Friday, August 10, 2012

My new favorite color is........

Green as in Green Smoothies. Due to my interest in plant based foods, I kept coming across references to green smoothies so I decided to do a little reading and find out what all the buzz was about. I started with Victoria Boutenko's Green Smoothie Revolution and then moved on to Kristine Miles The Green Smoothie Bible which I am not quite through with yet. Both are informative books with plenty of recipes to try.

The premise is that since humans and wild chimps share 99.4 percent of the same genes, and that wild chimps do not have all of the diseases of modern civilization, lets compare typical diets and see what the difference is. It turns out that the typical wild chimp diet is about 50% fruit and 40% greens and blossoms. The remaining 10% would be pith, bark, seeds and insects. OK, I know there has to be a line in the sand somewhere so why don't we all just put pith, bark and insects on the other side of the line and move on.

It turns out a green smoothie starts with fruit and gets its green color from the leafy greens that are blended with it. While the color is green, the flavor is fruit. It is a great way to get all the fiber and nutrients of the fruit and leafy greens in a cool refreshing drink. On weight training days I add a scoop of plant based protein powder.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention my weight. My weigh in information for the last month is in the sidebar on the right. It took a week to get back to my goal range of 160 to 165 after vacation and I have stayed there for the weeks since.  So I am back to my program doing the things I need to do to remain a healthy weight. I hope to keep my weight in this range for at least 12 months and then will decide if I think any future changes are desirable.