Tag Archives: ice cream

Fruit Protein Smoothie

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I just made a super delicious, super healthy smoothie.  It is:

½ C orange juice
½ C frozen strawberry banana fruit blend (from Target)
½ C plain yogurt, original style (which is to say, “full fatted”)
1 t Nature’s Way Reuteri
1 scoop Naturade 100% Whey Protein Booster, Vanilla Flavor

All together this smoothie has 225 calories, so if you’re trying to lose weight, this is not the snack for you, but it might be the breakfast or the lunch for you.  The majority of the calories come from the full fatted yogurt, so if you want to cut down on calories a bit, just use a leaner yogurt.  Since I’m nursing, I’m going for as many calories as I can find.

There are 17 grams of protein, with the majority coming from the protein booster.  I love this booster.  It has no sugar and no artificial sweeteners.  The vanilla flavor makes my smoothies taste like I used vanilla ice cream, and all without adding even a gram of sugar.

There are 23 grams of sugar, which are all naturally occurring in the juice, fruit and yogurt, and 4 grams of fiber, which come from the juice and fruit.

Now to talk about the Reuteri.  This is a probiotic that I found at Good Earth.  It is in powder form, and you simply measure out how much you want to add to any drink.  It is good for anybody.  I can give this to my babies, and I do.  We’ve all been sick lately, so that’s why I added it to my smoothie.

This is great for all the sugar addicts out there.  It gave me a natural sugar boost to get my energy and mood up, and all the protein will help maintain my blood sugar, so that I don’t drop back down into the awful low of coming off a sugar high.

Enjoy!

No Sugar, No Artificial Sweeteners

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On January 30, 2012, my sister-in-law and I started three months of no sugar and no artificial sweeteners, though honey is okay in moderation.  We both get what we call “sugar sickness,” which is where we physically feel ill when we eat too much sugar, and we have yet to find an artificial sweetener that doesn’t have some kind of ill effect on us as well.  Basically we want to detox from eating too many sweets so that come May, we can start anew with the resolve to simply cut back on sugar.

This is a huge feat that we are trying to accomplish, so we decided to help each other out by doing it together.  Also, we didn’t want to set ourselves up for failure, so we gave ourselves a few treats to help us stay strong in tempting situations when we are otherwise doing very well.

The first thing to address was cold treats, like ice cream.  She loves Red Mango, so that is her cold treat and reward for avoiding everything else.  I found plain frozen yogurt at Yogurt Bliss, so that is my cold treat and reward.  Both of these are had in moderation, because eating them every day would basically defeat the purpose of even trying this.

She is allowing herself 70% cocoa to curb the chocolate cravings.  There is some pretty amazing 70% cocoa out there, and she is finding it.  I drink 100% juice, while she avoids it, because the natural sugars are too concentrated for her body.  She eats Greek yogurt, because of its benefits and the great flavors, while I just eat plain yogurt, because I don’t really like the added sugar in flavored yogurts.

When family events come around where sugar will obviously be present, we try to bring fruit or some dessert without sugar so that we don’t slip up.  I made a chocolate cake with applesauce as the sweetener when our aunt had a birthday.  It wasn’t the most amazing cake, but it gave us something to eat while everyone else was eating some really awesome looking cake.

I hope this inspires others to give this a try.  Don’t set yourself up for failure, and get a buddy to hold yourself accountable to.

Check out my sister-in-laws blog here.

Healthy Eating – Ice Cream

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Part of healthy eating is understanding what your body really wants when you’re craving something you probably shouldn’t eat.  For example, a sugar craving usually means your body really needs protein.  It sounds kind of strange, but if you’re dying for some sugar, eat a piece of cheese instead.

In regards to ice cream, your body is craving the fat from the cream, salt, it’s in there I promise, and sugar, obviously.  So, find a different way to satisfy those cravings.  I have found that an orange and cottage cheese satisfies all of the cravings: fat and salt in the cottage cheese, and sugar in the orange.  You can use any orange-like fruit as well.  I really like this with clementines.  Plus, they taste pretty good together.