Great App for Your Phone

And it's free! Check it out: Fooducate

This great little app has a scanner so you just scan your item and all kinds of info comes up on it, including WHY it's good or bad. You can also just search by product title.


My husband is having a great time with this. He's actually the one who showed it to me. He's been educating all the guys he works with on what a heart attack they're consuming every morning before even lunch, between their ho-ho's, dunkin' stix, lard roll, deep fried fat balls and drowned with 3 servings of the typical carbonated caffeinated death drink that includes 1/2 cup of sugar in total.... you get what I mean. He cracks me up, I just hope the guys are getting some eye opening awareness before they wind up orphaning a family. I forget how awful people can eat when they choose to just ignore it. I forget it's even out there because I choose to never look at it. But when you do, after you haven't... it's shocking, truly. I can't even believe some of this crap is legal.

Check out the app though. I was surprised to see that even some things I thought weren't so bad, are still in the grade of "C" range.

New Favorite Site for Recipes

I'm always looking for new smoothie recipes. I stumbled onto this site that has an "app" built into the web (you can also download for your iPhone/iPad here: Visit the App Store

http://greensmoothiesblog.com/recipes/index.php?view_page=categories

You can categorize by recipe, ingredient, or type of recipe by the navigational tools at the bottom. Check out these great webshots:






If you find a great recipe source, please share in the comments below! I would certainly love it if I could find one site that had them all!

The Blendtec

I did a lot of research on blenders before investing in the Blendtec. The Vita-Mix looks pretty good too, but I liked the design of the Blendtec, especially because it would fit under my cabinets, and it seemed more powerful than any others and I believe that it is. You'll have to do your own research to choose for yourself, but this is what I like about it…

• one touch buttons and self timing categories for blending like: soups, ice cream, smoothie, etc. So whatever it is you want, there is no complicated techniques to blend.
• it's fast and very thorough, it creates a vortex, sucking everything down into the blades and blends everything finely including ice and does not need a tamper to push the food into the blades like some other blenders (even other expensive ones). You only need just enough liquid to get things moving if you're using mostly frozen foods. This means you can put the whole fruit in and benefit from so many more micronutrients that you would normally cut off to eat whole (fibrous centers, leafy tops, seeds, etc.
• so versatile, you can make your own nut butters, dressings, soups, smoothies, baby food, ice cream, you name it! For this reason, you could wind up using the blender all day… fruit/veggie smoothies for breakfast, soup for lunch, dressing/sauces at dinner, blended cocktails or ice cream for dessert! And we do use it a lot.

Here are a couple sites and a few websites where you can see various demos:

http://www.blendtec.com/roadshow
http://www.willitblend.com



(click on image to enlarge detail)


Look for online coupons at RetailMeNot.com (type in Blendtec to see what the best current coupon is) or go to Sam's Club or CostCo. I saw an awesome demo at Sam's before we bought ours, but it looks like the demo closest to us is coming up in KC at a CostCo. You can look here for a schedule nearest you:

http://www.blendtec.com/roadshow


I'm not going to lie, this is not an inexpensive purchase. It is an investment in an appliance that will change your lifestyle forever IF YOU USE IT. You have to be committed to real change. You can make smoothies with your home blender. You CAN. It's just that a typical blender will not blend whole fruits without a lot of cutting or ice without burning up over time. Results vary, smoothies may be chunky with fruit or ice. For some people, those textures make it harder to swallow and much harder to motivate yourself to choose to use green smoothies as a healthy option for some meals or to accompany meals. I don't want to make my blog out to be about meal-replacement shakes. I'm not an "all-exclusive" thinker. I don't necessarily believe you need to replace all of your meals with veggie/fruit smoothies. But if your breakfasts normally consist of high saturated fat, high refined carbs, and you don't have time to sit down to eat a banana, an apple, an orange and a handful of kale or spinach, then a green smoothie is a great alternative to your current habits.

Reviews:
• ConsumerReports.org... editors include the Blendtec Total Blender in regular testing and performance comparisons with other models, but they also give the Blendtec special consideration in this preview. Its ability to go beyond normal blender duties is assessed and compared with its main competitor, the Vita-Mix 5000 (now the Vita-Mix 5200).
• Amazon.com... more than 100 owners award the Blendtec Total Blender an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Owners say that this is a powerful, heavy-duty blender that can handle any vegetable or fruit, no matter how fibrous. Owners also report that the Blendtec is extremely noisy.
• Epinions.com... there are reviews of several different Blendtec models here. According to Blendtec, the HP3A model has a menu button that allows you to access a screen with more speed selections, while the Blendtec TB-621-20 model has nine buttons, one for each available speed. The blenders are otherwise the same. Owners say that the Blendtec Total Blender is powerful and easy to clean, but also say it's noisy.
• PerfectSmoothie.com... the editors evaluated several blenders, although their methods aren't detailed. In the High End Blenders category, they praise both the Vita-Mix and Blendtec blenders but choose Vita-Mix as a top pick.
• GreenSmoothieGirl.com.... editors compare the Blendtec and Vita-Mix blenders, noting the difference in features between the two. that the reviewer says she's had to send her Vita-Mix back to the manufacturer several times but not so with the Blendtec.

My review:
It's amazing! I've had mine for over a year and absolutely LOVE it still. There are a ton of recipe sites out there if you look. Sign up here for a weekly recipe to be emailed to you. Vitamix recipes work just as well, too. I have a few links in the nav bar to the left of this page. Have an open mind, you will find ones that you like. This is a fun and super easy, time-saving way to get way more fruits and vegetables in your diet when you choose to adopt a healthier plant-based lifestyle.

Lose It! App

If you have an iPhone or iPad, I highly recommend this app. There are several out there, but this is the one I used the most and I know it helped me through the first 25 pounds I lost. After you use it for several months, and you eat basically the same things, you may find you don't feel that you need it as much. You start to know how many calories was in your breakfast or lunch, etc because you've seen it before. But I'm here to tell you, food logging is the way to go if you're serious about turning your life around. You will be blown away when you look up some of the dishes you've eaten at restaurants and desserts you've had at DQ. whew. I was shocked. It's more of an education and an exercise in responsible, mindful, purposeful eating. It's awesome. LoseIt!

My favorite for checking out restaurant meals was this one: Calorie Counter
I rarely had a problem finding items. This is phenomenally helpful when eating out. But, mostly, you'll find you'll be eating a lot of salmon and tilapia and some salads (drizzle the dressing from "on the side") when you go out because everything else is over 1200 calories.