Shakeology update

Over the last few months I have been experimenting with shakeology to see if its worth buying it on a regular basis. I have finally decided the answer is yes. I pretty much stopped working out months ago because other things got in the way. I was surviving on 4 hours of sleep a night but shakeology gave me the energy to get through the day at that time I was still eating relatively healthy. Then I had oral surgery and other than shakeology, bananas, and avacado's everything else I ate was junk food pudding, icecream, pasta, cookies etc and unless you considering sleeping a form of exercise no exercise either. I still lost 5 pounds and if you have been following my blog that hasn't happened for awhile. This diet was about a month. It took me a few months to get used to shakeology I didn't drink it everyday at the beginning I didn't like the taste and texture and it felt like it wasn't agreeing with me.  I did find that the vegan versions sit a lot better in my stomach than the non vegan ones. I kept drinking it because there was no doubt that it was giving me the energy I needed. There was a few weeks where my shipment was lost and I didn't have it and I could really feel the difference in my energy level. I now drink it at least 5 times a week and I find the days I don't drink it I eat a lot more. I don't intentially not eat when I drink it I just don't feel like eating anything else. I now really enjoy the taste it feels like a treat now it took awhile to get to that point I guess it was all part of the detox process. The tropical strawberry is the best taste, chocolate second, and I don't like the vanilla and haven't tried the greenberry.  I now replace my workday breakfast or lunches with shakeology. Its easy I take a blender bottle to work and shake it and have lunch. It prevents me from eating out and I don't need to buy groceries or think what am I going to have for lunch today. I have not given up Starbucks but that is more of a social thing and I am sure I could go without it now if I wanted to but I enjoy my one latte a day. Althought the price of shakeology seems high at first the amount of money I have saved on not buying junk food or even vegetables that end up going bad it pays for itself.  I am not a coach yet so I don't get a discount unless I get it on sale its still about $5 a serving but it replaced at least a $5 junk food or lunch item and relieves the stress of making lunches and I am sure future medications. The days I am going out  socially I intentially don't have a shake because then I would be eating nothing in the restaurant and that would be awkward. There is one other side effect that I have noticed my hair grows like crazy and it sometimes it looks like I styled it when I haven't done anything. The negative part of this is my unwanted body hair also grows like crazy. Just tells me the nutrients are working. I know a lot of people think why not just drink a cheaper protein shake but if you look at my previous posts garden of life was a very good shake but my energy levels didn't increase the way they do with shakeology and the benefits were not the same. These are the results I had I did do a lot of research before buying my first package and was very hesitant to start drinking something that could potentially be discontinued at some point. For now it works I like it so I will continue drinking it. My next experiment will be the difference between results from beachbody workouts without shakeology and beachbody workouts with shakeology. Future posts and hopefully results to come. 

March 6, 2014 - Sweet Potato Soup

Some posts to come about where I have been lately. I just made this soup and want to get the recipe out before I forget its pretty awesome. I am recovering from oral surgery right now and haven't been up to cooking or eating much lately but I bought the sweet potatoes prior and didn't want to waste them. I have never used boxed vegetable broth before as I usually make my own but I bought the broth when I knew I was going to be on a liquid non-spicy diet and never felt like eating soup while I was on a liquid diet. This soup is so simple and really tastes great. I was originally going to put some sour cream in it but decided its really good on its own.

Sweet Potato Soup (2 servings)
1 sweet onion
3 sweet potatoes
1 cup vegetable broth
1 piece of ginger
some water

Really that's all that went into this.

 cook the onions first then add the sweet potato. I was cutting the sweet potato while the onions were cooking and didn't finish them all at the same time. It would be better to cut the potatoes first.

 Definitely will be using this vegetable broth again. After adding the sweet potato add 3/4 cup of vegetable broth.

 let cook on medium heat stir every few minutes.  I used the back of a wooden spoon to mash the potatoes while they were cooking.  When it looks like this around 20 minutes add the ginger and let it sit.

15 minutes later it looks like this. You can also eat this like this as a side still tastes good.

 I bought a new magic bullet when I found I could get a blender attachment with it. This is the first time I have used this. Love it. I added the rest of the broth and some water before blending.

 Then it looks like this so creamy and no cream

I added more some water to get the remainder out of the blender and its more soup like but will probably thicken up again.
That's all enjoy.