Mindful Eating and a Green Smoothie {21DSD wk 2}

woot woot. One week down! Sarah and I have been rockin' it. We both had a great weekend with the 21DSD.  We also had a wonderful 2-hour phone date on Sunday night - I just love our phone dates!  It was filled with the normal girly chit-chat but also some great conversation around food and nutrition.  We had a great discussion about being mindful while eating, which we had both touch on last week in all of our check-ins with each other. As a result of our marvelous conversation, we both decided to have a few goals for week 2 of the 21DSD.

{Leah and Sarah's week 2 goals} 

• Be conscious and really evaluate food choices based on how you feel and what you think your body will need for  the rest of the day or to recover well from your previous activity, i.e a workout. 
• Sit down to eat. No more just grabbing food out of the fridge and standing in front of the fridge (even when you aren't hungry) and eating..*cough* Leah!

• Take small bites and put the utensils down while you are chewing.

• In regards to chewing: Chew! No we mean really chew. No taking a bite, chewing two or three times and swallowing...really chew.  

• Lastly, take your time to eat- which should be a given if we are focusing on the above three goals.

The last goal of taking time to eat is so important. Too often we spend 30-60 minutes cooking a meal then we sit down and - BAM!! - 10 minutes later we are down inhaling our food without thinking about it.  Why not take our time and really enjoy the meal we just cooked.

Are you mindfully eating or do you have any mindful eating goals you are working on??

I will end this post with a gratifying green smoothie which I mindfully enjoyed yesterday morning for breakfast. 

{the gratifying green smoothie} 

 So delicious and super filling! 

I had this with a cup of decaf coffee to keep me warm. :)

the gratifying green smoothie

1/2 frozen avocado (or non frozen)
1/2 cucumber, partially peeled
1/2 small green apple
2-3 cups spinach
1 tablespoon curried walnut butter
1/4 coconut milk, full fat
1 cup water
4-5 ice cubes

1/8-1/4 teaspoon of each:
cinnamon
cloves
nutmeg

Method:

1. Place all ingredients in the blender. For the spices, I started by adding a little of each.

2. Blend away! Taste and add more spice as your desire. I ended up adding more ice too.

3. Pour into a cup and mindfully enjoy! ;-)

*This makes a large smoothie, halve it if you aren't too hungry. I ate this at 7am and wasn't hungry until 12:30! Awesome. 

Tips/Tricks:

• You can freeze avocados! I recently learned this. It has changed my world. I cut the avocado in half, sliced each half into 3 slices, removed the slices from the peel with a spoon, sprinkled with a little lemon juice, toss each half in a bag and placed it in the freezer.  Easy peasy! I think next time I freeze avocados I will mash them before freezing.
• Place the softer items in the blender first. It gets the blending going a little easier.

Variations:

• Instead of the warmer spices, add mint and lime or lemon juice. 
• Have fun with it!!