All-Around Good For You Smoothie Recipe

First of all, I need to apologize/explain for the lack of posts. I did not have internet for about a week and a half so I am very sorry for the absence.

I am a huge fan of smoothies for breakfast and I usually eat them after I work out, so I need a lot of nutrients in my smoothies to replenish my body (I also have a smoothie recipe for a green smoothie that tastes good, here). This smoothie is a little higher in calories than the green smoothie, but it's good for someone that isn't ready to risk a leafy green smoothie.

**This recipe makes one serving**

What You Need:

1/2 of a banana (if it's a small banana like the one I used, use about 3/4 of it)

1/2 cup of strawberries

2 tablespoons of oats

1 tablespoon of peanut butter

1/2 cup of milk (I used coconut milk)

Tip: If you're using coconut or almond milk, you may want to add a tablespoon or two of yogurt to thicken up the consistency of the smoothie)
Optional: 1 teaspoon of honey for sweetness.

How-To:

• Step 1: Add the banana and half cup of strawberries to the blender or magic bullet cup.
  
  
  
• Step 2: Add 1/2 cup of milk
  
  
  
• Step 3: Add two tablespoons of oats
  
  
  
• Step 4: Add 1 tablespoon of peanut butter (If you want to add honey, also add a teaspoon of honey here)
  
  
• Step 5: Blend until smooth

This recipe makes a little over 1 cup: 

Nutrition Information:

Total Fat (g) : 12

Saturated Fat (g): 3

Cholesterol (mg): 0

Sodium (mg): 0

Potassium (mg): 362

Total Carbs (g): 63
Dietary Fiber (g): 8

Sugars (g): 37 **remember, most of this is natural sugar from the fruits, so it's healthy sugar**
Protein (g): 7

Vitamin A: 21%*
Vitamin C: 25%*

Calcium: 24%*

Iron: 7%*

Total Calories: 295

*Percent Daily Values vary from person to person.

My Favorite Apps To Help With Fitness/Weight Loss

All of these apps, I personally use to help me with my weight loss. I know these well so that's why I'm recommending them to you! These are in no specific order and all of the apps are free.

• My personal favorite is MyFitnessPal.com. There is an app available for iphones and androids and you can also use it from the website. 
• MyFitnessPal asks for your age, height and weight, and daily activity levels to determine a good amount of calories for you to take in during the day. You can set it to losing anywhere from 0.5 pounds per week to 2 pounds per week. **Just a warning, I set it to 2 pounds per week about 2 years ago and it ended up not being enough for me, and as a result, I started gaining weight because my body was taking up everything I ate. So it's better to go slower than faster. I am currently set at 1500 calories per day, and usually I go over anyway, but I'm fine as long as I stay under 2000 calories per day.
• MyFitnessPal also sets how many sugars, fats, and dietary fiber you need per day, so you can look for foods with those nutrients in them to keep your diet balanced.
  
• Next, another one I love is MapMyFitness.com, MapMyRun, MapMyWalk... etc. They're all the same app. I personally have MapMyWalk on my android and it gives you options like running, walking the dog, biking, etc. So whatever one you get doesn't limit you to that specific exercise. You can use these on iphone, android and just as a website as well.
• This app uses your GPS on your phone to track where you workout. If you provide your height and weight, it will estimate how many calories you burned during the workout. This app can be connected to MyFitnessPal, so that as soon as you complete a workout, it enters it into MyFitnessPal.
• I also like this app because it accounts for elevation. I live in a hilly area, so you obviously burn more calories running up a hill than running flat and if I enter that I ran for 30 minutes into MyFitnessPal, it just assumes that you're running on a flat surface.
• I also like this app because it tracks your pace per mile, and overall average pace. It tells you when you've completed each mile and what your time was.
• This app is free, but you can go MVP for added features. I just use the free version.
  
• Another app that's good for strength training is iMuscle Home.  I have this on my ipad so it's available for iphone. I can't find it on the Google Play store, so I don't think it's available for android yet.
• This app allows you to click on the part of the body that you want to improve, and gives you exercises to help strengthen that muscle. It also gives stretches for that muscle. 
• This app has a lot of free content, but you get more from it if you purchase some content. I personally use the free version.
  
