Simplify Your Diet with Healthy Smoothies

The relationship between food and mood.

At some point in your life, you are going to wonder whether you are eating the right foods. You may feel this way as a result of a traumatic incident such as an illness or the loss of a loved one due to poor health.

Or it may be a mundane problem that gets more serious over time such as fatigue, headache, stress or those pesky extra 10 (or so!) pounds that just don’t melt away!

This point in time happens much earlier for women than for men, but it doesn’t mean we have any better ideas how to deal with it. Women get to that point of self-awareness earlier because we are generally more focused on how we look, but neither sex is all that concerned about the general state of their health until much later in life.

At least, that was the norm when I was growing up first in Iran, then in Turkey and finally in the US. You ate what you had and what your family made, you ate a whole lot during celebrations and holidays and birthdays and a dozen other occasions. You went on a strict diet when you had to “lose weight” and you didn’t fuss so much over food unless you were going to become a dietician or fitness trainer.

You also begin to wonder whether all the food going into your body is in anyway affecting your moods, your general state of happiness and your productivity. (Hint: the answer is yes but more on that in a minute.)

Take the quiz. Learn the truth. You CAN handle it.

How you feel on a day-to-day basis about yourself, your body and life around you is your best indication as to whether you are nourishing your body properly or you need to improve things.

Here’s a quick 10-question quiz to see how you fare on your nutrition knowledge and self-care. Answer yes or no. Keep count of each.

1. Are you too full to move after breakfast or lunch?
2. Or do you skip breakfast altogether and go into lunch ready to eat for 4?
3. Do you feel fatigue mid-afternoon for no reason?
4. Do you use a high-dose of caffeine as a pick-me-up?
5. Do you eat as an emotional response to stress or anxiety?
6. Do you struggle with how to eat well and what to prepare for a healthy meal?
7. Are you above the ideal weight for your age, sex and height?
8. Do you pop vitamin pills to “counter-act” the bad food you eat?
9. Does more than 30% of your food come from some sort of package or can or fast-food lane?
10. Does more than 30% of your food have a TV commercial associated with it?

Your Score: How did you do on the quiz?

• If you had no YES answers, bravo! You are doing a great job for your health.
• If you said YES 2-4 times, it’s best to start paying attention to how you eat.
• If you said YES more than 4 times, you need to drop everything to focus on your diet now.

Knowledge is your best friend. Simplicity your second best friend.

I remember feeling sick to my stomach regularly in college from the foods I was eating at the cafeteria, and not having the slightest idea how to eat better. I knew something is wrong because I did not feel great, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

Sure, more vegetables and less rice were good suggestions, courtesy of the latest issue of some teen magazine but that’s not really all that helpful. Is it?

At the time, there was no Google to answer your questions, no Kindle to scroll through thousands of books with and certainly no smart health movement towards easier, simpler and more wholesome eating.

That’s when I first started to get curious and pay more attention to the connection between the way I felt and what I eat. They are linked closely, and if you want to feel good about yourself as well as feed your body with the nutrition that it deserves, you have to start paying serious attention to everything you put in your mouth.

But how do you do that in a simple and effective way that you can sustain over time? How do you create a healthy lifestyle without becoming a dietician or an expert on every food and chemical and micronutrient out there?

Well, I don’t claim to be a dietician but I’ve found an answer that has worked for me and millions of others and I am going to stick to it.

The answer I swear by is a return to wholeness, a return to simpler foods, preferably in their raw and freshest state. The solution that has worked is to consume more leafy green vegetables, more fruits, more raw nuts, more raw vegetables. A whole lot more of it.

What’s wrong with salads again?

Oh listen, I love LOVE my salads – I can whip up a mean one for you if we are ever having dinner together – there are still a few challenges with just eating the fruits, vegetables or salads.

The short-coming is two-fold:

First short-coming is versatility. You can make a lot of different salads, I agree, but in their single form, tomatoes still taste like tomatoes and cucumbers are cucumbers. They combine in your stomach after you eat them but the taste is still the same while you are chewing them.

Second short-coming is absorption rate. Your body does not absorb all the nutrition from fruits and vegetables that you have chewed in raw form or eaten in cooked form, (where the nutrition is partially lost during the cooking process anyway). Your body has to work really hard to break down the food to the form that it needs to extract the maximum nutrition from it.

And the ultimately simple ingenious answer that overcomes both short-comings is healthy smoothies.

Heal your body, get lean and strong, and end meal boredom with healthy smoothies.

When your body cries for help, you listen. Right? Sometimes it’s an obvious cry like when you slam your foot into the table. Ouch! Other times, it’s a silent cry like the one you feel after you regret your recent overindulgence at your aunt’s.

You can ignore the silent cry. Or listen.

Between us, I’m pretty happy that I’ve listened.

Because no amount of “I’m busy!”, no level of a serious profession, no number of responsibility is a good enough excuse for neglecting your health.

For without your health, you have nothing.

Healthy smoothies are the easiest and fastest way to heal your body, simplify your diet and revolutionize your health. Hands down!

My second book is out and you should go grab a copy. Because …

Last year, I was stoked to see my first traditionally published book, The Healthy Juicer’s Bible, hit bookstores, Costco’s and Sam’s and even Nordstrom among other places, and to date, the book has reached 30,000 readers worldwide and growing. From the glowing reviews on Amazon, juicing has helped them develop healthier happier lives.

I couldn’t be happier.

Soon after The Healthy Juicer’s Bible, my publishers approached me for a new book on another area that I have built experience and expertise over the years: healthy smoothies. The Healthy Smoothie Bible book was an even bigger labor of love, with 108 of my unique recipes, testing dozens of brands of super foods, including a list of experts from the online and offline smoothie communities as well as a detailed detox regimen to help you get back on track fast with smoothies.

The Healthy Smoothie Bible went live today, April 22nd and I think you should go grab a copy. Or two with one to give away to a friend.

Why? Because you deserve the gift of health and I’m confident that with the work we have put in this book, you are not going to be disappointed.

Let healthy smoothies be another dimension in building your confidence, restoring your happiness and living life to your fullest. You will never look back!