Author: Jody Piper

One woman's journey to lose weight and find herself.

Next Stop: Onederland

~ Jody Piper ~ 2 Comments

Last week was great, last week wasn’t so great. I went into my weekly weigh-in less than optimistic. I had done my strength training workouts and kept to my meal plans, but I missed my lunchtime walks a few times as well as my Thursday night cardio session. What’s more, I was feeling a little down all week which zapped my enthusiasm for workouts. I didn’t have very high expectations as I hopped on the scale but, much to my surprise and delight, I discovered I’d met my goal and lost another 2.2 pounds. From there, I started getting excited for the next week because, barring any catastrophic backslides, I could very conceivably hit Onederland next week.

I looked through my weigh-in history and discovered I am now at my lowest weight since June 2015. When I went to treat myself to a much-needed pedicure on Sunday, the nail tech asked if I’d lost weight … people are noticing! My clothes, jeans in particular, are starting to loosen up and it is impossible not to get charged up when I’m experiencing all of these encouraging and validating transformations and think of the milestone well within my reach.

That said, I have been dealing with some depression lately and those emotions can really sabotage my plans.  Dark moods drive me to a lackadaisical attitude towards exercise and, more dangerously, spur desires to soothe those emotions with binge eating. Working through my feelings this week and not giving into unhealthy and unproductive inclinations will be just as vital as workouts and meal plans.

I am feeling good today, feeling inspired and confident and ready to see that beautiful, glorious LCD “1” blinking up at me from beneath my feet.

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WEEK ELEVEN CHECK-IN
Weight: 201.6 (2.2 pounds lost this week, 13.4 pounds lost total)

Shhh… Don’t Frighten it Off!

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I haven’t wanted to post anything this week for fear of jinxing myself. My mojo is fragile, I don’t want to make any sudden moves, any loud noises and scare it off.

I had a good week last week – I met all the goals I’d set for myself. I started my new workout sessions with 10 minutes of rowing warm-up on Wednesday & Friday (sadly, I had to skip Monday’s workout with a strained back). I kept moving between sets to keep the intensity and my heart rate up. I hit the gym for exhausting cardio sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. I stuck to my meal plan and opted for pre-planned healthy meals over the weekend. My efforts paid off with a win on the scale. But I don’t want to jinx it, don’t want to say I have my mojo back, that I’ve defeated my funk. I was dripping sweat last night as we worked out – the signs are good and I am optimistic.

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WEEK TEN CHECK-IN
Weight: 203.8 (3.4 pounds lost this week, 11.2 pounds lost total)

Looking Back to Look Forward

~ Jody Piper ~ 4 Comments

As I was getting my hair done Saturday, enjoying a little girl talk with my stylist, the topic of weight loss came up. We’d been talking about my goals, about my struggles to regain motivation. Over the course of the conversation, she said something that didn’t seem all that significant at the time – it was something I’d heard before, said before and was admittedly a little dismissive about – but her words have lingered, proving they were not insignificant. She simply said, “just look how far you’ve come.”

This morning, her advice still echoing in my mind, I dug deep – all the way down to Photobucket (anyone remember that?) and dug up an old photo of myself at my highest weight. How could I have been so flippant about my progress? Looking at that photo, remembering all the negative, hurtful feelings I lived with back then (not to mention the negative, hurtful things people said to and about me) and I realized I have been taking for granted how far I’ve come, how hard I’ve worked and how much I have achieved. I have been so focused on being pissed off at myself for regaining some weight that I have been cavalier about the 87 and pounds, 12.2 BMI points, and 5 dress sizes I have lost. I’ve lost 30% of my body weight and I am being hard on myself… really? I have transformed so dramatically and I am questioning whether or not I can go on? Seriously?

What a blessing those words were to me on Saturday. Whether she knows it or not, my stylist gave me a tremendous gift in making me remember, making me acknowledge where I’ve been and where I am now. “Just look at how far you’ve come.”

Before and After
2007 and 2016: 87 pounds, 12.2 BMI points, 5 dress sizes down.

Sweat Equity

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“I’m not breaking a sweat,” he said Sunday as we sat on the couch, talking about what adjustments we wanted to make to our workout plans moving forward. We had finished the TRX 8-Week Program and, while there were things we loved about it, there were things we felt could be improved upon. David was absolutely right in that intensity was an issue that would need to be looked at as neither of us were experiencing much muscle failure and getting that “you just got hit by a truck” feeling when finishing up a workout. After an hour in the workout room, you kind of need to feel a bit like you’ve had your ass kicked – otherwise, you question whether you’re doing it right.

