Super Smoothies

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.

Welcome to Live Clean and Prosper

What do we mean by ‘live clean’ ?

Well, to us, this means eating ‘whole foods’, foods that are as close to their original state as possible. No or very little ‘processed foods’ or foods that are manufactured.

To ‘live clean’ also means choosing personal care products and everyday household products that are free of toxic chemicals or chemicals that can build up in our bodies over time causing an adverse effect on our health.

We do this with the 90% approach, which means we are allowing ourselves a little ‘wiggle room’ for occasional treats and unavoidable exposures to some chemicals. Taking a little time out from the hustle and bustle of a technological lifestyle is also important to us.

Hi I’m Rhonda, creator of Live Clean ‘n’ Prosper.

A few years ago, my husband Scott and I decided to live a cleaner lifestyle, to Live Clean and Prosper. We are just your average couple, we are not ‘vegans’ or ‘vegetarians’ and we don’t follow a ‘paleo’ diet.

WHY?

Well, we truly believe that if we live clean we can ‘prosper’, prosper in the way of better health, more vitality, less stress and better weight management. Along the way we have attended talks and seminars, read various books, blogs and forums and generally educated ourselves.

As most of us are aware, over the last decades, our lifestyles have changed quite significantly. More jobs have become sedentary with the development of technology and electronic devices. We are not moving as much or getting the same nutrition from our food as our ancestors did. Many of our foods are over processed; our farms are over worked causing many of the minerals and nutrients in the soil to be depleted. There is also the increasing use of chemicals and pesticides.

There have been various instances over the past couple of years when we have been asked to share what we have learned, or help with a particular health issue, and of course we have been happy to.

When many of us we make a decision to change our lifestyle, we sometimes lose our way or drift from our path and we need to find new direction or motivation.

So, with the beginning of a new year brings new resolve. As a part of this renewed effort I have decided to create this site to share everything we have learned and continue to learn, about health and nutrition, as well as share our story, progress, ideas and recipes.

I hope that by sharing we can encourage others to better their health and keep on track.

I invite you to comment, ask questions, and share ideas or photos as you join us on this journey.

Till the next post,

Live clean n prosper!

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