• Finally, an app that is overlooked for fitness is Youtube.com. Obviously YouTube isn't strictly for working out, but there are many channels that specialize in fitness. There are channels that have 30 minute workouts for you to do, yoga channels, weight lifting channels, etc... 
• Some of my favorite channels on YouTube are:
• BeFit - Get high-quality, free workouts on BeFit! Transform your body and workout with top fitness trainers Jillian Michaels, Denise Austin, Jane Fonda and more. Slim your waistline, tighten and tone your arms and get a great butt for free. Are you ready to be fit? Subscribe for updates and transform yourself today with BeFit, exclusively on YouTube.
• ToneItUp - Share, Love, Inspire, Sweat!
• Blogilates - Full length POP Pilates and fun Bootcamp Sculpting workouts to Top 40 Hits with certified fitness instructor Cassey Ho.
• Livestrong - LIVESTRONG.COM is a new online destination designed to inspire people to change their lives, help themselves and help others.
• LivestrongWoman - Your personal guide to becoming a better, healthier you.

Weekly Workouts

This week was very hectic, so I didn't do so well with my workouts. I fell behind in my challenges, so I had to do a couple days challenges in a day, so that was overwhelming. My brother also graduated high school this past Thursday and his graduation party was Saturday, so I was extremely busy helping my parents get ready for that. Also my knees are extremely sore from running, so with all those things put together, my workouts this week aren't what they should have been.


My first Weekly Workout post has youtube clips of each exercise. Click here to see that post.

Sunday June 1st: Ran/walked 4 miles
Monday June 2nd: Ran 1.5 miles
Tuesday June 3rd. Ran/walked 2 miles, 1 mile of which was uphill.
Strength Training: Day 4,5,6 of challenges.

• Abs
• 80 sit ups
• 32 crunches
• 15, 20, 25 second planks
• 22 woodchoppers
• 10, 15 second side planks
• 50 ankle touches
• 44 russian twists
• Arms
• 69 push ups
• 35 dips
• 70 bicep curls
• 55 seconds of punching
• Legs
• 85 squats
• 35 bridges
• 55 lunges
• 40, 50, 60 second wall sits
• 35 lateral lunges (each side
• 70 scissors
• 27 fire hydrants (each side)
• 27 plie squat pulses

Wednesday June 4th: Rest on Running because of sore knees

Strength Training: Day 7 of challenges

• Abs
• 34 sit ups
• 20 crunches
• 28 second plank
• 50 ankle touches
• Arms
• 35 push ups
• 50 bicep curls with 3 lbs
• 35 seconds of punches
• Legs
• 35 squats
• 15 bridges
• 25 lateral lunges (each side)
• 50 scissors
• 18 fire hydrants (each side)
• 20 plie squat pulses

Thursday June 5th: 40 minute walk almost all uphill. Still resting sore knees

Friday June 6th: 30 minute walk, 15 minute run.

Saturday June 7th: No Workout.

Why You Should Cool Down After a Workout

A common thing for people to skip when they workout is the cool down. Most commonly, people want to get done with the workout as fast as possible, or get done the cardio and move to the strength training. Skipping a cool down is a very bad habit to get into. A cool down is much more important than a warm up.

Reasons Why You Need to Cool Down

• Cooling down allows your body to decrease lactic acid buildup in the muscles.
  After you stop working at a high intensity, your body goes into a phase called OBLA, onset of blood lactate accumulation. This is when lactic acid, which is produced in anaerobic respiration (achieved during high intensity workouts) is built up in the blood faster than it can be removed. If you go from a high intensity to sitting down without a cool down, lactic acid builds up in greater quantities in the muscles. Lactic acid buildup leads to soreness. By cooling down, you're allowing the some of the lactic acid to be cleared out of the blood, preventing as much soreness as possible.
  
  
• Cool Downs are Good for the Heart.
  Your heart is a muscle, so it also needs to cool down after exercise. A cool down after exercise will gradually lower your heart rate. This will put less stress on the heart, therefore, keeping it healthy. Cool downs are still exercise, so the body will send more blood to the muscles than any other part of the body. Because you're catching your breath and switching back to aerobic exercise, the heart will have more oxygen to deliver to the blood, and the blood can deliver more oxygen to the working muscles, allowing them to recover better.
  
  
• Cool Downs Help Return to Normal Breathing Rates
  If you have trouble catching your breath at the end of exercise, you should cool down until you have obtained a normal rate of breathing for at least 5 minutes. This will help with the lactic acid buildup mentioned before, also help your heart, and give you a good idea of how long you should cool down for. How long it takes you to return to normal breathing is also a good indicator of how in shape you are. If it takes you longer, you're not in great shape. Depending on the exercise, it should take you less than 45 seconds to return to a normal breathing rate if you're in shape. This can vary from person to person and also depends on the length of exercise.
  
