Todays post is about Smoothies.
Now that the ‘silly season’ is over we are concentrating on getting back on track with our food choices and increasing our movement.
Starting with Breakfast….
We are big fans of ‘smoothies’ for breakfast, ever since we attended a seminar on ‘gut health’ by Dr Peter Dingle. It was at that seminar that we learned about the absorption of micronutrients, the ‘microbiome’ in the gut and how it is all linked to our overall health.
A healthy gut has several important jobs, including helping to fight off infection, as well as performing all of its usual digestive and regulatory functions, like absorbing and synthesising nutrients that are essential to keeping your body running at its best.
Probiotics and a healthy microbiome in our digestive tract is now recognised as one of the most critical conditions for our health and wellbeing. While it is obvious when it comes to many digestive disorders recent research has shown it can be involved in virtually every form of chronic illness. **Dinglewellness.com
Smoothies are one of the ways to get a bunch of good micronutrients into your gut. I have shared one of our favourite smoothie recipes.
A Super Blueberry Smoothie
approx. ½ cup frozen blueberries
½ a banana
approx. 20 raw almonds
1 tsp Maca powder
1 tsp chia seeds
1 tsp super greens powder (our choice is called ‘Green Qi’ from Modere)
¾ cup Coconut milk (You could use your preferred type of milk instead)
About the Ingredients
Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, which have an antimicrobial and antioxidative effect. **Dr. Mercola.com
Almonds are an excellent source of protein, healthy fats, and antioxidants. Almond skins even contain beneficial phenols, flavonoids. and phenolic acids. **Dr. Mercola.com
Maca contains over 55 beneficial and naturally occurring phyto-chemicals (plant chemicals). It’s also a powerful adaptogen, which means it has the ability to balance and stabilise the body’s glandular-hormonal system, nervous system, cardiovascular system and musculature.
Chia is a legitimate superfood because of its nutrient content. The seeds are full of healthful omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, they have high levels of protein, fiber, and no cholesterol. They also contain minerals in significant amounts, including calcium, phosphorous, potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese. **Healthy Smoothie.com
We choose to use Coconut cream & water instead of milk as we try to keep our dairy milk intake to a minimum.
and get moving….
We are also making an effort to get moving and go for a morning walk on our days off as well as monitoring our incidental movement throughout the day.
This has been a bit of an eye opener; it’s really surprising some days how little we move. There are also some mornings when I really don’t feel like going walking, but you know, once I have made the effort and I’m walking down the street, I’m really glad I did. It wakes me up, gives me time to think about my day; what I need to do and what I want to achieve. Of course it gets the metabolism up and running for the day. Walking increases the heart rate, burning those calories and improving lung capacity.
Till next post,
Live clean ‘n’ prosper.