This is a serious question. I’ve been drinking green and pink smoothies for about a month, and I’m elated. I love them. I try to make them as healthy as possible (trying not to overdo the fruits) and put all kinds of additional things in them besides my staples of massive quantities of collards, spinach, swiss chard and 2 different kinds of kale, all organic. I add goji berries, almonds, dulce flakes, flax oil, raw wheat germ, a piece of lemon with the rind, hemp protein powder, sprouts, some maca powder, some aloe, some spirolina — I just go nuts. I feel like a mad chemist sometimes. I crave these and I would be happy drinking a green smoothie, slowly, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I am very overweight and feel like this is the first thing I’ve put in my body in, oh, forever, that feels right because it’s so freaking healthy. I haven’t lost much weight yet, just 3-5 pounds, but think that if I continue this, the weight will eventually start coming off. I’m a terrible cook and I don’t trust myself in the kitchen. I manage to mangle everything, even when adhering closely to the recipe. It’s just too frustrating and time consuming, whereas the smoothies take just 5-10 minutes. Can I survive on nothing but green smoothies for a while? What if I DON’T get bored with them? If I want to eat this way for a while, a couple months or more, is there any harm in that? I’m taking enzymes and a probiotic daily as well, and some extra virgin coconut oil in capsules. I also drink a glass of sole every morning when I wake up.
I think I would just listen to my body, and do what it was telling me.
There’s a blog where the person went on a green smoothie diet — just green smoothies — in order to lose a large amount of weight (like 100+ pounds). I don’t know the name, but based on that information, maybe you could Google it.
At first I would say eating only one food is a bad idea, but green smoothies (especially yours) are like 10+ foods. I would say that you could live on your green smoothies. Look at how much you have in them — that is quite a variety of good foods. You could always take a few hours and find out exactly what nutrients are in each ingredient of your ‘typical’ smoothie. Add it all up and see what you’re getting for the day. If you’re low on a certain vitamin/mineral, you can add something else to the smoothie to compensate, or eat something that has that vitamin/mineral in it.
Fitday.com adds up nutrients, but it’s probably not going to know the nutrition profile of aloe, for instance. You’d have to add that in yourself.
A good question. Is there anywhere I can get recipies for vegetable smoothies?
If it were me, I’d probably add some hemp protein powder to your smoothies. I see that you’re adding almonds, but eating 2 oz almonds per day will get you a reasonable amount of fats. I can’t imagine having JUST green smoothie long term, but if you feel satiated and are getting a reasonable amount of protein, I don’t see why not.
I looked for the green smoothie experiment blog, but it appears to have been pulled. Total bummer too, because it was amazing. :)
I wish the Green Smoothie Experiment blog that Katie is referring to was still on the internet, but it’s not. (I just had to remove the link on my site because it’s gone.) The woman started at over 500 lbs. and drank NOTHING BUT GREEN SMOOTHIES FOR FIVE MONTHS. She documented her weight loss of over 100 lbs. in five months. I don’t know what happened after that but she was quite ecstatic about her dramatic health improvements.
You could log all the ingredients into something like DietPower to make sure your nutritional needs are met, but honestly, with all the mad scientist stuff you’re doing, with all those superfoods, I think you’re covered! Plus DietPower and FitDay, while their databases include Doritos, often don’t cover green smoothie ingredients. (Bee pollen? Mustard greens? I doubt it.) You’ve got massive vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, and believe it or not, you’ve got plenty of protein. Hot Pink smoothie has about 9% fat and 9% protein, so it’s very close to what I believe is ideal: 80/10/10, all from whole foods, and almost all raw.
Most people won’t do what you’re doing because they get bored. That will happen before you’re nutritionally deprived!
Robyn
Lydia,
There’s an all veg green smoothie recipe in the 12 Steps program that uses avocado as a base. This is common in veg smoothies.
The renegade health show website recently posted veg smoothie recipe that doesn’t include avocado. It’s not really a green smoothie, as the only greens are the celery leaves and 1 T parsley, but all raw and packed with nutrition anyway. http://renegadehealth.com/blog/how-do-i-get-more-vegetables-in-my-diet/
You could also look up ‘Raw Soups’. I think the 12 Steps has one of those listed, too.
You don’t need a recipe just remember these for elements and have fun experimenting. The 4 elements you need to make a good tasting smoothie or any recipe is an acid, like lemons or limes, salt, like celtic, himalayan, black olives, anything salty, sweet like red pepper or tomatoes or stevia, fat like flax oil, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil, etc. Then you can add spices to make it an italian taste, thai taste, indian taste, you get the picture. I create some great tasting smoothies all veggies. But remember to rotate your ingredients so you are not always eating the same thing everyday where your body can build up an intolerance & actually become allergic to a food. There is enough variety out there to be able to rotate without a problem.
