Spring is *very* late to arrive this year; it’s actually still freezing out! Yesterday, April 10th, we had big fluffy snow flakes. At least the days are starting to get longer and I’m enjoying how light it is in the evenings.
I’ve been dragging me feet about doing a spring juice cleanse because of the cold, but I’m finally getting around to starting. I’ve done long cleanses or “juice feasts” before but this time around I’ll just do one of my little weekend juicing whirlwinds.
During the cleanse, I’ll drink at least 3 (though I should drink more) mason jars full of vegetable juice each day in place of any solid food. I always use fruit incredibly sparingly, usually just a lemon and possibly a little green apple. Occasionally I’ll add a strawberry or something for a hit of flavour but it’s a very minor part of the cleanse. The goal is to keep my blood sugar steady and fruit juice can easily throw your balance out of wack.
Since I’ve been feeling so chilly, I’ll need to follow one of my biggest go-to tips for this juice cleanse:
Manage The Temperature of your Produce
“Unless it’s a heatwave outside, it’s a good idea to let your produce come to room temperature. Particularly in the winter when it’s cold outside, you might not realize that your juice is giving you a chill until it’s too late. Keeping your produce at room temperature before you make your juice is a good idea, especially when you’re juice feasting.”
You can read more of my tips about juicing on this page.
Why Do a Spring Cleanse?
I like to do a juice cleanse in the spring to freshen myself up, blast my body with nutrients, and give myself a break from all of the heavy foods that accompany cold weather. I don’t use it to try to lose weight, people rarely keep the weight off when they try a cleanse for that reason, but it does help to “cleanse my palette” as I move into lighter spring fare.
Most of all, it just feels great to drink juice and welcome the sunshine!
Have you ever done a juice cleanse? What was your experience with it?
For several years, I’ve been touting Sunwarrior Protein-Vanilla as the tastiest vegan, soy-free protein powder. It’s terrific! But at a certain point, the price started to feel ridiculous. In the last year, they started to include less product in the same container, and as much as I’d like to say I’m a “glass half full” kind of person, the container really was half empty!
Finally, I’ve ended up switching to another, quite similar protein powder… and it’s more than $20 cheaper!
I’ve switched tousing Precision All Natural Rice Protein in vanilla. It’s also a rice based protein powder, it has a pleasant taste, and the price is right.
I’ve been ordering it from Well.ca. This isn’t a sponsored post. This is my genuine opinion and review.
If you’re looking for a good vegan, soy-free protein powder at a great price, I recommend it!
Last year I challenged myself to “30 Days of Salad” (eat one salad a day for 30 days) but this year I’ve wanted to do something even more approachable so that other people can join in. I’ve partnered with my friend, body builder, personal trainer, and super motivator, Martha Munroe, to put on this new challenge for August.
THE CHALLENGE
Eat at one green food (with a focus on green vegetables) every day for 30 days!
GOAL
Green foods are great for you, as are vegetables and fruits in general. This challenge is to encourage all of us to up our veggie intakes in the easiest ways as possible.
PLAN
One green food a day… It’s as simple as that. If that’s easy for you, aim for 2+. You’re welcome to set your own goals. Just think about achievable steps.
TEAMWORK
Share your grocery lists or meal plans or photos of your food however much as you like. Ask questions whenever you would like.
We’re going to get started with our challenge “officially” on August 1st.
Join the Facebook Event
Click Here
Mark your calendars and let’s get ready to go green in August!
I eat a lot of salad. I enjoy it. Not only do I feel great from eating salad, but a *good* salad is delicious. But the thing is that not all salads are created equal! You can’t compare an iceberg garden salad to a hearty bowl of Who’s Kale, am I right?
So when an acquaintance on my Facebook page wall started a thread about how she ate a salad for lunch and couldn’t understand how people ate them, I got a little worked up. Dozens of people started to post on her wall in agreement. Talk about negative press for salad!
Being the salad lover that I am + the fact that it’s the middle of summer with lots of great produce available, I challenged myself to #30DaysofSalad–I started to eat a large salad for one of my meals every day. Some days I was a bit rushed or short on groceries with less satisfying or interesting salads, but overall I ate a huge number of delicious, exciting, satisfying salads.