So, with things like duration, intensity and muscle failure in mind and his words ringing in my ears… “I’m not breaking a sweat”… I sat down yesterday to come up with a new, improved 8-week program for us. We need to put in the effort, no matter how hard, in order to get results and I am starting the week motivated and excited for a fresh, new program. In coming up with a new workout plan, a few things were key.

1. I need more cardio and more intense cardio. My workouts in the past, the ones most effective in achieving weight loss, involved three days of conditioning with some cardio and two days of just full-tilt, intensive cardio sessions. I decided I needed to find a way to go back to that.

2. We can’t schedule workouts for weekends. We just won’t workout with any regularity on weekends. Our weekends are our time to enjoy time off from work, relax, run errands, etc. and workouts consistently got shelved. They say the best workout is the one you do and you have to be realistic about what you will and will not do. Rather than miss workouts, it is far better simply to schedule rest days for those days.

3. Workouts need to be varied, both to stave off boredom and to keep muscles confused. They have to be challenging but not impossible so I have to take into consideration each of our physical limitations.

With these things in mind, I put on my “personal trainer” hat and went to work. I scoured the internet, looking at workout plans on reputable websites and got ideas. I nailed down what muscle groups will be target each day, then got out my deck of TRX exercise cards and started matching muscle groups to workout days. For each day/muscle group I came up with a Workout A and Workout B, which can be alternated each week for variety and muscle confusion. I organized each workout day to keep the intensity up, keep us moving. After a few hours of research and organization, I was pretty proud of what I’d come up with, I gave it a name I’d hoped would prove true: “Workouts to Kick Our Asses.” But would it stand up to the “Sweat Test?”

New-Workout-Sheet-1

New-Workout-Sheet-2
Eight Week Workout Program to Kick Our Asses

David had to test Monday’s Workout A with me in a motivational/supervisory capacity as I’m nursing a strained back. It was a fun experience for me to continue playing “trainer” for the night but it was also helpful as it gave me a chance to observe the workout in action from an objective standpoint. David powered his way through Pistol Squats, Crossover Lunges and Hamstring Curls. It wasn’t long before I saw it… the first drop of sweat beaded on his forehead. As he lied down on the exercise matt for Marching Bridge, smearing sweat across the floor, his hairline damp and his legs slick with sweat, he had the look of a kicked dog in his eye and I knew I’d done good. Workout A was a success and, given that I’d planned each workout with the same considerations in mind, I am confident that these workouts will, indeed, kick our asses – kick them into shape!

Month Two

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I wish I had more progress to report, a more dramatic photo to share, but I haven’t done the work necessary for that. I am only down 6/10ths of a pound since last month I am continuing to struggle with righting this ship after losing focus and motivation. I didn’t meet either of the goals I’d set for myself during my Month One check-in. This is the point when, historically, I give up on a goal – when my mental toughness fails, my lack of grit is all-too-evident. But I am not quitting. Instead, I have been looking at where I have gone wrong and making notes about what I need to adjust. I have been thinking back to times when I have had more success and pinpointing the differences between then and now. Moving forward, here are some adjustments I have to make.

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Month One Photo: June 9, 2016; 207.8 lbs.
07-09-16
Month Two Photo: July 9, 2016; 207.2 lbs

Increase Frequency and Intensity of Cardio Workouts: I used to do sweat-dripping cardio workouts five days a week; 30-45 minutes on weight lifting days and 45-60 minutes on cardio-only days. I am committing to starting three mornings per week with 15-30 minutes of rowing as well as two days of 30-35 minutes of cardio at the gym. Eventually, I will work my way back to the duration of past workouts.

Design and Implement New Workouts: With my eight-week TRX workout plan complete, I am designing workout plans. I need to ensure the workouts are rigorous and intense enough to cause muscle failure rather than simply breezing though the five quick reps of certain exercises in the TRX plan. Workouts need to be varied to prevent boredom and create muscle confusion. Additionally, I have to find a way to keep active in the downtime between my sets while David does his.

Addressing Afternoon Hunger/Binge Eating: I am being hounded by hunger in the afternoons, bringing on the manic quests for food of my food addiction. The drive for food is overriding my discipline and I am eating spoonfulls of peanut butter and stopping on my way home for Cliff Bars. Moving forward, I am going to put notes in highly visible places at work to remind myself to sit with the hunger, take a brief walk to take my mind off food.

