Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie

I found this recipe in our local Sunday paper, and look forward to trying it out.


Peanut Butter and Banana Agave Smoothie
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup to 1 cup fat free vanilla yogurt
2 tablespoons C&H Organic Light Agave nectar 
1/2 cup skim milk 
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4-6 ice cubes


Combine everything in the blender until smooth. This is per serving, so just double, triple, etc for the number of people you are serving. I would imagine you could substitute soy or almond milk for the skim, maybe even soygurt or yofu, or even applesauce or coconut milk if you prefer dairy free. Just experiment and have fun.

Yummy Lunch...A Big Fat Salad

For lunch we always have a nice big salad. Doesn't that look awesome?....loaded with lots of raw vegetables and I like to add Mandarin oranges and dried cranberries to mine...they make it so good. DD skips the fruit in her salads but loves to add a hard boiled egg. We usually load up on many different leafy greens in our salads, like spinach, arugula, romaine, and some sort of artisan or organic mixed greens. Topped with broccoli, carrots, jicama, kidney beans, eggs, green onions, red onions, celery, red and green bell peppers, cauliflower, sunflower seeds ....well you get the idea....anything we have in the fridge. 
I have found a great dressing called Galeos. They have a couple of flavors but the one I enjoy is the Miso Sesame Seed dressing. 2 Tablespoons is only 50 Calories with 3% fat and 0% saturated fat, and 6% sodium. Woo Hoo.....this stuff is Gold!
DD enjoys the Eating Right dressings from Safeway. We haven't been able to find the Ranch lately...but the Fresh Garlic Caesar is 70 calories for 2 tablespoons, 4% fat, 3% saturated fat and 10% sodium...which is awesome for a salad dressing! 
Have you looked at the label for your favorite dressing? How does it stack up and what good ones do you recommend? We would love to hear from you. -A

Probiotics

We use the probiotics from Sherry Brescia at
http://www.bluerockholistics.com/product/pross.asp . We looked at many probiotics and decided we like hers the best. With hers you need to keep it refrigerated, it's even shipped cold, so the probiotics stay alive. That doesn't mean others don't work, we actually used the Align probiotics for awhile and did notice some benefits from it also. The probiotics itself intoduce living organisms in to the body which help to create a beneficial healthier inside. Many of the foods and medicines that a person takes can disrupt the balance of good bacteria and bad bacteria within the digestion sysytem and we have found that we just feel better just by adding the probiotics to our lifestyle. There are things you can eat that have these good bacterias but honestly, we can't imagine eating these things very often. You may like these foods but we don't, so the probiotics in capsules is what we choose. Many people eat yogurt as a good source of probiotics, but you have to make sure they are "live" bacteria in the yogurt and your body may require much more then can be provided by just eating one yogurt. Here are the top probiotic foods: Yogurt, Kimchi, Japanese Natto, Miso, Dark Chocolate, Micro-algae, Tempeh, Sauerkraut, Kefir, Pickles or other fermented vegetables, Kombucha Tea, Sourdough bread, and some cheeses. What's your favorite way to get Probiotics? -A

Jicama

This week has been much better, and its not even over yet. Today we are going to a Halloween Faire and though temptation will be all around, we plan to suck down a juice right before hand so the smells of tasty sweet treats doesn't throw us over the edge.
That also means a good lunch beforehand. At lunch, we like to add Jicama to our salad. It's such a unique and tasty surprise in a salad. Don't know what a Jicama is? Here's what one looks like.

They resemble a yam or potato, in that it is a root vegetable. Apparently, these also grow beans on the vine but I have never tried a Jicama bean. The outside is brownish, with a crisp white inside. The skin is interesting because you can peel it off, similar to bark on a tree. I like to peel it, and then run it through the food processor to get shredded pieces, which are awesome to top a salad. I also run carrots through and always have shredded carrots available.

The Jicama skin being peeled.

The Jicama shredded for use as a salad topping.

Now that you know what one is...you can pick one up at your next shopping trip and give it a try. Let us know what you think after trying Jicama. A

To Freeze or Not to Freeze?

So this week was hard, and it showed at the scales. While DD stayed the same, I actually gained a pound. UGH! But, all in all, I'm not worried about it....I'm just happy be feeling better and looking forward to the upcoming week. Todays morning drink had fabulous cherries, banana, papaya, grapes, raspberries, blackberries and pineapple in it. Really delicious. But here's the question....to freeze or not to freeze?  
My thoughts are, for us, it's okay to freeze items and use it, both as a time saver, money saver and its being frozen and used within a week. And while it is better to eat the fruit right away...we are still getting much of the benefits we want even though we are using the freshly frozen fruit. For example, I love pineapple, but we never eat a whole pineapple before it starts to go bad. So instead of throwing money down the drain, I have been cutting the pineapple and then will freeze what I don't use right then. I can then take a chunk or two out each day and throw the frozen piece of pineapple in to the blender. I also freeze cantalope or melons. For the most part everything else we blend is fresh.
So, be creative, try new things, and have fun while eating healthier. For dinner last night, DD made some grilled pineapple, which was just delicious. Our local whole foods clerk suggested we try juicing 2-3 cups spinach, some fresh mint, with a pineapple. Sounds interesting. Okay..it sounds disgusting but the funny thing is that juicing wierd combination of foods actually tastes better then eating those same food combos raw. I would never eat a beet, carrot, cucumber, lemon, chard salad but as a drink it works.
Tip of the day: Invest in some sharp knives. Cutting pineapple, acorn squash and melons, etc. is so much easier with a good knife. Doesn't have to be an expensive knife, just sharp. We bought a $30 set of 5 or 6 knives at Costco and they work awesome, making the cutting of the fresh fruits and vegetables so much easier. Enjoy your day. A

Dirty Floor

True to our 'Dirty Girls' name, it seems like our floor is always getting dirty when juicing/blending.  So...this is how Angee mops the floor.