And you know what?
I’d do it again.
I probably eat a large salad anyways for about 4 meals a week, but bumping that up to 7 salads a week really made me crave more salad. I enjoyed every bite! AND I started to become more innovative and engaged in the creative salad making process. It was great! I think I’ll make this an annual ritual.
Instagram documentation of my #30DaysofSalad
There are a lot of green smoothie websites on the internet with a lot of great information. However, a lot of sites can get pretty salesy which might put you off. I get it. People are trying to make a living. I don’t fault them for it. However, I have 3 favourite websites that aren’t sales-forward, provide great information, and solid recipes. Here are my top 3 green smoothie websites:
Raw Family
I love the emphasis on both RAW and GREEN… really green. You can see from the photos that the recipes really do all come out the colour green. Love it.
http://www.rawfamily.com/recipes
Incredible Smoothies
What I really like about this website is that you can sort through the recipes by specific health needs:
http://www.incrediblesmoothies.com/green-smoothie-recipes/
Simple Green Smoothies
A lovely, highly visual website that will let you feast with your eyes as well as give you the recipes to let you feast on delicious green smoothies:
http://simplegreensmoothies.com/recipes
My Own Recipes
And of course, I’ve got my own go-to recipes. I don’t often follow other people’s recipes anymore, though I do enjoy getting ideas from them. I’ve got my old favourites to get me through most mornings.
Cranberry Smoothie aka. The Cape Codder
Recently, my friend Cynthia Millman, co-author with Frankie Manning, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop, recently sent me a great smoothie recipe to try. I was excited when she sent it over because I had most of the ingredients on hand already. In particular, I’ve had some cranberries...Read More »
You've got to try this Shamrock Shake green smoothie recipe!
Have you ever tried a Shamrock Shake for St. Patrick’s Day?
Well St. Patrick’s Day is coming up on March 17th so now is the perfect time to try it!
The hallmarks of a Shamrock Shake are its creamy thickness, mint flavour, and often there’s some chocolate thrown in for good measure. And...Read More »
Kale & Almond Smoothie Recipe
You know what’s way creamier than putting almond milk into your smoothie? Almond butter or whole almonds if you have a high speed blender like a Vitamix. Also, if you use any protein powder (I like a good vegan vanilla protein powder most mornings) then just plain water is fine...Read More »
Hunka Hunka Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie
This smoothie is an Ode to Elvis and a real treat!
You may have heard that Elvis’ favourite sandwich was peanut butter and banana… Specifically, he loved butter-soaked grilled banana and peanut butter sandwiches. Well we can do without the heavy butter and bread and just take the super flavourful...Read More »
Matcha & Pear Green Smoothie Recipe
Energizing! Stimulating! This smoothie is very different from my “usual” green smoothies. Matcha is very stimulating and not something that I consume every day, but it’s delicious and really peps you up if you’ve had a late night the evening before. I also like to have it as a proactive...Read More »
Yummy Blueberry Banana Smoothie with Almond Butter
Satisfying, creamy, nutritious, delicious!
So here’s the thing about the photo I used for this blog post. The colour is so beautiful, but usually I change that colour by adding a bunch of spinach WHICH DOESN’T CHANGE THE FLAVOUR AT ALL. Just the colour and the nutritional value. It’s super yummy!!
Ingredients...Read More »
Super Creamy Avocado Smoothie
If you’ve never had a smoothie with avocado, you’re in for a real treat!
I don’t think there’s any way to create a more perfectly smooth smoothie than to include some avocado. The texture is sublime! I don’t do it often because avocados are way too expensive where I live, but...Read More »
Date Almond Green Smoothie Recipe
I was reminded of the delicious Date Almond smoothie at Fresh Restaurants in Toronto while browsing through Carla Lalli Music’s recipes. Her recipe included an orange and didn’t have any spinach so mine is a bit different. I suspect that the Fresh smoothie used a lot more...Read More »
Festive Gingerbread Smoothie Recipe
Are you feeling festive? The holiday season is upon us, and there’s no reason why you can’t add the spirit of the holidays to your green smoothie. This smoothie really is a treat! Warm, spicy, cozy, and delicious, this healthy smoothie tastes like the holidays.
