Day 1 - Oh, the possibilities.

So, blending! 

Seems like everyone these days has just about jumped on the bandwagon of smoothie detoxes. And, well, why the hell wouldn't I? Haha. As mentioned in my previous post though, I'm not doing this for weight loss. 

Repeat: I am not doing a smoothie cleanse to lose weight.

Overall, yes, I would like to get back on the track of losing weight, but I just want to make it very clear that this is not another desperate attempt to try and drop the pounds fast because it seems easy enough to do. Anything involving a detox and severely restricted diet should be very strongly researched on your own, and not maintained for too long of a period without doctor's approval. Anorexia is still a very real thing if you're not on top of consuming calories, which should always be over what your daily usage is.

I'm no pro, but that seems like common sense, no?

Anywho.

I'm doing my detox to reboot my digestive system. 3 days of nothing but veggies and fruits, and blending the crapola out of as many as humanly possible to give my system a break - and today was day 1.

I'll admit . . . I thought this smoothie making thing was going to be a lot easier than it actually is.

I mean. Sounds easy, right? Put stuff into blender, pulse to smooth, stick a straw in it, and done? . . . I spent over an hour making my first smoothie this morning. Doing things like preparing mango, chopping ingredients . . . and then I realize, it's all going in a friggin' blender . . . just throw it in there. 

Oh so pretty.

The first experiment of the day was kale, mango, celery, parsley, mint and orange juice. The end result was actually pretty tasty. I've never had kale, or fresh mint before, so I was curious as to how this whole thing was going to go down . . . but all in all I was pleasantly surprised! It was a little heavy on the mint, and it made 2 servings, so tomorrow morning I'm going to blend some more mango into it to really see if I can balance out the mango-mint flavor. Towards the end of my glass today, it was a little hard to get it down with so much mint.

The second experiment of the day came at lunch time, and I wasn't so sure I wanted to do another green smoothie back to back, so I ended up trying one with strawberries, blueberries, banana, goji berries and coconut water. This one . . . oh this one . . . this might be a regular staple in the list of smoothie possibilities. This one was very good - I just wish my bananas were a little more ripe. I'm very particular about how I like my bananas. Yellow, with a few little brown speckles on them. Today they were just yellow, no speckles. And, with that happening, I got a little more of what I consider "unripe" banana taste than I would have hoped, but it was still delicious.

After this smoothie, I was still finding myself hungry, so with all of the kale I've recently acquired, I thought I would just steam some and give it a shot on it's own. It's another one of those things I was pleasantly surprised about! I just threw it in a pan with a little bit of water, steamed it, and ate it with a little bit of balsamic vinegar and sea salt. Very pleasantly surprised.

Lastly, for dinner, I tried another seemingly green route. Avocado, bananas, cucumber, kale, blueberries . . . it sounded so good. And yet . . . it was a disaster. I was horrified by what I had just created, and honestly couldn't believe it was an actual recipe! It was just a grey goopy mess. Even after giving it the benefit of the doubt and sticking my straw in it, I was absolutely disgusted with the taste too. The recipe said you could add stevia, cinnamon or cocoa powder to it "to taste," and at first I was really wary of this. I'm trying so hard to keep myself as veggie/fruit friendly as humanly possible these three days . . . and I struggled for the longest time wondering if sweetener and cocoa powder was even a good idea.

Not wanting to waste all of those veggies though, I decided to run with it. I ended up adding organic orange blossom honey instead of the Truvia we had in the house (it had some chemical name that I couldn't pronounce, and my honey only had one ingredient - honey), and cocoa powder.

Ready to try again, I stuck my straw in it and was so happy to find that the sweetener and the cocoa powder had actually saved the recipe.

What was a sickeningly grey color now just looked like a chocolate milkshake! And I didn't even add that much either . . . the recipe made about 4 cups, and I added maybe a tablespoon of cocoa powder?

My last attempt of the day to try something new was kale chips. I've seen things all over about how good they are for you, and how delicious they are. So, I figured, why not! I'm still hungry, so it sounds like a plan to me!

All in all, such a simple process, and such a delicious end result. I just laid a bunch of kale out on a parchment lined baking sheet, and stuck it in a preheated 250* oven. No oil, nothing on it.





I ended up doing a bit of research to see what the best baking temp was for these puppies, and apparently, for max nutritional content, you wanna keep it between 250 and 275.

And guys.

Guys.

The noms.

Omg. The noms.

The tray almost didn't make it to a bowl for pictures, but I managed to stop snacking long enough to salt them a bit and put them in a bowl.

They were so crispy and light. Not like a real chip, but a category of their own. So good. I can only imagine how fantastic these would be if you really thinly sliced some root vegetables like parsnips and turnips and tossed them all together. New favorite snack? Me thinks so.

Overall, I'd say today was a pretty good day. I can definitely feel the effects of having not eaten as much as I normally do, and it feels both fantastic and slightly unsettling. Unsettling because it's just effecting my energy levels in general, but otherwise I feel cleaner already. My body doesn't feel quite so pissed at me as it has been. Haha.

Day one down. Ready for day 2, but at the same time, itching for day 3 to come and go so I can start having nuts and seeds again. :) Friggin' pumped for strawberry-walnut-spinach salad.

<3