Meal Planning for Weekends: I have never been good about meal planning on weekends. When I was a single gal in New Orleans, I tended to eat less on weekends – there was little more than staples in the house by Friday night so meals were small and simple. Now; however, weekends are a free-for-all of dining out. While our Saturday Night Date Nights are important for us, the rest of my weekend eating needs to be reigned in.

Funkadelic

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Sitting at the dining table this morning, talking over a couple of lemon smoothies, David said “you’re in a funk.” “You’re right, I am in a funk!” I replied. We had been talking about my waning motivation and how I’ve been fighting to regain my momentum ever since the fateful weight-gain week on June 13. The Hawaii trip caused a brief spike in my drive but even that excitement was dampened by only having lost 8/10ths of a pound that week. After that point I decided to stop weighing in on Mondays, instead focusing on healthy eating and workouts without the numbers being a distraction. That was both a blessing and a curse in that just as a disappointing weigh-in couldn’t discourage me, a good one couldn’t inspire me.

I feel I am at a sort of crossroads now – our eight-week TRX workout plan wraps up this week and my two-month weigh-in (which I have resolved to do) and progress photo are looming this coming Saturday. After this week, we have decisions and plans to make about our workouts moving forward and I feel, in many ways, that this gives me a sort of deadline to address the issues I know are holding me back from making the progress I want to make.

I don’t mean to discount all I’ve been doing – but, in my mind, I have been discounting it. I have been veering wildly off plan over weekends by both skipping workouts and eating unplanned and untracked meals, including dining out and indulging in desserts. Even during the weeks (it is time to come clean about this and be accountable) I have been climbing-the-walls-hungry by late afternoon and, subsequently, sneaking extra snacks. Three times last week I had to stop at the store for something I either ran out of at home or didn’t/couldn’t get during my weekly grocery shopping trip and each time I left Safeway with a Cliff Bar in hand. It doesn’t seem like much, but an extra 250+ calories a day can absolutely make a difference. It makes a difference in terms of meeting my weight loss goals and it makes a difference in terms of my psyche, my ability to tell myself I am doing my best. That said, aside from unplanned snacks I have been making and adhering to meal plans Monday through Friday for nearly two months and that is an accomplishment. And, even without motivation, we have been working out in the evenings until the weekends roll around again and it becomes all-too-easy to brush them off, promising to make up for the missed sessions later (which we do… I should point out, we do make up for those skipped sessions.)

But I am in a funk and, as hard as it can be to make the right decisions and the healthy decisions each day, it is doubly hard when your heart isn’t in it – when the “why bother?” thoughts ring in my head and, in my minds eye, I see those numbers on the scale that knocked the wind out of my sails three weeks ago. I don’t have any pearls of wisdom, any answers or theories, any inspirational epiphanies. I’m just in a funk and have to share that, get it out of my head and into the world.

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WEEK EIGHT CHECK-IN
Still not weighing in. Will weigh in on Saturday, July 9 for my two-month progress report.

Work to Live, Eat to Live

~ Jody Piper ~ 1 Comment

It is often said that there are two kinds of people: those who live to work and those who work to live with the latter being the ideal we all strive to achieve. Your work is what you do to support the life you want to live, it funds the things you want and goals you hope to achieve. I have come to the realization that the same is true of eating: there are those who live to eat and those who eat to live.

You should like your job and you should enjoy the work you do – after all, you are most likely doing it eight hours a day, five days a week or about 35% of your waking hours in a year. Loving your job makes the days go by faster, gives you a sense of satisfaction and achievement. For those who live to work, work is everything. They work late nights and early mornings, they take calls and answer emails on the weekends. Personal time? Not really – maybe the random family obligation here or there, perhaps a few casual relationships but the job takes precedence and there aren’t many (if any) personal responsibilities that won’t be sacrificed in order to fulfill a work responsibility.

On the flip side, for those who work to live, what matters most is that your job provides for you, enables you to enjoy the other 65% of your waking hours. Maybe once in a while you get swamped and work late, but overall, when work begins to interfere with your home life, you make changes. When long hours keep you away from home for extended periods of time or miserable working conditions leave you irritable in the evenings or weekends, you address the issue – cut back on hours, talk to your boss, confront whatever is making you unhappy or simply find a new job. Work to live means making the life you hope to lead, your home, your family and loved ones and your dreams your priority. It means letting your job provide for that. This is the way I strive to balance my work and life. I love my job, enjoy my coworkers and I feel fulfilled and proud of the work I do but at 5pm, I leave it all behind. Whether you work to live or live to work, the one thing you don’t get is both. You chose what is most important – the work or the life – then you run with it.

