This morning started with a fantastic 5 mile client run in some unusually humid weather.  Wow, I thought I’d been transported back to Ohio for a minute with the low cloud cover and muggy air.  I left the house with nice straight hair and when I came home, MSP said I looked like I’d showered and let my hair air dry (which is to say:  NOT a pretty sight!)  Humidity and my hair do not play nicely together.  Crazy waves and cowlicks all over!

I do feel for folks who have to run in humidity ALL the time.  We are lucky here to typically have very dry air.

I wore my VFFs again today – still love running in them and still finding it to be pain free.  My knees are happy these days.  Maybe I’ll get the itch to go longer than 8 or 9 in them, but right now I’m back to just enjoying runs as they come.

After my run, I was so craving something fresh.  I couldn’t decide between a cantaloupe or a green smoothie.  So I did both.  Ate a few bites of the cantaloupe:

And then put the rest into a rocking smoothie:

• 1/2 Cantaloupe
• 1 small orange
• kale
• spinach
• flaxseed oil
• pepitas
• 1/2 scoop vanilla plant protein powder
• 1/2 cucumber
• water

It was so refreshing post-run.

Rascal couldn’t even wait for me to stop pouring some into his bowl.

He kept trying to get his face in there before I was done.  My pups LOVE when I share my green smoothies with them.

Ready for seconds!

***

Have you ever ready any of Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s work?  I own his “Eat to Live” book and have borrowed his “Eat for Health” books from the library a few times.  Dr. Fuhrman uses the term “nutritarian” as opposed to vegetarian, flexitarian, vegan, etc. because he promotes eating foods based on their nutrient value.  For example on a scale of 1 to 1000, KALE scores 1000.  From a nutrient density standpoint, it’s the gold standard.  (Another great reason to make yourself a batch of kale chips!)

In the “Eat for Health” series he suggests to his clients that rather than making huge changes right off the bat when trying to lose weight or get healthier one should just ADD in a pound of raw green veggies a day to what they already eat.  And then over time you will find that because you are eating a pound of filling green food, you won’t need as much of the other less healthy foods you might have been eating. (As the program progresses, one then aims to eat at least 1 pound of raw greens vegetables and 1 pound of cooked veggies and at least 1 cup of legumes.)

I know that when I measure out my greens for my smoothies I typically end up with about 9 oz with the cucumber, celery, sprouts, leafy greens and occasional avocado.  I was curious what one pound of raw greens would look like all in one bowl so that I could gauge whether I was anywhere near the 1 to 2 pound mark.

For the sake of pure volume rather than variety, I just threw some veggies into a bowl to weigh.   One full head of romaine, a large stalk of celery and a medium cucumber fit the bill.

On one hand it didn’t seem like as much as I thought it would.  But then on the other hand, this bowl is way bigger than my head.

Because I’m known to have a pinhead, I’ll show you the bowl next to my iPhone for better sizing reference. 

After weighing out the pound, I took out some of the greens to save for later, and then “prettied up” my salad with some dulse, avocado, red and yellow pepper – and weighed again.  I’m over a pound, wahoo!

Then I added 1/2 cup of navy beans.

And called it lunch!

How about you?  Do you think you are getting 2 pounds of veggies in each day? Are you a fledgling nutritarian or a full-on card carrying member of the club?  I think that between my large lunch salads and my green smoothies, I’m somewhere in the middle!

Have a great day friends!

– Shari B. =)

***

Shari Becht is a Fit Living Coach and an ACE Certified Personal Trainer offering online/phone coaching services to people across the U.S.  She is extremely passionate about teaching her clients how to start making small changes every day to their own lives, built around steps customized to fit their needs.

If you or someone you know could benefit from Shari’s coaching, please feel free to email her at shari [at] fitfeat  [dot] com.  For more information, click here.

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I am off to the dentist in about 15 minutes, so I’ll be typing like mad to get this published before I head out.  Cross your fingers for me that I have NO cavities!

Yesterday morning brought a super late breakfast.  I got busy doing things and then ate a little too late.  You know that feeling when you go from hungry to famished to a little shaky and then full-on raging BEE-YOTCH??  It happens so quickly!    So I tried to quiet the monster with a little breakfast tostada action.  While my breakfast wrap from the other morning was fab, THIS one was NOT a keeper. 

Post-40-minute-treadmill green smoothie (still using that bag of cranberries!)

Post-snowblowing butternut squash soup (which is now all gone…. I’m so SAD!)  I added a little sprinkle of cinnamon and a bit of orange zest, and BAM!  It was EVEN BETTER!

Later some pseudo-healthful gingerbread men… no transfats or HFCS.  But still flour and sugar nonetheless.  Luckily the boxes are TINY!

With a little almond milk in my very appropriate snowflake mug…

Healthy popcorn with nutritional yeast during one of the worst movies of the year (G.I. JOE… sorry Channing Tatum, I think you’re great, but the movie was SO bad we had to stop halfway through because we started to feel our brains rotting…)

And a little GARBANZO action for dinner!  We’ve  officially decided that we are off of our Garbanzo kick for a while.  We just don’t like our falafel char-fried.  There is a new place (whose name escapes me at the moment) that serves similar food.  We’ll try that next and compare their falafel.   

I hope that you all had a SMASHING weekend! 

Today’s discussion:  I picked up a new Kindle book yesterday (well new to me, but not NEW new.)  It’s called Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  So far it talks a lot about nutrient-dense foods being the mainstay of our diets (hey, sounds a lot like what I’ve been aiming to do!)  Have any of you read it and/or apply his principles?

See you again soon!

– Shari B.  =)

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