Green smoothie blog #8 - Traveling and adaptability.

I travel a lot for work and it's not always easy to find a green smoothie that isn't loaded with a ton of sugar from fruit juice.  I like Jugo Juice with a substitution of coconut water for the fruit juice when I'm on the road in Canada.  We're noticing that we've become hyper sensitive to sweetness so we eliminate and sub out the fruit juice in our smoothies.

My wife is traveling to Denver this weekend for one of her business trips.  Jumped onto Google to see what's available to her and not surprisingly there aren't many options.  The places we've found are loaded with sugar/fruit juice along with whole fruits with very little veggies. 

We hoped onto Amazon and found a potential solution in the form of this powdered green smoothie.  It's not as good as our fresh blended smoothies but it's better than not having any or having ones load with sugar. Adaptability is key to ensuring that we find solutions to problems as they come up.  I'm very curious to how it's going to taste but considering there isn't any sugar makes me happy and it's made in Canada which is a huge plus for us.

Smoothie recipe

1 scoop Active Green Pro

200 ml water 

50 grams ice cubes

Blend or shake in a shaker bottle and enjoy.

Mr. Repay

Preparing for the invetible.

Here's what I'm working on to help push through those times.

1. No guilt

2. Blog

3. Record everything.

4. When I don't want to train physically, do something mental/spiritual.

5. Do something everyday, no matter how small. 

6.Celebrate the wins.

7. Don't get hung up on the numbers, embrace the spirit of the journey.

8. Communicate and commuincate some more.

9. Share my journey with my wife

1. No guilt - This has been my nemisis.  I'm very hard on my self as I have a  mentality of being the best at everything.  Now I'm embracing self gratitude and forgiveness.  

2. Blog - Write and write some more.  Writing helps me with #7 and helps me be accountable for where I am.  Re reading my blogs brings perspective to my journey and re focuses me when I'm not feeling it.

3. Record everything - I don't know where I'm going if I don't know where I started or how far along the journey I am.  I record everything including things that were never part of my original requirements.  I'm finding that the process of recording has a direct corolation to motivation and sucess.

4. When I don't want to train physically, do something mental/spiritual - I have many requirments for a reason, they all serve me as long as I reconginze this.  There have been days already when I didn't want to train.  Instead of feeling guilting about this I showed up and watched class, wrote a blog or read mastery. 

5. Do something everyday, no matter how small.  There been days when all is did was drink a green smoothie.  It was a small accomplishment and I recorded it.

6. Celebrate the wins - No matter how small it is I take some time to celebrate the win.  These posative wins are motivation and I can use all the motivation I can get.  I don't diminsh the power of celbrating my wins.

7. Don't get hung up on the numbers - This is a tough one I have a lot of goals I'm striving to accomplish.  However if all I'm focused on is meeting these numbers I'm going to miss the spirit of the I Ho Chuan journey.  This is a journey of mastery that none of us are ever going to achieve.  But by moving in that direction every single day no matter how fast or slow I'm still moving in the right direction.

8. Commuincate and communicate some more - This is a new one for me and arguably the most impactiful on my year so far.  In the past when I didn't like something, I'd withdraw and go silent.  Not this year, I've communicate more openly and more often then ever before. I've utilized "one on ones" with this and those conversations have been a great help.

9. Share my journey with my wife - In the past I did this alone.  This year my wife is a key part of my journey.  I share my blogs with her as soon as I write them, and I talk with her as much as I can.  She's my biggest cheerleader and I can't do this with out her.

I realized after reading what I've wrote, that all of these things are contributing to my engagement of which is what I've been missing.

Mr. Repay

Green Smoothier Blog #7 - Blood Pressure

My blood pressure 8 weeks ago was 130 over 76 and was considered pre hypertension by my doctor.  We have a blood pressure machine in our home to take weekly readings to monitor it.  Both my wife and I have reduced our blood pressure significalty just through diet change and adding in some exercise.  For her it's back to riding lessons and for me it's back to regular training at class and my I Ho Chuan requirments.  

We were discussing our blood pressure improvements this morning and the most significant change that we can attribute this improvement to is our diet.  Green smoothies have been an amazing addition to our diet.  The large amounts of raw leafy greens, raw broccoli, raw carrots, raw ginger, avacado with a low percentage of fruits has to be the #1 improvement to our diet.  The elimination of fast food is a close second as that food has been engineered with high amounts of salt, saturated fats and sugar.  And finally the last major change has been to reduce and almost completly eliminate processed foods such as salami's, crackers, store bought breads (I bake my breads weekly) etc.  The almost total emilimation of these foods has stablized our blood sugar levels, decreased our salt intake and the chemicals from processed foods have been decreased dramtically.  

Finally the last thing we've added into our diet routine has been intermitent fasting.  We no longer eat breakfast and stop eating around 8 pm and don't start eating until around 11am or noon.  We've found that IF has allowed our digestive system to have a nice little break.  In the past and before our sugar reduction IF was difficult to stick with.  I would have felt hungry and would have leaned toward being "hangry" when it came to my mood.  Now we're hungry but not "hangry" and I can stretch my fast well into the afternoon when I'm busy without much issue.

Green smoothies have become the cornerstore for our physical and mental health.  Our clothes are fitting better, we feel much more alert and our overall moods have stablized.  What an amazing feeling and it has everything to do with changing and improving our diet.

Green Smoothie recipe.

2 cups kale

1 cup spinach

1 cup shredded carrots

1 cup brocolli

1/4 cup frozen avacado (good fats and helps emulsify the smoothie)

1/4 cup each frozen apple, mango and pear

1 large nub of fresh ginger

750 ml's of water

Blend and enjoy.

