Green Smoothie for Weight Loss?

So, like me, I'm sure that everyone has some sort of health bettering resolution on their New Year's resolution. Weight loss, eating better, whatever. We tend to eat pretty healthy in this family (minus my addiction to Lays Sea Salt & Vinegar chips and Cherry Cokes) but I'm always looking for ways to add more water/fruit/veggies to my diet. 

Have you seen the green smoothie craze on pinterest? I read thru a few of them, and while some people use kale or chard, the general consensus is that spinach is the most tasteless of the "greens". 


So I decided to give it a try. I was a bit hesitant on the whole "let's throw some spinach in a fruit smoothie" thing. So at first, I just put one handful of spinach in my smoothie, and I didn't taste it AT ALL. So I added another handful, and still, nada. 


I've been making these for about a week now, with different fruit combinations. My girls even like drinking these. 


The basic recipe I use is...


2 bananas (it's a great way to use those bananas that are getting too soft to eat)


2 handfuls of spinach


handful of strawberries (I end up using 6-8 medium sized ones)


ice cubes, about 6-8


a cup of milk




If I'm not sharing it with the girls, I'll throw in a half a scoop of my protein powder, which gives it a slight chocolate taste. The protein powder I use is Champion Nutrition Pure Whey Protein powder in chocolate. It's 130 calories per scoop with 26 grams of protein.

I'll also add a spoonful of Metamucil fiber powder to mine. 

Spinach has fiber, vitamins A, C, E and K. Other health benefits of spinach can be found here. For me, I can always use more veggies in my diet, so anything that doesn't take a huge amount of additional effort in my book is a win. 


Some people use orange juice as their liquid, others use water. I never drink milk, so anytime I can add milk to a recipe and not taste it, I'll do it. Other people use almond milk (which is still on my "to try" list) or soy milk. 


You can basically add any fresh fruit that you have on hand (I will say that I tried it with raspberries, and didn't care for it, the raspberries were too over powering).

Now, mine did not turn out as pretty of a green color as the ones pictured on Pinterest. Mine is more of a blah, boring green. (I could have photoshopped it up, but that's not my style). But it's yummy, and easy to make.  I've been doing one for breakfast. I always end up making enough for two big glasses of it. So I'll do one for breakfast, and put it in the fridge until it's time to have it for my morning snack. 


Have you jumped on the green smoothie craze? Are you going to try it?