As both a vegetarian/vegan and as a healthy eater, I have heard on a number of occasions, “oh, I could never eat what you eat – I would rather enjoy life.” This is an implication that that food, whether a filet mignon or Double Stuff Oreos, is the thing that drives someone, even if it drives that person into an early grave. The notion that any food is worth shaving a year or two from your life expectancy seems absurd to me now but it shows me that, much like with work, there are those who live to eat and those to eat to live. There was a time when I was a live-to-eater; when my days weren’t more than a collection of hours spent acquiring and consuming food. When I wasn’t eating, I was thinking about what I would eat next and when I wasn’t thinking, I was leap-frogging all over town from one fast food drive-thru window to another. It is inconsequential whether the food I desired me was a sophisticated pyrotechnical display of culinary mastery or bags of Donettes and orange Circus Peanuts; both were forays into overeating, overconsumption of calories and lack of balanced nutrition. I didn’t think I was choosing to eat over all the activities and experiences I desired but that is exactly what I was doing. Like I said, you can’t have both. I wanted my bacon cheeseburger and my banana milkshake but I also wanted to feel good about my body, to be fit and healthy, to be active. The way I chose to eat obliterated any chance of achieving my the dreams I dreamt about what I saw as an ideal life.

At some point in my life, that switch was flipped. I began to look at food the way I look at work. I enjoy the food I eat – I should, after all I eat it all day with my daily meal plan of three meals and two snacks. My food gives me a sense of satisfaction, it is delicious and filling. I actually enjoy my food now in a way I never did before because it isn’t simply a sensation of flavor and texture; it is also a feeling of well-being in knowing what I am eating is good for my body and my soul. Ultimately, food is what fuels the life I want to lead. When I think of my life, imagine the most perfect version of it, I am happy and healthy. When I think to my future and my bucket list, things like climbing Machu Picchu and white water rafting down the American River come to mind. I want to parasail and kayak, I want to travel the country in a tiny Airstream trailer with David. I could do none of those things at 290 pounds, I could do none of those things when I was living to eat. The food I was eating was interfering with the life I wanted to lead, it was making it impossible to enjoy the hours between meals. So I made a change. That isn’t to say that I don’t indulge on occasion. Every time we pass through Santa Cruz, we stop at Saturn Cafe and split vegan chocolate-peanut butter milkshake – it is an experience, a shared moment and a memory made and we can have a milkshake once every few months and continue to live the life we want. We have our memories of sharing way too much pizza and diving into a decadent slice of Opera Cake because these are special days, not routine. Every week, when I sit down to plan our meals, I make sure that we are eating healthfully and our bodies are being nourished in a way that make it possible for us to do whatever our hearts please with our lives and bodies, make us feel limitless and strong.

It was a journey that brought me here – from live to eat to eat to live – and it was a transition that took time. It required I changed everything I thought and knew about food, it required I change how much I value my self and my body. It required a willingness to not follow the crowd, not do the popular thing. It required I devoted myself to learning everything I can about diet and nutrition. It required I re-learn how to cook. It required my palette to change and my body to stop craving processed foods and refined sugars and start craving natural fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. It was a journey but I am here and I have to tell you – this is SO MUCH BETTER! You may think, “oh, I could never do that, I would rather enjoy life” and you should enjoy life – but food is not life. Life is so much more, life is so much better. I have never eaten anything (and, believe me, I have eaten a lot) that tasted as good as I felt the moment I ran across the finish line of the Crescent City Classic for the first time. I have never eaten anything that tasted as good as I felt the day I realized that plus sized clothing was too large for me and I could start shopping the regular departments at my favorite stores. I have never eaten anything that tasted as good as I felt during my last physical at the doctor’s when I was told I was the picture of good health. I don’t mean for this to sound preachy, I don’t mean for it to sound judgmental. Truly, it is with nothing but love in my heart and wishes that everyone could be the best possible versions of themselves that I tell people how much better it gets, how worth it this all is. Eat to live – eat to live the greatest life you have ever imagined in your wildest dreams.