I’ve adapted from a recipe from
Orange Butternut Smoothie with Ginger & Turmeric Recipe
Ok, this smoothie doesn’t have any green in it… it’s all orange! Energize your day with this healthy smoothie that includes one of my favourite ingredients; butternut squash. Yes, you can have butternut squash raw, and it makes a lovely, frothy smoothie. The combination of the citrus of the orange...Read More »
Cacao Berry Green Smoothie Recipe
Cacao, the most pure superfood form of chocolate, provides antioxidants and energy in this delicious green morning smoothie.
I don’t include cacao in my smoothie every day, so when I do it’s definitely a treat! This recipe also works really well with superfoods like maca. It’s also a perfect recipe...Read More »
Tropical Mango Green Smoothie for Glowing Skin
Mango is full of carotenoids that are wonderful for your skin and coconut oil is amazing for your skin, both inside and out. And the flavour of mango captures a tropical feeling that pairs perfectly with the taste of a good quality coconut oil.
Use any type of kale that you...Read More »
Kale & Pineapple Green Smoothie Recipe
Naturally sweet pineapple pairs wonderfully with kale… and the best part of this smoothie might just be the intense, bright green colour!
Pineapple is a great fruit to use when you’re adding a lot of strong flavoured superfoods to your smoothie. It’s one of the more powerful flavours that you can...Read More »
Spinach & Raspberry Green Smoothie Recipe
Spinach, raspberries, and banana form the basis for this favourite morning smoothie.
If I had to give you a go-to smoothie recipe, this would probably be it. It’s probably my very favourite smoothie, and though it’s considered a “green” smoothie, the deep colour of the raspberries actually makes it very red....Read More »
Superfoods & Supplements to add to your Green Smoothie
How “super” is your food?
The word “superfood” is thrown around a lot, and there are truly an amazing number of foods that are wonderful for your health. There are common foods, like blueberries for example, that are filled with antioxidants, but I’m not going to speak about those. There are...Read More »
I’ve got some goals for 2016:
- Keep working on a low-stress lifestyle
- Boost my water consumption starting with the 30 Day Water Challenge – 72oz./day
- Try to find more healthy meals that my husband will enjoy
- Blog more often
- Keep up my current exercise routine:
- Running 1X week
- Weights & other cardio 3-4Xweek
- Try to get in a bit more swimming
I’m also going to work on getting the sugar out of my system now that the holidays are wrapping up.
Happy new year!
Mandi
I used to be a camel.
Really. As a kid and teenager, I never drank any water at all. I’d occasionally drink a bit of juice. Processed fruit juice of course. I lived in a constant state of dehydration.Yuck. That’s pretty normal though with Standard American Diet (and Canadian for that matter). I’m just lucky that I didn’t grow up as a pop drinker. The lack of water really explains a lot about my IBS development and it’s a wonder that I didn’t have more health challenges.
When I began my journey to improve my health, I knew that there was one easy favour that I could do for my health and that was to start drinking more water. When I started to increase my water intake, it made a huge difference in my life! Our bodies are made up primarily of water, after all. We are 70% water. I started to track my water intake carefully to make sure that I was consuming enough and it became a pretty easy habit for a long while, but recently I’ve noticed that the habit has been slipping.
Interestingly, one of my ghost blogging clients is a health & nutrition coach who is running a 30 Day Water Challenge in January. I figure it’s a good time to get focused on my own water intake again. It’s been a long time since I tracked my water totals so it will be good for me.
The goal is to drink half of your weight in ounces. So if you weigh 140 pounds, for example, your goal would be 70 oz. of water each day.
