neither did I notice that things were piling up (lol) with the result of a day that I will not soon forget. It was very painful, and an eye opener to not be lazy or stubborn and make sure to take in the healthy stuff every single day.
Spirulina smoothie
I was postponing the spirulina intake for a while again since I started taking that in some smoothies in February. I don't even remember why but I think it was because I didn't buy bananas too many times (they didn't look tasty) and I really can't drink a smoothie with that stuff if there's no banana added, lol. I'm just going to be honest, bananas are saviours in smoothies!
The next day after my wake up call, I needed to load up on everything I could find, I felt my body needed it and about a day later I felt ok again. I loaded up on the healthy stuff and started to look for recipes again with smoothies to add my spirulina powder to it as well as some collagen which my boyfriend keeps pushing to take but is so extremely gross dissolved in water because it just doesn't do that very well (not this one at least). Smoothie is the solution!
Carrots
My boyfriend often eats raw carrots and told me listen I never have that issue because I eat so many carrots to calm down my stomach when it's upset again from eating something fat or whatever it is causing him to feel bad again. I thought he had a point so I bought double the amount of carrots the last time so that I could cut a whole bunch of them in smaller parts for a quick smoothie moment more often.
Things often get delayed or forgotten when I'm in pain and just can't stand there to cut many things so then I prioritise what I do, not always in the best way, though. I know my pitfalls so I'm trying to be more aware and change these patterns. When I have a whole bunch of cut carrot ready to throw in the blender, there's little excuse left to not make this smoothie I'm going to share with you now because the rest is so simple and quick that it doesn't need any prepping.
Let's blend!
So first thing I added were the carrots with some milk, I never measure these things sorry so I can't give you an exact amount. It was a lot of carrot compared to what I usually add though. I wanted to make sure these were already blended well before adding the rest.
The first time I made it, I only added a table spoon of spirulina and a table spoon of the collagan/vitamin c powder BUT I learned two things here and that was that it's best to add a little less of the collagen because it messed up the whole smoothie taste too much otherwise. I don't know if I should take more but I'm just not going to ruin my enjoyable smoothie moment for it.
The second thing is that it's best to blend in the dates (if you add these) together with the carrots to avoid having big parts of them in the smoothie, my daughter complained instantly and when I started to blend them right away, she was content. I add the dates for sweetness because I read it's good to eat 3 a day, I added 6 to the smoothie for all of us.
Funny how this picture makes it look like it's a very light colour, that was just the light though as the smoothie is really green.. Time to add the banana and Chia seeds to the mix... I just threw in a bunch of them:
Blend until smooth enough:
You can see there's still some fibre in there and Chia seeds.. if I had avocados that day, I would have added these too to test if that was a good combination but I didn't have any. I was not too fond of this smoothie the first time because of the collagen/vitamin powder but my daughter loved it. My boyfriend didn't really fancy it either but he's very easy, he will eat or drink it anyway when I present something healthy which isn't as great in taste.
Tweaking until perfection
Some tweaking the next times and now we all love this smoothie so much! I drank it for breakfast later in the morning several times and I didn't feel hungry until late afternoon after having this and it really helped me with the constipation issue from the medication as well. I already learned that I should not take this late afternoon because then I'm too full from this in the evening. It's a morning smoothie for me to start the day well and helped me so much to not be in the kitchen too long for lunch because this was all I needed!
Banana and avocado smoothies
There was one day where we already had the smoothie above and my daughter really wanted to have a smoothie after school. I didn't want to make this for one person so instead I figured instead of using the avocado for a toast the next day, I'd give her a banana and avocado smoothie. I gave her two whole avocados (small ones though) and it was so creamy and delicious. No need for any sweetness this was just perfect! The only thing I did different was adding Chia seeds..
See how creamy it looks? It was so good I only took a few sips to test it but damn, loved it!
Conclusion
Smoothies are the way to go in terms of adding some type of super food or things that taste disgusting having to dissolve in water or when you hate the texture.. For example the dates, my daughter tried them several times, she hates it, she really hates them to the point that when she noticed I was adding them to the smoothie, she was about to run away and refuse drinking it. Until she noticed they become part of the mix and you can't taste the texture anymore.
I'm looking forward to have this one for breakfast again tomorrow as I have a new badge of ripe bananas, and maybe the avocados will be added this time too as they seem ripe. Let's test if that's a good combination because I'm not 100% sure.
What's your favourite healthy smoothie?
All pictures above are mine.