I think you are doing such a great thing! I think you can just live off of those for awhile. You are getting all you need. And I agree with Jessica- listen to your body. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
I don’t know, but have you ever read the Hallelujah Diet book? It talks about eating only raw and then adding some cooked foods in at dinner. They also say that B12 is something you should supplement, I believe. Don’t quote me… :) I eat them and love them.
You guys should take a look at the Yoli Truth Health Blast drink hitting the market in October. It is perfect for this kind of thing and its convenient for everyone. I’ve gotten some from the founders of the company because I’m going to be distributing it for them. It tastes delicious and has a ton of nutrition in it. Check it out: http://www.blastcapsdrink.com/blog/yoli-truth/
Justin
What is a glass of sole?
Sole is in Ch. 10 of Robyn’s “12 Steps to Whole Foods” book. Sole consists of 1 tsp of a solution of Original Himalayan Crystal Salt dissolved in water. It’s supposed to restore the body’s acid-alkaline balance, normalize blood pressure, dissolve and release crystallized deposits, cleanse the intestines and replace electrolytes.
Here’s more on Sole: http://www.americanbluegreen.com/sole.html
Thanks Randy!
If you want to lose weight it is very critical that you are not consuming refined oils, they are no different than white flour. They have been removed from the nut or seed and contain no protein, no carbohdrate and no vitamins or minerals they are plain fat and at 9 calories per gram instead of 4 calories per gram you have to be very, very cautious about that. Your essential fats should come from whole foods, flax seeds, avocados, nuts and seeds. That way you are getting essential fats with all the other nutrients from the whole food.
Coconut oil is NOT weight loss food, it has never scientifically been proven to help humans lose weight. This claim is made because some farmers noticed their cattle lost weight when they gave it to them but it is not weight loss food.
If you want to lose weight you should limit yourself to 1 Tb. flax seeds per day or 1 oz. of nuts.
Green smoothies are excellent but as I found when I first went raw, you can consume too many calories from them because they are liquid. I was consuming half my daily requirement of calories in 1 smoothie in the morning so by dinner I had over consumed on calories and I gained weight steadily! Be very careful when you are ‘drinking’ your calories because you can still gain weight if you aren’t careful.
It might be a good idea to download the cron-o-meter. It is free software that allows you to calculate your calories and nutritional content of your diet. It might be a good idea for you to help you get on track and lose more weight.
If you consume salads you can completely sabotage your weight loss goals by putting an oil laden dressing on your salad. In fact when I first went raw and gained 10 pounds I had no idea that I had put 400-500 calories on my salad just in my dressing alone!! You have to make homemade dressings with some tahini, cashews or zucchini as the base in place of the oil. Just go light on the nuts and seeds in the dressings and then add water.
Oils will sabotage weight loss every time so I would recommend avoiding them. I find it funny that people condemn refined grains but praise refined oils as if removing fat from its natural source is somehow better than removing a carbohydrate from its natural source. Oils oxidize rapidly when isolated and they will damage your arteries. Oxidation happens long before they become rancid so you cannot tell that they are oxidized but this is very damaging and is one of the contributors to macular degeneration, heart disease and diabetes. If you want scientific research showing the damage of refined oils I recommend Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman or go to his website drfuhrman.com
Hopefully that will help you.
I am pleased to say that FitDay DOES have both bee pollen and raw mustard greens!!
Wow Tandi, that’s a lot of good information. Thanks for writing in, altho I would secretly love to see you and Robyn duke it out (in the most respectful way possible, of course) over whether extra virgin coconut oil helps weight loss or has no effect at all. :-)
I have been having a 40oz smoothie in the morning for the last 4 mnths varying the ingredients based on whatever is on sale on the too ripe rack at the grocery store which I blend and freeze in ice cube trays or cut up and freeze in freezer bags. I have used grapes ,pears,plums apples,blueberrys strawberrys,raspberrys ,melons etc. I always use 2 bananas 3tbs organic apple cider vinegar a scoop of fruit protien powder which has hemp,pea, rice ,& chia protien ,1 cup of yogurt ,1 tbs cold pressed organic flax seed oil & 3tbs chia seeds, then I add whatever fruit and veggies ( broccoli sprouts ,alfalfa sprouts ,spinach etc) Then I start the blender and add juice or almond milk etc to get a milkshake consistency . I dont get hungry until dinner time then I have a salad or a veggie sub and tomatoes for dinner . Ive lost 15lbs and I feel great. The key I think is the chia seeds they slow down your metabolism so you dont get a sugar spike from the fruit .They have omega 3,6,9 fatty acids,water soluable fiber to aid digestion. I bought them from nutsonline.com. Im 6′ !”
I started at 255lbs I’m down to 240 The amazing thing is that I dont get hungry with a smoothie for breakfast and a salad for dinner !
I don’t think it would be very healthy to live off of green smoothies only. Try to incoorperate more whole grains into your diet as they are very important. I always eat a piece of whole wheat bread with my smoothies, or else I get a stomach ache.