Recovery: Secret Weapon Smoothie

Some people run to lose weight; I used to be in that category, but as my training volume has increased, I am in a position now where I have to put some effort into eating enough to maintain myself.  Christina and I spend a good bit of time (perhaps too much) thinking about healthy eating, and I would say that in general, I am proud of our refrigerator and pantry, particularly in its ability to pack a tasty, nutritional punch.  So, for any other runners out there in my position, that are looking for a good way to pack in the good stuff after depleting yourself with a long run, I wanted to share my favorite recovery treat - the secret weapon smoothie:

looks scrumptious, right?

Ingredients

• 5-6 ice cubes
• 1 cup strawberries
• 1 cup other berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc.)
• 1 banana (raw or frozen)
• 1/2 cup Silk Almond Milk (original, not vanilla or sweetened)
• 1 tbsp chia seeds (any color will do)
• 1 tbsp flax seed (ground!)
• 1-2 tbsp natural peanut butter
• 1/3 cup rolled oats

How to Make it...

Well, its a smoothie, so basically you toss everything in the blender and combine it all.  A few recommendations based on my repeated tweaking -

• I find the texture comes out better if I crush the ice cubes first before adding other ingredients
• Frozen bananas will also thicken the texture - you may need to add a bit of water if your blender is having some difficulty
• Make sure you have GROUND flax seeds - apparently we can't really digest the whole ones, which doesn't mean you'll get ill, but you will miss out on the nutritional goodness
• To get the blender moving along, if your model isn't top of the line (as is the case in our apartment), I find it helps to gently press on the top of the mixture inside the blender with the bottom of a spoon, the get some of the chunky material sucked into the vortex of the blender

Why I love this Smoothie...

Simple, it's delicious, it has a fairly good calorie balance, and it packs a ton of vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants (and a particularly good spread of B-complex vitamins, which will help re-energize you if you have other things to get done in your day after the run).  Some notes and comments - you may notice in the nutrition facts below that the fat content is fairly high, so this isn't ideal for someone looking for a low-fat diet.  It comes with the peanut butter and the ground seeds.  If, on the other hand, you're looking to encourage fat burning in long-distance endurance sport, a respectable chunk of healthy fat in your diet is important.

Another note - this bad boy has a whopping 600-700 calories, so if you're not running at least 6-7 miles, you're likely reversing any weight loss progress you may be making, so if slimming down is your goal, keep that in mind!  The proportions above will make two large glasses of smoothie, probably round about 20 oz.  The nutrition facts below were computed assuming the use of blueberries (seasonal fruit, baby!)