I’ve just done some measuring of my usual drinking vessels. The glasses that I drink from at home, since I don’t usually fill them right to the top, will count as 12 oz. I usually fill my “It’s A Small World” mug with a bit more for herbal tea, but I’ll count that as 12 oz. as well to keep things easy. My bird water bottle is also 12 oz. My morning smoothie is about 10 oz. of water but I always drink a bit of extra water first to take my probiotic so I’ll count that as 12 oz. too for a clean sweep, so I just need to make sure that I’m drinking 6 vessels of water each day.
I’m already consuming more than 64 oz. a day so I’m setting my goal as 72 oz.
My Water Goal: 72 oz.
Water Plan:
- Morning
- Smoothie
- 1 glass (with “Calm” magnesium”)
- Lunch
- 1 glass
- Afternoon
- 2 glasses
- Evening
- 1 glass
It will be a good reminder to set this as a goal throughout January to really lock it in as a habit again.
If you want to do one easy thing to improve your health this new year, join me in drinking more water.
This year’s Christmas was green in more ways than one. It hit at least 10C yesterday, and on the 23rd we hit 16C in St. Catharines.
Kale, romaine, red pepper, red onion, organic corn, shredded carrot, dried cranberries
For Christmas Eve I took a big salad to my mother in law’s for dinner, along with my own veggie burger to eat alongside her cranberry sauce. I enjoyed my meal very much and was pleasantly surprised when my mother in law asked about the salad dressing I used. I just whipped up my default dressing of cranberry pear infused white balsamic from Della Terra with some dijon and a bit of olive oil. At home, I like to use hemp or flax oil, but kept it mild for her sake. I made extra salad and ate some for breakfast on the road Christmas morning on our way to visit family.
I wish I had taken some photographs of our nice meal on Christmas Day. My father and his girlfriend are vegetarian and they made a wonderful meal. Penny made a nice big green salad, eggplant with squash and other vegetables and a peanut sauce from one of the Moosewood Cookbooks, and my dad made a vegetarian pie. Dessert was very rich; a sticky toffee pudding made by me, free of processed sugar, but still sweet and delicious. Definitely an indulgence.
Quality time with the birdies: Lindy on the left, Gaudi on the right.
It was a very nice holiday but I feel really wiped out from all the food and commotion. I’m taking it easy today and will just do a lighter workout at the gym and save this week’s run for either tomorrow or Monday. I’m enjoying a nice cuddle with the birds right now and there might be a nap in my future.
December has been Chocolate Month for me. I’ve consumed chocolate every single day this month! It had been such a long time since I’d eaten much chocolate, but I’m definitely hooked again. I’m enjoying all of it right now, but I plan to ween myself off of both the caffeine and the sugar once the holidays are done.
I made homemade “turtles” to give to my family for the holidays. I more or less followed this recipe for Homemade Raw Vegan Turtles Chocolates, though I didn’t bother to try to keep the chocolate raw. Every time I try to make my own raw chocolate, I’m sure that I get the temperature up too high so I just gave up. I bought some good quality dark chocolate and melted it in combination with date caramel and pecans. They came out great!
Thank goodness that I’ve had the time to hit the gym so much this month. I’ve really been enjoying running at least once a week, weights once a week, and at least 2-3 additional days of cardio. Working at a desk all day, I need that exercise time or I’ll go insane. Our bodies are meant to move and mine feels so much better after I oblige.
For Christmas Eve, I’m planning to have a Oh She Glows Perfect Veggie Burger as my meat substitute at my mother in law’s place. It’s such a great recipe. These are great to keep in the fridge as a savoury snack too, especially if you let them dry out slightly in the oven. They’re like a delicious and savoury granola bar substitute. I highly recommend them! For Christmas Even, it will be perfect hot with cranberry sauce, and I’ll also bring a salad. Not sure how my mother in law will feel about kale, but the salad is more for me anyways so I may as well enjoy it. My father is vegetarian so on Christmas Day I don’t have to plan around a meat-meal.
This time I used kidney beans (forgot to mash them) and roasted sweet potato instead of shredded carrot. Delicious!
As a ghost blogger, I do so much writing for all of my clients that I don’t get to post much to my own blogs. As a little new year’s resolution, I’m going to try to post more for myself in 2016.
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