Smoothie breakfast

About 10 years ago, I worked at Starbucks. On one hand- making hundreds of frozen crappuccinos and being covered with that smell of the fake mix powder, has forever turned me away from Starbucks blended treats. On the other hand - I still love love love blended drinks. Personally I do not like the super sweet varieties of Jamba Juice. To make this thick like icecream, we pre-freeze our fruit so that we don't need ice which makes it soupy and lessens the flavor.

Since we cannot have milk/cheese/meats/oil, here is what we came up with for a quick breakfast that can alternate for what we have in stock. This was the first time adding greens to our breakfast, but it worked out great.

Serves: 2

Prep/Clean Up: 10 min

In a ninja (or whatever you have) we added a handful of spinach leaves and a handful of kale. Don't press it in to the bottom. Now add about 1 cup of coconut milk. On short pulses chop the leaves until its thoroughly tini-tiny.

• 1 (lady sized) handful of spinach leaves
• 1 handful of kale
• 1 cup of coconut milk

Next add your other items :

• 5 strawberries*
• 1/2 to 1 cup of berries*
• 1 peach*
• 1 banana
• 1/2 avocado
• your choice of whey protein
• Stevia (to taste)
• more coconut milk if needed

* We like to get organic fruit from the farmer's market and freeze them.

At first I was trying not to gag on the fact that it had kale and spinach. But after two seconds, I completely forgot. It is really tasty.

post fast changes

Today I already had some Greek Yogurt since I didn't remember it was fast. Oops. Then I had my go-to snack and I am on my way out to grab some goodies that should hopefully fall in line with the Primal plan.

I found this site which talk about the Eastern Orthodox Christian Fast and Primal. Great links to another like-minded real food eater who went on to talk about raw food.

The main thing that is perhaps different than primal is that she consumes much more fruit than meat. But again, this falls in line with the fast with very minimal changes needed.

The other point I see so far on the primal site and forum is to consider fats and protein.

So what are good sources of fat? Well that depends on who you ask. Over at primal you see things that make it onto the bad list on other sites. Truth be told, I think that the fashionable sites are off. They want you to consume "low fat/ non fat/ no sugar, etc..." items but fail to show you that they are stuffed with chemicals as well as sugar and salt.

Here is my crossed off list.

Fast and Primal

Today my husband forwarded an email from our church. Fast started yesterday! I have no idea how I could have forgotten about it. Its every year at the same stinking time. Don't get me wrong- I love the Eastern Orthodox Church and I humbly partake of the traditional fast and prayer.

However, this season is exactly what stopped my last attempt at going Primal last year. In two months I went from 185 to 165 with only changing my diet. Then the fast started (and I saw some pumpkin loaf in a weak moment) and POOF- diet be gone!

The fast includes no meat, no dairy, no fish and no oil. Tue/Thu wine and oil okay. Sat/Sun fish, wine and oil okay.

Add that to no sugar and no carbs from the Primal diet and you are left with nuts and seeds, spices, and some produce and some seafood items such as shrimp, octopus, shellfish and squid.

What is a girl to do? At the moment, my biggest concern is budget and keeping energy levels up without resorting to buckets of coffee everyday.