  
  

How to design a cool down depending on your workout.

• The cool down should be done at a slower pace than the workout.
  
  
• The cool down should last for about 5 minutes.
  More if the exercise is very strenuous, less if you were doing something such as walking.
  
  
• The cool down should be less strenuous than the workout.
  For example if you were running/biking/walking up hill for your exercise, you will want to cool down on a flat or downhill area.
  
  
• Avoid abrupt changes in pace.
  Going from jogging to walking is a good change of pace, not too abrupt. Going from 100% intensity to walking would not be a good change. If you're working out at a high intensity, go from high to medium, stay at medium for a couple minutes, then you can switch from medium to low and stay at low intensity for the rest of the cool down.

Quality 30 Day Challenges

In this post, I want to share some good 30 day challenges with you. These are all over Pinterest and I'm going to share my favorites. In my weekly workout that I posted Sunday (click here to see) you will see that I'm doing strength training. The exercises in that come from a couple different challenges that I'm doing. Below are the challenges that I'm currently doing. I don't recommend doing this many at once unless you're really disciplined with workouts and/or you have a lot of free time because towards the end of the challenges it might take you over an hour to do all of the exercises. You can obviously do any of these challenges during any month, or start it in the middle of the month, just keep track of the day you started!

Challenges That I'm Doing Now

• Mean Abs June 30 Day Challenge
• 30 Day Bum Challenge
• 30 Day Wall-Sit Challenge
• 30 Day Arm Challenge
• 30 Day Thigh Challenge
• 30 Day Oblique Challenge

Other Challenges That I Recommend/Plan on Doing in the Future

• Muscle Mania May (Good for Beginners)
• Tuff Butt April (Good for Beginners)
• 30 Day Yoga Challenge
• 2 Weeks to 100 Crunches
• Kick Ass April
• 30 Day Strong Arms
• Lose the Love Handles
• Squat and Push-up (Good for Beginners)
• 31 Days of Burpees
• 4 Weeks to 200 Squats (Good for Beginners)

For example, if you've never seen one of these exercise challenge calendars, here is what Mean Abs June looks like

While doing these challenges will help tone, I also recommend doing some cardio each day to help lose weight.

If you have a favorite 30 day challenge, post it in the comments below!

Green Smoothie Recipe That Actually Tastes Good!

So you've probably heard people raving about the benefits of green smoothies, but to most people, drinking vegetables isn't inherently appetizing. I am a pretty picky eater and I found that by adding fruit to green smoothies, you can mask the taste of the green in it. Green smoothies are a great way to get nutrients that you don't usually get in a daily diet. By using the raw leafy greens in the smoothie, you are keeping the nutrients in those greens. Cooking things like kale, spinach, arugula, etc. loses some of the benefits. To get a more detailed description of nutrients in leafy greens, click here.

Because I use spinach in my green smoothies, I'm going to paste the paragraph explaining the benefits of Spinach from the website linked above.

• Spinach
  Spinach is a dark leafy green vegetable and one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet! Because it’s high in fiber and very low in calories, spinach can help you manage type 2 diabetes and is a terrific addition to any weight loss plan. It's also packed with nutrients — it's a good source of antioxidants, including vitamin C, beta carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, which help maintain healthy eyes, hair, and skin. Spinach contains very high amounts of potassium and vitamin K, two nutrients that may help preserve bone health. The iron and B vitamins in spinach help maintain strong, healthy hair and a healthy circulatory system.

If you went to the website linked above and liked the benefits of another green better, feel free to substitute that for spinach, but I can't guarantee that it will still taste good. I ran out of spinach one day and had arugula laying around, so I decided to use that. It was disgusting! If you want to use arugula or another green with a strong taste, I recommend mixing spinach in with it. 

The spinach taste in this smoothie is not detectable at all.

I recommend adding the ingredients in the order listed here because I put the heaviest item on the bottom so that it would push everything to the blade. I'm using a magic bullet so if you're using a regular blender, you would want to reverse the order of things added so that the heaviest item is last for you.

1. Add 1 cup of fruit. I use Dole frozen mixed fruit. I recommend using frozen because it makes the smoothie colder than fresh fruit. I also recommend microwaving the fruit for 30 seconds before adding because the completely frozen fruit sometimes doesn't get blended and then you have huge chunks at the bottom. You can purchase the bag in the image from Sams Club.
   **I found that peaches most mask the taste of the vegetables so I recommend some fruit with peaches in it.
   1 cup of this specific bag of fruit has 17 calories.
   
