Drinking Green Smoothies on a daily basis has become a habit for life. I now crave them as soon as I get up in the morning. Green Smoothies are the first thing I want to drink to start my day. They are the first thing I think of when I want to have a snack and they are the first thing I crave after a run that lasts for 2 hours plus!
At the 6 week mark, I met with the nutritionist at work. When I first heard we had a nutritionist at work whom we could visit for free, I thought “I won’t be meeting with her, I already eat very healthfully.” But the more I thought about it, I realized I could probably glean some valuable information from her. I didn’t go to school to learn nutrition, although, i think that is something that should be taught in schools as an important part of the curriculum like math and english. We eat everyday and majority of people know very little about what they put in their bodies. That’s a whole different thing to blog about.
Anyway, I decided to track everything I ate each day for a week and review it with the nutritionist. Being an ultra runner, my main concern is energy. The running is the fun part. Figuring out what to eat/drink before, during and after is the hard part. Everyone is different. Since I started ultra running a few years ago, I have made many changes in my eating habits to improve my health overall and for running. When she reviewed my list of foods, she told me it looked good in that I was getting all of the vitamins and minerals needed; However she pointed out that I was still eating too many carbs and not getting enough protein and good fats for recovery and energy. The irony of this is that when my friend told me he was on a high-fat diet, I was shocked and thought I’ll never do something like that (check out his blog, runfatter.blogspot.com). I always have to be mindful of what I say because I usually end up doing what I say I won’t. Anyway, I’m going to focus my protein and good fat increase with more of a plant -based meal plan. Currently, I’m not a vegetarian, but now more than ever, I have been steering myself towards eating more plant-based foods. Why? I feel better.
After that discussion, I have made a few changes to my overall eating plan as well as to my Green Smoothie. The Green Smoothie changes that I made are 1) I removed the ground flaxseed. My body was not adjusting to it for the past 6 weeks as I was constantly bloated and uncomfortable. The day I stopped, is the day I felt better. The nutritionist mentioned it could also have been bad flaxseed. She said it’s better to buy whole flaxseed, grind it in the coffee grinder and then store it in the fridge to keep it fresh. It’s not as fresh when it’s bought already ground up and not stored in the fridge. Now I know. 2) I added coconut oil to my smoothie to get some good fat in my system and 3) I added organic pea protein.
My next task is to figure out what am I going to do about my Green Smoothies when I have to travel to China for 10 days for work?
My discoveries... 