Drink more smoothies

This should have been posted on Friday, but I was ski coaching. The good news is that very few people know about this blog yet, so I haven't let many down.

My last post was about compression shirts so I figure it makes sense to follow up with another gym inspired/new years resolution type post.

Smoothies are good. They taste good, they're refreshing/hydrating, they help build muscle and flush away crap from your body. I try to make one right when I come home from the gym so that I can give my body what it needs. Typically, I use the following ingredients:

• Mango
• 1/2 banana
• 2 tbsp blueberries
• 1/3 large container of skim yoghurt
• Whey protein (60 grams)
• Flax seed
• Wheat germ
• 3 oz skim milk

You can really put any frozen fruit you want in the thing and I find it usually tastes pretty good. Some find that two scoops of protein is too much, so they use less. Use whatever, just include fruit, yoghurt, protein powder and a bit of milk.

Now to the consumerist part. You need to blend the ingredients. I currently use a hand blender, which is not ideal. I had a Hamilton Beach counter top blender but it broke. A lot of the less expensive blenders have cheap plastic gear teeth that break and render the blender useless. If you have more money than you should, the Vita-Mix 5000 is unanimously considered to be the best blender available. It will run you around $400 US but it will blend more efficiently than you can stalk on Facebook. Those of us on a more reasonable budget should consider an Oster or Kitchen Aid (still looking at two bills) product. I find Sears is a good place to look for these kind of small appliances but Walmart is carrying the Oster 12 speed for $47.48 CDN

If you're buying any blender under $70 CDN, make sure it has a glass container rather than a plastic one and a metal drive system, such as that in the Oster 12 speed. Plastic parts will break fast.