This week has been hard since Angee has been sick because it has been much easier to go through the drive thru.  We still did good up until about 1pm each day and already need to buy more fruit.  The scale will tell the tale come Sunday! - D

Being sick..sucks.

It stinks when you don't feel good...and I have not felt good the last couple days, fever, chills, headache, just Blah. That being said, we still have done pretty good, eating a smoothie for breakfast, a salad and a veggie burger for lunch and then dinner is the hardest part of the day for us already, and when you have a fever...ugh...it's hard not just to run to McDonalds. Instead we have had vegetarian whole wheat burritos. Yay for us...untl today's lunch...DD did okay with an avocado turkey burger but I ordered a chicken burrito and it was a monster burrito! Now, I feel like we need to drink a vegetable juice for dinner but really, if DD goes to a drive thru I won't put up a fight, as I'll probably be laying on the couch.
The bad thing about fast food is that once you eat the fast food, then you want more fast food or junk food. We also drank soda as it came with our meals (we have cut out soda from our daily lives), so whether its being sick, or the soda or the fast food or some combination of all the above, I'm so craving junk food today.  I want oreos, and ice cream, and pizza. Though, I will say our breakfast drink was delicious...instead of strawberries I put in loads of cherries. I added more papaya to help my immune system, and then also added a lot of blackberries to the 1 kiwi, 1 tomato, 1 apple, 1 banana, blue berries, raspberries, flaxseed oil, coconut water, water and a splash of diet V8 splash. AG

This is what our fridge looks like after shopping!  Full of fruits and veggies. 

The beginning of the Journey

Our journey to a better us, begins with the news of Amber's engagement. A special wedding sometime in the next year or so....we definitely want to feel and look our best.  Time to lose some weight. Around the same time, we were inspired by a documentary called, "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" (thanks Brenda and Renee) and an infomercial by Montel Williams about his Health Master - Living Well Blender.  Next, Dr. Oz announced his Transformation Nation Challenge, http://doctoroz.sharecare.com/ , where you can win a million dollars just by losing 10% of your body weight, so now we had a goal and we new we could win a million bucks, and feel like a million bucks also. The universe gave us much information right at the right time, so we took it as a sign that we could make the changes we have been wanting to. We are determined to live a healthier lifestyle. 

But it hasn't been easy. We started about 3 weeks juicing and blending fresh fruits and vegetables. Angee has lost 9 pounds and DD has lost  8 pounds. Pretty amazing since we have not exercised at all during this time, and we have not been very strict. We have started feeling the benefits of eating healthy but it has been hard to stay completely on fruits and vegetables all the time. For us, every weekend is a challenge, when we get around family or friends, invites to dinner, football games, going to the river, etc..all have ended with us eating out and eating meat and breads in some way...whether it has been a sandwich or pizza, or a huge salad with fried chicken on it....we have not followed a strict diet and we both still lost weight. What we have found is that when we do eat fast food, the food is now making us feel sick....stomach cramps, restroom visits, gas, indigestion and general intestinal discomfort. It really is amazing that once you pay attention to your body you really can tell that it does not like to be fed crappy food....I just wish my mind didn't think the fast food tastes so good.

So, we are starting over. Yesterday we had fast food, paid the price, and are ready to stay focused.  This time we plan to drink and eat fresh fruits and vegetables, also exercise, and increase the amount of water we intake. We are real people, who have no desire to be fanatics, we know will eat "other" foods at some point, but we want to live a healthier lifestyle. After looking into many different weight loss choices and doing this for 3 weeks, we feel the best plan for us, is a plan that incorporates everything. We believe that just juicing is too difficult and would be hardest for us to maintain long term....we like food and like to eat it. Just blending would be a bit easier, as it does give you the fiber and you do feel fuller, but not everything tastes good blended. So we are combining juicing, blending, and eating cooked and raw fresh foods. 

We have found that we eat the majority of our fruits in the morning in a blended drink. They are delicious smoothie like drinks. We also juice some things, for instance today we juiced a beet and a carrot, and added that juice to our breakfast blender drink. Mid morning, we then juice primarily vegetables, some days a little fruit also. For lunch, we eat. Typically a large raw foods salad. And then our dinner usually consists of some sort of cooked vegetables. We also start and end the day with organic tea. In between all of that, we also drink water. Seriously, we are eating way more food then we ever did before. We do not feel hungry throughout the day and we are already starting to feel the benefits.

This is what we are doing:  

Day 1 Breakfast:

Juice in your juicer one beet and one carrot...add the juice to your blender

Add to your blender: a banana, 1 tomato, 2 kiwis, 1/2 cup raspberries, 1/2 cup blueberries., 1 cup strawberries, 1 large piece of papaya, 1 apple (skin on), and about 6 ounces coconut water, then about 1 cup of cold water, and a squirt of flax seed oil.  

This is so good. It makes us 2 glasses each...if its a little thick just add more water.

 

 

 

 Mid-Morning Juice

Juice in your juicer: 1 whole fennel, 2 pears, 1 stalk/piece of bok choy.  This drink is much better without the bok choy but its drinkable with it. I figure if you can hide the bok choy and other vegetables you wouldn't usually eat into a drink then that's probably the only way I would eat it, so it's good a thing.

Lunch is a nice salad and a Morning Star Chipotle Black Bean Burger. These are so good!

Dinner will be steamed Artichokes and a spinach salad.

Yummy!