The Green Drink

How many of you start your day with a cup of coffee or a bowl of cereal?  Or even worst, how many of you skip breakfast in the mornings?  Approximately, 31 million American's or 10% skip breakfast everyday!!!  That just astounds me.  Did you know people that skip breakfast tend to be more overweight, eat more sweets, are more crankier, higher chance of heart attacks, and the list keeps going on and on.  We know that eating breakfast is important.  Yet we keep going down the dangerous path of not starting the day off right.

So Why are we skipping this ever important meal???  I'd say the main reason is time.  Most of us love our sleep and try to sleep until the very last second before we have to leave for work or school. Or even better, some people keep hitting the snooze button until they realize that they're already late for work or school.  Well I'm here to tell you, that needs to stop immediately.  Waking up an extra 5-10 minutes will change your day, week, month, and life!  That's all I'm asking for, 5-10 minutes to change the outcome of your life.  Of course, later on, I'll advocate to wake up even earlier than that to accomplish more before you head out that door.  But that's for another post.

Now that we've woken up an extra 5 minutes, what am I suppose to do?  This is the time to make the greatest breakfast of all time.  No, it's not eggs, bacon,  or egg mcmuffins.  And no it's not pancakes or waffles.  What I'm talking about is a green drink.  Say what!?!?  WTF is a green drink?  This is going to be a drink that will change your life forever. No kidding.  Luckily for me, I grew up in a household that had a mother who was REALLY big into health and nutrition.  And part of this healthy environment, we were given a green drink almost every morning before going to school.  And let me tell you, it was no Kobe Beef.  This was a hard up, full of the nastiest greens, hold your nose while trying to guzzle it down.  At that time, I didn't appreciate what my mom was trying to do for me.  I just thought she was trying to poison me.

Then off to college I went.  And the classic American breakfast became my new staple, chocolate milk and hostess mini donettes.  Only reason why this became my stable is because it was the best option to buy from the vending machine.  And it was delicious!  But this was at a great cost of being droggy and falling asleep during classes.  And now the green drink I got from home was completely negated by all my donuts and chocolate milk I had.  After my freshman year in college, I went on a 2 year mission for my church.  I had the opportunity to live in the beautiful country of Japan.  My breakfast eating options improved dramatically.  Mainly, because I had companions that loved to cook and taught me some good things to cook up.  Once I got good enough at cooking, I started cooking up for all my companions.  Health and life got a lot better.  When I got home from my mission, I vowed to eat healthy and workout diligently.  My life took a drastic change and boy did I feel great!

Fast forward a bunch of years to when I got married.  When I got married, we talked about how we wanted to be healthy and stay in shape.So we formulated a game plan, and decided that we wanted to start our day off like how I use to as a kid.  What this meant was we needed a good blender like my mother had.  After lots and lots of research, our decision came down to a Blendtec Blender (Will it Blend) or a Vitamix.  Both blenders being fully capable of blending whatever your heart so desires.  We ended up deciding on the Blendtec.  Reason why we decided on the Blendtec was first, on sale at Costco so we can return it if we ever wanted to, second, has more horsepower, the more power the better.  Third, I like all the cool buttons on it. :)

Ok, so we got our blender.  What is this green drink you've been talking about?  Like what is in it???  Glad you asked!  The green drink is whatever you want to put in it.  And as long as it turns green in the end, you're in a good shape.  It is that simple but let's give you details of what I like to put in my drink.  Here are some suggested items:
-Spinach (handful)
-Kale (handful)
-Apple
-Celery (a few sticks)
-Cucumber (1/3 a stick)
-Chia Seed
-Hemp Seed
-Kefir
-Acai
-Coconut water
-Soaked Almonds
-Frozen fruit (use strawberries, berry medley, banana, pretty much any fruit you want to add)

And that's the basic stuff that I like to add.  I'll change things up every now and then and add some variety.  But I can't start my day without it and either can my wife.  Well there you have it, my ultimate green drink!  And yes, I do take flak at work bringing it in every morning.  I'll follow up with more posts on why I add certain things to the green drink.  Let's just say you're starting off your day with every nutrient your body need to sustain you through the day.

Thanks for reading!

What do you have for breakfast?

Getting the little one ready to drink them too!