I have been making a real effort to improve my eating, get in more nutrient-dense meals, and overall clean up the edges where I am lacking.
Part of that process over the years has included juicing. I have a love affair with juice: green juice, beet juice, kale juice; it’s all good in my book.

Smoothies are another thing.

I don’t really like smoothies. I am just not a fan of viscous drinks.

But lately, smoothies have started to sound better. No, I still don’t want to drink them but they seem like a great vehicle for getting more fruit into my diet, more flaxseed, because who just wants to nosh on flax?
And more greens, cause a girl can only eat so much salad!

So Tuesday night I ran to the grocery and got all the fixings for a few different smoothies figuring through the rest of the week we’d try some and see what we liked. Even Swaggy is in on this. Although he’d drink anything as long as it was somewhat liquid and he didn’t have to “eat” an actual vegetable.

First up Wednesday morning, the green apple-beet smoothie. In execution, it went fine. It even tasted good but, while I was drinking, my stomach was saying “Ummm I think we are having a problem here, liquid is going in but we’re still starving.”

So eight ounces later, yours truly, was still famished. My husband, of course, was not deterred from his usual breakfast just because he was adding a smoothie. He had both. This seemed to me like it was defeating the purpose. I am trying to eat better and eat less when possible. Not just add more calories to my already existing crappy breakfast.

What to do? What to do? Well I went to work hungry. Already you can see how this is not going well. I then told everyone who would listen about my smoothie #fail of the morning. I lamented my girth and the fact that my mom had brought some sort of lava cake over for Valentine’s Day and, predictably, you know that was going to be eaten before 11 am now!

I am starting to think that experiment is from the root latin word expire as in to die. OK, I am sure that’s not true. In fact, don’t blame Webster or Merriam because I just made that up right now while typing. But I am going to die if this smoothie thing continues on like this. I am either going to be starving or I am going to be putting on weight eating lava cake.

Does anyone else’s healthy efforts go awry in mere hours? I think that’s being generous since it went awry about 30 seconds in when my stomach was launching its own resistance movement telling me that this smoothie idea wasn’t going to cut it.

My next morning’s options were a green monster or anti-inflammatory strawberry smoothie. I had to go to Whole Foods to get a couple of ingredients and then left with 17 other things and a new lip balm because… it’s Whole Foods. I think they pump oxygen into that place like a casino. You get in there and you feel all happy and shiny and everything they sell is “amazing” and you “have to have it.”

Then you get it back to your house, where there isn’t any extra oxygen, and you think “why the heck did I need a water bottle dryer or a lettuce fluffer?” OK, both of these products, again, totally made up in my rant about this breakfast fail. You see, I am “hangry.” It’s when you’re so hungry that it bumps into angry. It’s not a good combo.

I digress.

Anyway, Thursday morning I whipped up a Green Monster smoothie. Sounds ominous, I know. It did taste good and I even put a little protein powder in with hopes that it would satisfy my hunger.

My stomach said, yes she talks to me, “You’re cute with this can-do attitude but this is not food. This is a colorful little drink, not breakfast.”

Strike out. I am 0-2 in the smoothie game but I am going to keep trying or next week I may be telling you about my doughnuts for breakfast diet. Sometimes that’s how change goes. Just keep trying even when your stomach mocks you.

Sunshine & Sarcasm,

Lowi & G