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WEEK SEVEN CHECK-IN
Taking some time off from weighing in. Just eating right, working out and not stressing on the numbers.

Recalculating Route

~ Jody Piper ~ Leave a comment

We don’t get lost too often these days. Most of us are endowed with some sort of handy GPS gizmo, either on our smart phones or in our cars, which help us to seamlessly navigate even the most remote parts of our worlds. Take a wrong turn or miss an off-ramp? No problem. A helpful voice, well-meaning but often with dubious pronunciation skills, will chime in and reassure you: “Recalculating Route.” Before you know it, you are back on track. If we ever thought there was only one way to get between Point A and Point B, our GPS navigation has dispelled this myth. In fact, there can be dozens of ways to get where we want and, quite often, you can chose between the fastest, the shortest or the way with the least tolls. It had never occurred to me to apply this knowledge gleaned from everyday technology to other facets of my life until I read “The Struggle Is Real: Finally Break the Dieting Cycle, Transform Your Mind & Body, and Evolve Into The Person You Have Always Wanted To Be” by Karol Brandt and Robby D’Angelo, in which the authors use this exact metaphor for navigating the missed turns and roadblocks that arise in our lives.

Life loves to monkey with our plans – this much I know to be true. We set a goal, we create a roadmap for how to achieve it then life steps in like three year old with a jumbo box of Crayolas and makes an indecipherable mess of our carefully laid-out map. So often in my life, when obstacles arose, I would throw my hands up and say to myself, “well, this is impossible.” I became so focused on the route that I lost sight of what really mattered: the destination. When going to the gym became difficult or inconvenient, when the way I shopped and cooked changed, whenever any aspect of my pathway to achieving my fitness goals was altered by circumstance, I suddenly believed my goals were unreachable. These setbacks always seemed like legitimate “reasons” for why I couldn’t work toward my goals. But when you think of those words… recalculating route… you realize your “reasons” are just more excuses. They are ALL excuses. We have all seen the stories of runners with prothetic legs completing marathons, athletes confined to wheelchairs dominating at court sports, etc. and if they teach us nothing else, they teach us that all your reasons are excuses. You simply need to recalculate your route. The route is inconsequential; finding your way and getting to the destination is everything!

I have been struggling lately to meet my weekly weight loss goals. When I stepped back and objectively looked at what was going on, what were the possible culprits in hindering my progress, I realized that one of the major things missing was consistent, vigorous cardio workouts. Because getting to the gym for workouts in Bay Area traffic was eating up all my time and becoming a hassle, I solved the problem by creating a home gym (recalculating route), installing the TRX and stocking up on equipment like a kettle bell, medicine ball, core ball and dumbbells. Initially, I planned on running for my cardiovascular workouts but my fitness level is not where it was when I was running daily making it brutal on my joints (for now). I have been walking on my lunch break and sneaking into the gym on the occasional Saturday morning for treadmill time but, obviously, that hasn’t been enough. So earlier this week, I thought to myself, “there is another way to get from Point A to Point B… recalculate the route.” Then, yesterday, it hit me like a bolt of lightening. Most cardio equipment (treadmills, elliptical trainers, stair trainers, etc.) are huge, heavy and expensive pieces of equipment and; therefor, out of the question for our small home gym space… but a rower? A rower can be compact and lightweight. A rower can torch calories while working your arms, legs and core in an easy, fluid, non-impact motion. I took to Craigslist and a few hours later, we were picking up my new hardly used basic rower for the home gym. I knew from experience and from the testimonials of others in “The Struggle is Real” that there absolutely would be a way for me to get where I needed to go.

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My gently used rower: the newest addition to my home gym.

So what are your reasons (excuses) for not moving towards your dreams and goals? What are the obstacles that seem to be standing in your way and, more importantly, how can you maneuver around them? Think about where you are, think about where you want to be, visualize the two points in your mind as a map with highways and city streets and ask yourself “how do I get there?” Recalculate route.

Island Dreaming

~ Jody Piper ~ Leave a comment

Two weekends ago, David and I decided to head to the beach. Being born and raised in here, I have lived comfortably with the self-christened moniker “Northern California Beach Bum.” Of course, Northern California beaches aren’t like other beaches. The water is cold, the mornings (and often large parts of the day) are overcast, the tide pools are teeming with creatures you can ogle and caress. Surfers are well-outfitted with wetsuits and bikinis are few and far between unless it is a particularly scorching day on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. But I love it – these are my beaches, the beaches I merrily trudged as a child, collecting an array of shells, pebbles and the occasional dismembered crab claw which, inevitably, stunk up the car on the drive home. As we cruised up Highway 1 along the coast on a gray Sunday morning, in my excitement to get my toes into some sand and surf for the first time in ten years, I was struck with an idea. “When I reach my goal weight, let’s go celebrate in Hawaii.”

