WIAW: Smoothies all Day
Happy WIAW! As always, thanks to Jen from Peas & Crayons for starting this whole What I Ate Wednesday party.
Today I figured I would share what I have been doing for the past few days. I am currently on my fourth day of a little smoothie cleanse. I decided to do this because I wanted to give my digestion a break and take advantage of all of the super ripe fruit that I had in the house. I also wanted to really cleanse my colon and give my entire body a detox as well. Our colons work so hard to digest food, and sometimes it feels good to give the body a break.
If you know me then you know that I am not a fan of fad diets. I am all about eating a healthy and balanced diet year round and don’t think there is any “quick fix”. I think the “military diet” is the craziest thing ever, I Won’t Ever Do Another Whole 30, and I think juice cleanses are starvation diets. Y’all probably think I am a little bit crazy for doing something like this, but I have been on a quest to feel my best and really heal my relationship with food long term.
So what is different about drinking only smoothies for a few days? Well, I developed the recipes for these smoothies to make sure that each and every day I was meeting all of my nutritional needs (plugged everything into cronometer & got over 100% daily value for Calcium, Iron, Vitamin C, and Vitamin A). I also made sure to make the recipes big enough to really keep me full. The smoothies were about double the size you see in the photos. AND….. I haven’t really been eating only smoothies for the past 4 days. I have been eating mostly smoothies with the addition of some raw or roasted veggies and fresh fruit. There were a couple nights when I was really craving roasted veggies for dinner so I decided to have that. BUT- I have mostly just been having smoothies.
Again, I am not recommending that you do this, but this is something that I wanted to do for myself. I love drinking big smoothies, especially during the dog days of summer. These smoothie recipes are super delicious, so I think I will do a separate post with the recipes!
I froze up tons of fruit and planned out quite a few days of smoothies for myself. I love berry smoothies, and banana-chocolate smoothies, but decided to try out a few different varieties as well. Also, I always add vega protein powder and flax/chia/coconut to make sure I am getting adequate protein/healthy fats.
Breakfast smoothie!! Lots of berries in this one! The bag of frozen berries I got had blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries. I was expecting it to have raspberries, but the blackberries were a nice change!
Lunch-time smoothie. Yes, I used the exact same glass. I love drinking my smoothies out of really tall glasses. I like to call this one “Blueberry Pineapple Detox”. Recipe coming soon!
Dinner time smoothie. I like to call this one “Tropical Oasis”. Loads of spinach give it a super green color. I’ll be posting the recipe for this too!
I also snacked on some watermelon throughout the day as well as some raw carrots.
I feel so energized and great drinking lots of smoothies loaded with veggies and fruit. I have had tons of energy for my workouts and have been doing hot power yoga everyday + either running or going to bootcamp class. I definitely do not feel weak or lacking energy/calories.
That’s it! Nothing too crazy happening around here lately! I’ll be getting ready to head back to school in a couple days so I am sure my eating will be changing a bit after I start class again.
Also, I am sure that some people will disagree with this, but at the end of the day only you know what is best for your health. I think it is important to experiment with foods to see what works best for you. Right now I am loving eating lots of fresh fruit, veg, and smoothies!
Have you ever done any sort of little nutritional reset/ cleanse?
What do you think of the “military diet” or juice cleanses?
