I know this is quite a bump, but there have been a lot of these threads lately.
First off, I want to thank everyone for their great advice in this and the many other healthy smoothie, food, diet and lifestyle threads on CP in the last few years. I occasionally glanced in on them while they were active, but in the last few days I've searched and scoured thru your favourite ingredients and recipes to add to my new repertoire.
I've recently moved back to Calgary for school. Pretty much simultaneously, I decided to use this change as an opportunity to also change my health for the better.
One common theme I noticed for a lot of people was eggs for breakfast. I've now taken to this tradition, and must say, I love it. Eggs are amazingly versatile on top of being delicious! I have a soft spot for
Burnbrae Farms Naturegg Omega Pro, but I've only found them at Coscto so far. They're
so tasty, and judging by the label, healthy, too.
Now back to the original (though it was months ago) point of the thread:
smoothies. I compiled a table of the best smoothie ingredients for myself, mostly taken straight from CP threads. [If you're interested, it's located here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1.../edit?hl=en_US. It's a single page; I keep one copy on my fridge and one in my backpack. It's very loosely ordered from top to bottom as "best" to "worst" (taking into account healthfulness, taste, texture, cost and accessibility).]
So that's all great, but I still have some questions.
I don't want to live off these things (one smoothie a day sounds like lots) but I do like the idea of adding that guaranteed healthful component to my diet (the creativity/variety is also appealing) while I work on learning how to cook some decent meals. Every ingredient has different properties and strengths, obviously. I really want to know how to customize a smoothie to help me get the most out of it on a particular day.
1. What ingredients in a morning smoothie will help me stay full/alert all day at school if I know I'm busy and can't do a proper lunch?
2. What goes into a good pre-workout smoothie, especially compared to a good post-workout smoothie? (I only know there's a difference because of the newer Gatorade commercials.
) In one of the threads I think someone said chocolate milk is all you need after a workout. If so, that's
really easy.
3. What could I put into a quick snack or between-meals smoothie to satiate myself but not spoil my appetite for a later meal I know is coming up?
One thing I've done to hopefully set myself up for success is buy a juicer/blender combo ... thing. It's the
Breville BJB840XL. I was initially taken aback by the price ($450 USD before tax+S&H??!??), but after reading all the reviews I could find, I was sold! Thanks to shopbot.ca, I was also able to score a good deal, too - $399 CDN after tax and priority shipping. (Price match Galtak or ForumAppliance at electronicsforless.ca). Now there is no excuse for not getting enough fruits/vegetables into my system on a regular basis.
If anyone is still reading this, congratulations and thank you for taking the time to do so. Any thoughts are welcomed. Thanks again to those who've already started me on the right track.