I am prone to some pretty impulsive and hair-brained ideas so, as the words came out of my mouth, I half expected David to reply with an extremely rational reason why we should not go to Hawaii. The other half of my expectation would be that he simply wasn’t interested. You can imagine my delight when, in his constant and effortless way of being the perfect man for me, David said, “sure.” Hmmm… that was too easy. I continued to mention it at odd times through that day and into the next,  and David continued to be fully on-board. The idea took root.

I have never been to Hawaii. I haven’t seriously thought of going to Hawaii. When I was a teenager, mildly obsessed with the surf culture I saw in movies and Elle McPherson on the cover of S.I., spending Spring Break on the deck under a thin layer of heavily-scented coconut oil, trying to tan I probably imagined going to Hawaii. As an overweight and obese adult, Hawaii or any other tropical paradise seemed the antithesis of paradise: a place for tan lines, swimsuits and board sports. With my pale skin (I have two skin colors: “Edward Cullen” and “Boiled Lobster”) and the physical limitations of my oversized body, I was a poor fit for an island vacation. I would have been miserably self-conscious, watching people enjoy their tropical vacations as if their experiences were my own. In a way, Hawaii is like running in that it is a symbol for my real and perceived limitations. The beaches of Hawaii were a dream so distant that I had lost all sight of them, believed it so impossible that I never entertained the idea.

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My Hawaiian Vision Board

I have been thinking of Hawaii every day since that Sunday, imagining my feet in sugar-white sand with the foaming swash of a turquoise ocean curling around my ankles; imagining the island sun warming my skin. But it is so much more than that. As I have spent my days dreamily listening to Jack Johnson and Mishka, mentally on the beach already, I realized how much more profound this trip would be. I began imagining all the things I couldn’t have done at 290 pounds: imagining snorkeling and swimming with sea turtles, hiking up jungle paths, paddle-boarding through inlets and biking along beach-front roads. I am imagining cute beach outfits and wearing my first two-piece. I am imagining lying side-by-side with David melting into our couples massages. I realized what an amazing and appropriate way to rejoice in my hard-earned health, athleticism and fitness. My friend Karol recommended I find a challenge to motivate me, to push me – something I can visualize – and I think I have found it in Hawaii.

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WEEK SIX CHECK-IN
Weight: 207.6 (.8 pounds lost this week, 7.4 pounds lost total)

The Harry Nilsson Smoothie: Put the Lime in the Coconut

~ Jody Piper ~ Leave a comment

This protein smoothie – my newest culinary invention – was genuinely inspired by Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” and I believe it tastes best when prepared while singing. The recipe started out as a Key Lime smoothie taken from Oxygen Magazine but I put my own spin it, making it vegan and amping up the coconut. Truthfully, my mind has been in the tropics lately – Summer is here, the weather is warm, the beach is calling and a refreshing, island-style smoothie seems like the perfect way to start the day. It is a frozen banana-based smoothie but you can easily substitute avocado for the banana for a less-sweet, lower-carb version.

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The Harry Nilsson Smoothie
100 grams banana, frozen
1 scoop protein powder (I used Sun Warrior Warrior Blend Raw Vegan Protein in Vanilla)
8-oz non-dairy milk (Organic Protein Almond Milk Unsweetened Vanilla)
1/4 cup lime juice (I use key lime)
1 Tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp virgin coconut oil
1 tsp black chia seeds
1 tsp ground flaxseed
1 tsp raw shelled hemp hearts
1/2 tsp lime zest


Harry Nilsson Coconut-Lime Smoothie

Combine all ingredients in a blender or NutriBullet and blend until smooth and don’t forget to sing… You put the lime in the coconut, you drink ’em bot’ together.

Nutritional Information*
Serving Size: One Smoothie
Calories: 351; Total Fat: 14g; Saturated Fat: 8g; Cholesterol: 0g; Sodium: 404mg; Total Carbohydrate: 27g; Fiber: 6g; Sugar: 12g; Protein: 32g

*Nutritional information based on recipe as written with designated ingredients, calculated using MyFitnessPal recipe calculator.