Mr. Repay

My building blocks of sustainability

This has become my mantra for this year's I Ho Chuan year.  I've realized that it needed to be incorporated into my life more this year than in years past.  

What's different is how I'm going about it. I've started with the absolute basics.  I write everything down, no matter what it is and how many.  I've added six new trackable activities to my list of personal requirements.  I've found that recording them helps to realize that I've done something productive for the day.  It's kinda like a small task completed leads to bigger task completed by the end of the day or days down the road.

My next step was to add in activities a little by a little.  For me that was simply having a green smoothie every single day.  I haven't missed a day in the past 42 days.  I've been recording it in my spreadsheet so I actually know how many days it's been, exactly.  I used this as a litmus test to see how sustainable this could be for me before I added more.  Turns out it's been quite sustainable which lead me to the next block which was reaching out to Sifu Brinker just prior to the banquet.  I've added in more and more over the past two months all the while keeping a keen eye on sustainablity.  

My point here is that for me sustainability had to be built upon, one block at a time.  It's helped me to build some amazing habits.  It's helped me level out the highs and lows that have plagued me in the past.  It's provided motivation to do things when I don't want to do them. It's also helped me when I've faltered this year.  I can move past it and accept it for what it was, a temporary set back.  The next moment is an opportunity to keep moving forward and I've done that with simply recording my drinking of a green smoothie.

Mr. Repay

Green smoothie blog #6 - Espresso

I LOVE coffee, specifically espresso soooooo much that I've been obsessed with brewing the perfect shot.  So much that I have developed my own recipe for the amount of beans and water, I time the brew of the shot and measure (in grams) the brewed espresso.  I have a seperate Italian burr grinder, digital scale, de clumping tools etc.   I'm that obsessed with a great shot of espresso LOL!

Now that my diet has changed I don't crave or need espresso like I used to.  In the past I'd make myself at least two double shots (I have never added sugar to my espresso) in the morning and usually a double shot in the afternoon.  Now I'm having a double shot in the morning and that's all for the rest of the day.  If I have more than this, I'm irratiable and the caffeine really bothers me.  

I've been noticing these subtle changes in my pallate and how my body is adjusting.  The thing is I LOVE espresso so much that I've been switching from my regular caffeinated beans to testing some new de caffeinated beans. I don't need to give up espresso I just need to keep adapting which is so familiar to my Kung Fu training.  

Green smoothie from today.  

P.s We've been prepping, slicing and freezing our own fruits and veggies.  It really cuts down on the cost of the pre frozen, pre packaged ones.

3 cups water

1 bunch fresh broccoli

3 cups spinach, beet and kale greens

1 cup shredded fresh carrots

1/2 cup frozen zucchini.

1 large nub of fresh ginger

1/4 each of frozen apple and pineapple.  

Blend and enjoy!

A little bit of this and that.

This is the first week that I've been away from the kwoon in a couple of weeks.  I wasn't "feeling" like I wanted to attend Monday's class.  My wife tried her best to convince me but it still wasn't working until she said "why don't you just log in and watch the class".  I did exactly that and eventhough I didn't participate in class I didn't break the posative momentum that I'd built over the past couple of weeks.  Tonight I logged in and participated in class from my hotel room.  It wasn't the best situation as I didn't have a lot of room and it's been tough learning the sword form in person so it was even tougher over Zoom.  However it was sooooo good to participate and getting some hand form reps in and some sword form reps.  I really liked the intensity of the warm up tonight as well.

I had my first one on one with Sifu Rybak this week and it was great just chatting.  I'm finding that I need to actively engage if I want to progress and keep moving forward.  

It's been a pretty good week so far with some ups and downs but I'm happy to keep moving forward.  I didn't have a great eating day today but it's only one day and I'm not beating myself up over it.  I recognize that there will be days like today but they won't de rail me like they did in the past.  I keep asking myself these questions, "why am I on this journey? Why have I changed my diet? Why am I a Kung Fu martial artist?".  I can finally say that the answers are more about the journey than the destination. It's never been like this for me but I've come to realize that the journey has become more important.

Mr. Repay

Green Smoothie #5 - Gut Health

This has been the most surprisingingly posative result that I wasn't totally expecting.  My gut health hasn't been the greatest.  I've struggled with gassiness and bloating along with an irritated bowel for many years.  

When I changed my diet to remove sugar and add in the green smoothies I was astonished to see the affects it's had on my gut.  The gassiness has gone down 90 percent. I've attributed alot of this to excess sugar that was being fermented in my gut.  The bloatiness was also a by product of the excess sugar.  Previously my diet was low on both soluable and insoluble fibre which is essential to a health gut.  The good bacteria and microbes feed off of this fiber and without it my gut was in a constant state of irritation.  

I can't stress enough how important gut health is to an overall healthy body.  A diet low in fiber, high in sugar, salt and refined foods (our western diet) is horrificaly bad to our digestive system.  I'm pleased to see that the changes to my diet have been fairly easy and it quickly changed the health of my gut.  The next step is to add in some fermented foods like naturaly fermented  sourkraut and spicy kimchi.  I'm not a big fan of dairy so it may take a little while to add in yogurt etc.  I do enjoy kumbhucha but I need to find someone willinging to share a healthy scobi with me, hint hint!

Smoothy recipe from last night. 

3 cups of water

2 cups of fresh kale

2 cups of fresh spinach

1 large bunch of fresh brocolli

1 large nub of fresh ginger

1/4 frozen avacado (healthy fats and emulsifies the smoothie).

1/4 each of mango, pineapple and apple all frozen. 

The addition of ginger on Sifu Brinker's recommendation is AAMAZING!  

Hint - fresh ginger helps fight inflimation ☺️.

Mr. Repay