   
   
2. Add two tablespoons of yogurt. If you like your smoothie very thick, add more yogurt. It doesn't matter what flavor yogurt you use, I have a variety pack of Yoplait and I use a different flavor of yogurt every day and it doesn't affect the taste.
   2 tablespoons of Yoplait mountain blueberry yogurt has about 30 calories.
   
   
3. Add 1 cup of spinach (or other leafy greens). I usually use spinach in a bag from Giant, but our garden just started getting spinach, so I used home grown today.
   1 cup of spinach has 7 calories.
   
   
   
   
4. Add 1 cup of coconut water. Adding coconut water to a green smoothie is a great way to get electrolytes. I also found with coconut water it doesn't matter what flavor you use, it still tastes about the same. I have used coconut water with no flavor, with mango and peach flavor, pineapple, and lemonade. I like the VitaCoco brand found in the water aisle because it has a close-able lid.
   8 fluid oz of VitaCoco Lemonade coconut water has 70 calories.
   
   
   
   
5. Add a tablespoon of flax seed. This provides omega 3's that help to prevent blockage in the arteries. You can also use chia seed.
   1 tablespoon of flax seed has 47 calories.

Finally, blend until everything is completely liquid. This takes about 30 seconds.

The smoothie on the right is how much smoothie you get from the amount of ingredients added.

The total calories in this smoothie are 224.

Hopefully you find the taste as good as I do!

Weekly Workouts

To give you all some ideas of how to change up your workouts, every Sunday, I'm going to post the workouts that I did every day throughout the past week. It's important to change up your workouts because you don't want your body to get used to doing the same thing day after day, letting yourself fall into a workout rut. If you change up your workout, it allows the body to stay alert, optimizing your results. Doing the same workout for more than three days straight is not recommended in order for you to continue seeing results over a long period of time. If you do the same thing every day, it will become harder for you to lose weight and even maintain a steady weight.

I'm still in the beginning phase of starting to workout, so this is a good first week workout, just adjust the routes if you want a flatter route or adjust the mileage to your ability.

***Click on the exercise for the strength training to see a short YouTube clip of how to do that exercise.***

Sunday May 25: ran/walked 3 miles, route was mostly uphill.
Monday May 26: ran/walked 3 miles.
Tuesday May 27: walked 3 miles with dog, mostly flat route.
Wednesday May 28: I either didn't do a workout, or I don't remember what my workout was. Sorry!
Thursday May 29: ran/walked 2 miles with dog.
Strength Training:

• Abs
• 15 sit ups
• 6 crunches
• 10 second plank
• Butt (Glutes)
• 15 squats, no weight
• 5 bridges
• 10 lunges (each side)
• Legs
• 10 second wall sit
• 5 lateral lunges (each side)
• 10 scissors
• 5 fire hydrants (each side)
• 5 plie squat pulses
• Arms
• 15 push ups, on knees
• 5 dips
• 10 bicep curls
• 10 seconds of punches

Friday May 30: ran/walked 2 miles with dog
Strength Training:

• Abs
• 19 sit ups
• 6 crunches
• 12 second plank
• 5 woodchoppers, no weights
• 5 second side plank (each side)
• 10 ankle touches
• 10 russian twists
• Butt (Glutes)
• 20 squats
• 5 bridges
• 10 lunges
• Legs
• 20 second wall sit
• 8 lateral lunges (each side)
• 15 scissors
• 8 fire hydrants (each side)
• 8 plie squat pulses
• Arms 
• 19 push ups, on knees
• 8 dips
• 15 bicep curls
• 15 seconds of punching

Saturday May 31: Ran/walked 3 miles, lots of uphill

Strength Training:

• Abs
• 10 woodchoppers, no weights
• 8 second side plank (each side)
• 16 ankle touches
• 16 russian twists
• Butt (Glutes)
• 20 squats
• 10 bridges
• 15 lunges
• Legs
• 30 second wall sit
• 10 lateral lunges (each side)
• 20 scissors
• 10 fire hydrants (each side)
• 10 plie squat pulses
• Arms
• 10 push ups
• 10 dips
• 20 bicep curls
• 20 seconds of punching

Hopefully that gives you some ideas of how to start working out/what to do if you're stuck in a rut.