So I Have a Secret

I've been making smoothies for breakfast for 2 weeks now. The girls and I have been drinking one every morning. I'm doing this for our health. So what's the big secret?

Well, they think they are drinking fruit smoothies, but they are really drinking green smoothies. Yeah, yeah..."knowledge is power". How about "what you don't know won't hurt you"? Or "ignorance is bliss"?

The first 2 mornings after I bought my Ninja...(**Warning: My sister and a good friend have both sliced themselves on the blades to this bad boy. Not my Ninja--theirs. These things are SHARP. Use caution.)
Anyway...the first 2 smoothies I made were straight up fruit smoothies. And I made them pretty sweet. After that, the novelty of the new blender wore off and the girls wandered off and I started stuffing spinach in there too. I started with one good fistful and now I'm using 1/2 a small bag every morning.

I LOVE that Sweetheart is getting all those greens in her diet. She wouldn't eat that much spinach in a YEAR left to her own devices. I love that breakfast is easy. I'm excited they still like them. Little Bit asks for them every morning. Sweetheart sometimes needs encouragement to finish hers, but she does. She's even said she likes them!

One day soon they'll discover my little secret. And that's OK. Because at that point I can just say, "You've been drinking green smoothies for X amount of weeks and you liked them." Anyway I thought I'd share what I've been doing.

I basically used this video to get started. The big difference is, I use blueberries to turn our smoothie a wonderful shade of pink. My smoothies aren't that green even before the blueberries. I'm working up the amount of greens I add though little by little.

Our basic daily recipe is some no sugar added mixed frozen fruit, water, spinach, and frozen blueberries. Oh...and flax seed and sometimes I throw Little Bit's magnesium supplement in there too. Oh and a little Truvia. I understand you are supposed to change things up a bit and use different greens, etc. But this is really working for us and is way more health food getting inside of us than usual. So for now I'm sticking with it.

I can't say that I've noticed huge benefits yet. Some people report symptoms of other diseases gone, great hair and skin, etc. My nails are really strong just like when I was pregnant. I guess that's something. But we're going to keep going and see what happens.

Oh one more thing! I'm kind of starting Sweetheart on this diet. Yes, my 90 pound almost 13 year old on a diet. :) It's not for weight loss. That girl loves nothing but carbs and sweets and avoids any vegetable she can. She's on the fast track to diabetes with her Dad's family history, so I decided something needed to change. The smoothies are my own idea--they aren't part of this diet. The first step in the diet is to eat protein every morning with breakfast. So I make her a piece of peanut butter toast, or a slice of sausage to go with her smoothie. I'm also going to try throwing oatmeal in the blender. Whatever I can do to improve her diet.

That's my little secret. And my little plan to get our family healthier. There is so much to improve on it can be overwhelming, but at least I've started, right?